Wednesday, Sep. 22nd, 2021

HRDC’s Gallatin Valley Food Bank and The Mighty Spork Food Truck Expand Services

Gallatin Valley Food Bank and the Mighty Spork Food Truck have teamed up again to provide services across Gallatin Valley.

With the growing disparity between incomes and housing costs, more households are struggling to keep food on the table. HRDC’s food and nutrition programs are a critical link between food and the people who need it.

Jill Holder, HRDC Food and Nutrition Department Director, who oversees programming for three area foodbanks, said outreach cutbacks were necessary due to staffing limitations during Covid. For the past 18 months, limited outreach was available in Belgrade and evening shopping hours did not exist in Bozeman.

While various other measures were taken, they are happy to get back into Belgrade on a regular basis.

“We strive to ensure our outreach is meeting current needs,” Holder said. “Unfortunately, we had to eliminate our evening shopping hours at the Bozeman food bank location due to Covid. Now, with a number of extra health precautions in place and more available staff on hand, we are pleased to announce we have been able to resume Gallatin Valley Food Bank evening shopping hours each week on Tuesdays from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm.

Expanding our hours of operation later in the day really helps our customers who are unable to visit any other time.”

In addition, Belgrade residents are not always able to make a trip to Bozeman to visit the food bank, so Holder has added two grocery pick-up locations on the first and third Mondays of each month at the Peace Lutheran Church located at 203 Jackrabbit Lane. Available grocery items include fruits, vegetables, bread, and dairy, along with pre-packed grocery boxes that include a variety of non-perishables, dairy, and meat.

Pairing up on the food distribution initiative in Belgrade is HRDC’s Mighty Spork Food Truck, an outreach initiative of the Fork & Spoon restaurant, Montana’s first and only pay-what-you-can restaurant. The Mighty Spork offers hot, homegrown, scratch-cooked meals at a price everyone can afford.

“Throughout the summer months our new food truck had a presence in Belgrade during evening hours at a couple of different locations and we received a warm reception from the community,” said Rick Hilles, Program Manager for the Fork & Spoon restaurant. “The opportunity to layer in our services with the Gallatin Valley Food Bank’s pick-up program twice a month is a no-brainer. Folks will be able to get a hot meal to go when they stop by to pick up their groceries. We will serve an assortment of hot sandwiches and grain bowls, including kid-friendly options, and as always, we welcome the chance to make life a little easier for our customers.”

HRDC firmly believes nutritious food options should be accessible to all community members. For more details about these programs and the other support services available throughout Southwest Montana, visit theHRDC.org, GallatinValleyFoodBank.org, and ForkandSpoonBozeman.org.

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MSU manufacturing extension helps Great Falls brewery scale up efficiently

As the Jeremiah Johnson Brewing Company grew from a small Great Falls establishment to one selling craft beer in 10 states, the company faced a challenge common among Montana manufacturers: how to scale up its operations without getting bogged down by debt and old habits.

That’s why the brewery’s namesake owner, who shares a moniker with the legendary mountain man, turned to the Montana Manufacturing Extension Center at Montana State University to help navigate decisions that can make or break a small business.

“We were really at a point where we needed to learn to be efficient,” said Johnson, who earned his bachelor’s in business marketing from MSU in 2004 and acquired the brewery in 2018. “Working with MMEC gave me a chance to sit down and look at the big picture.”

Meeting with Doug Roberts, MMEC’s business adviser for the Great Falls area and northeast Montana, Johnson learned of several opportunities to reduce waste while increasing output, meaning greater profits as the brewery expanded to meet growing demand for its beer, which Johnson said is made with locally sourced barley malt, honey and other ingredients.

Roberts did a thorough audit of the brewery, drawing from his extensive manufacturing experience and the principles of lean manufacturing to recommend improvements. He also connected Johnson with the National Center for Appropriate Technology in Butte, which assessed the facility’s energy usage. MMEC tapped a grant through MSU Extension's Pollution Prevention Program funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to cover most of the cost of the consultations.

“This is really the essence of MMEC, helping Montana companies grow and be more successful,” said Roberts, who worked in a variety of manufacturing industries for 30 years before joining MMEC.

For Johnson, the consultation “has led to a tremendous increase in efficiency,” he said. “And in manufacturing, if you’re not efficient you can go out of business really quick.”

