Samantha Vaira

Samantha Jenine (Van Horn) Vaira, 34, died April 6, 2025.

She was born Feb. 14, 1991, to Buck and Della (Heide) Van Horn in Glendive. She was joined by her sister Tina in October of 1993. The sisters quickly became best friends and were raised together on the family ranch outside of Circle.

Her love of teaching began at a young age when she would hold “class” for Tina and their stuffed animals. They played many hours of volleyball, which later paid off when they won the 2007 Montana Class C State Volleyball Championship. Samantha and Tina owned a small herd of sheep where they raised their 4-H lambs. She loved the lambs and spent many hours taking care of them. She graduated from Circle High School in 2009.

She had various jobs beginning in high school, including the Circle Theater, lifeguarding, waitressing at K’s Family Dining, helping on the ranch with the cattle and haying and at the Farm Service Agency. Working at the Circle after-school program and later, at the ASMSU daycare in college, really solidified that her true calling was in education.

She graduated with honors from Montana State University in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and a minor in reading. After student teaching in Sidney, she took her first teaching job in Richey, where she taught one year of a kindergarten/ first grade combination class and six years of a first and second grade combination class. Even while teaching, she was still a student; in 2019, she earned her master’s degree from Rocky Mountain College in educational leadership. While they were both attending MSU Bozeman, she and Michael Vaira began dating. They were wed on July 24, 2021. For the first year of their marriage, they lived in Williston, N.D., where he worked and she commuted to Alexander, N.D., where she taught first grade. In 2022, they purchased their home