HELENA _ From opponents of health-care reform to presidential fans, hordes of citizen activists are descending on Belgrade Friday for President Barack Obama's visit, to show their stripes for or against the president's agenda.

"The president is a big draw," said Linda Kenoyer of Montanans for Single Payer, which is organizing demonstrators who support a Medicare-for-all system of health coverage. "We intend to go there and make as big a showing as possible of our position … and honor free speech, the democratic process and non-violent debate."

Joining Kenoyer and her group near Gallatin Field Airport at Belgrade will be hundreds, perhaps thousands, of demonstrators, of every political ilk, as Obama comes to town for a town-hall meeting on health-care reform.

Obama and his family are scheduled to touch down at Gallatin Field at about 12:30 p.m. Friday, and the president will lead the town-hall meeting at an airport hanger a half-hour later.

Those who want to attend the meeting with the president can get tickets at the Bozeman and Belgrade city halls, beginning at 9 a.m. Thursday.

But many more folks are planning to be outside the event, near the southeast corner of the airport, which has been designated as a public demonstration site.

"I think the action is going to be on the outside," said Anna Gustina, state director of Organizing for America, the volunteer corps put together by Obama's presidential campaign in 2008. "We want to show our support on the outside, for making the changes that we worked for (in the campaign), on health-care reform."

Organizing for America plans to bus supporters into the area from as far away as Kalispell, Gustina said, and a sign-making party is scheduled Thursday night at Gallatin County Democratic Party headquarters in Bozeman.

Of course, not everyone there will be supporters of the president.

Patients First, the project of a private, conservative group called Americans for Prosperity, had already planned a Montana bus tour this week to rally people against Obama's health-care proposals.

The group adjusted its schedule to have a stop in Belgrade to coincide with the president's visit, and lead organizer Jake Eaton said he expects 500 to 1,000 people sympathetic with the group's cause to show up.

Eaton, a former executive director of the Montana Republican Party, said his group will have speakers at the event and a petition for people to sign to oppose reforms "that impose greater government control over health care."

Eaton said he's been in touch with people from Bozeman, Billings and Helena who've organized against the president's agenda, such as those who helped coordinate the "Tea Party" protests earlier this year.

"There will be no shortage of opposition," he said. "I think it's great that people get to hear both sides."

Also demonstrating against the president will be single-payer advocates, who support reforming the health-care system but opposes Obama's plan as "basically a gift to the insurance companies that have gotten us into this mess we're in now," said Kenoyer of Montanans for Single Payer.

The group says government-funded insurance that covers everyone is the fairest, most simple solution, and oppose plans before Congress to require everyone to buy private insurance, starting in 2013, with help from government subsidies.

A labor union that's been pushing hard for health-care reforms, the Service Employees International Union, also plans to bus supporters to Friday's event. SEIU's national president, Andy Stern, will be in Billings on Thursday for a rally in support of reform.

"We have so many of our volunteers who wanted to go, that we chartered a bus," said Robert Struckman, spokesman for SEIU in Montana.

While participants are preaching civility and saying the demonstrations will be peaceful, there's clearly no love lost between some of the activists on either side.

Struckman said Patients First has been "spreading misinformation" about health reforms before Congress, saying incorrectly that reforms will ensure that the government makes decisions about people's care.

"That is bogus; that is not true," Struckman said. "They have cynical ploys to kill health-care reform by any means necessary. They've said that. Their tactics are absolutely despicable."

Eaton said his group is merely "providing an opportunity for folks to get involved," and also took a swipe at SEIU.

"In other places, they've had problems with the SEIU folks, as far as getting physical and assaulting people," he said. "I certainly don't think that this is the way to do things in Montana, and I hope we can avoid anything like that."

SEIU officials in Missouri have said their members were the targets of violence outside a public meeting in St. Louis last week, rather than the other way around.