One of Roberts’ recommendations led to a change in how the brewery’s filters are changed, resulting in better filtration of the beer and increasing the yield by multiple barrels per batch. Investment in a new packaging line is paying for itself because the increased volume more than pays the interest on the loan he took out to acquire it, Johnson said. With improvements in things like LED lights, the brewery’s energy use has dropped, reducing utility bills even as production volume has climbed more than 50%. And with Roberts’ encouragement, Johnson negotiated better bulk pricing for the specialty malts that flavor beers like Golden Bobcat Pale Ale, which the brewery released in 2018 to help celebrate MSU’s 125th anniversary.

According to Roberts, any Montana enterprise that’s in the business of making something stands to benefit from working with MMEC, which is housed in MSU's Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering. “When they call me, sometimes these businesses are on the verge of failing, or sometimes they’re on the cusp of growing from two employees to 20,” he said. “My approach is to develop a relationship so they know they have a partner. They may not even have a specific problem, but they have someone to talk to and can find out what resources are available.”

According to Johnson, “Doug was really good to work with, really thoughtful.”

As one of six MMEC business advisers covering different areas of the state, Roberts said he enjoys helping a wide range of manufacturers, whether in Great Falls, Scobey, Glasgow or anywhere in between.

“We work with people who have put everything they have into their businesses,” Roberts said. “It’s extremely rewarding to use our experience to help people succeed.”

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BOREALIS program opens skies to MSU students


Thanks to the Montana Space Grant Consortium, Montana State University students can take part in NASA internships without leaving the state, and this summer, senior Sam Riebling became the first technology education student to join the cohort.

Riebling, originally from Colorado, hadn’t intended to pursue the BOREALIS internship, but after taking courses from Montana Space Grant Consortium flight director Mike Walach, she found herself drawn to the program, which is open to all majors. While most interns come from the Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering, Reibling became one of the first from MSU’s College of Agriculture and the very first from the Department of Agricultural and Technology Education.

BOREALIS, which stands for the Balloon Outreach, Research, Exploration and Landscape Imaging System, runs fully student-designed and -led flights of specialized balloons to near-space altitudes, around 100,000 feet above Earth’s surface. It’s as close as researchers can get to space without using a rocket. 

“You have about 99% of Earth’s atmosphere beneath you and you’re in a spacelike environment,” Walach said. “You have the darkness, the cold, the heat, the radiation. Plus we can see the darkness of space and the curvature of the Earth from that altitude.”

Riebling, who hopes to become a technology education teacher after she graduates in spring 2022, was one of 10 students selected for the BOREALIS summer internship.

“It can look intimidating, but everybody comes in as a novice,” Walach said. “It’s an experience that can benefit everyone.”

Riebling’s internship focused on outreach and education and included planning community events and working with program partners to plan launches. But she also spent time watching and learning about the technical aspects of the balloon flights. BOREALIS uses three types of balloons, each of which expand to be around 50 feet in diameter once they reach a high altitude, where air pressure is very low. The first type, like a large party balloon, is made of strong latex and filled with helium. The second type, called zero-pressure balloons, are also filled with helium but have a hole on the bottom. They do not pop at higher altitudes because they are not under pressure, coming to float when they reach neutral buoyancy. The third type, solar balloons, are covered with charcoal powder so that sunlight heats the air inside and allows them to float.

Riebling practiced going through every stage of a launch and flight with all three types of balloons, a process that requires calibrating GPS systems and checking the balloon’s payload to ensure data is being transmitted to receivers on the ground. Everything must happen in exactly the right order, she said, or the entire flight is wasted. After coordinating with local air traffic control, the balloon is ready to launch.

“The whole process started with little responsibilities and I slowly gained more as I learned more,” she said. “Every launch I would shadow our lead, which ended up being a great benefit because on one of our last launches I was responsible for all of those steps.”

There are generally seven balloon launches each summer, said Walach. For the final launch of Riebling’s internship, the student usually overseeing those technical elements couldn’t be present. It gave Riebling a chance to put into practice everything she’d been learning.

The BOREALIS program is focused on the technical aspects of balloon flight and designing the systems that carry it out. Researchers from all over the country can then reach out to utilize those systems for their own projects. The flight that Riebling oversaw carried a payload from researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico measuring and detecting neutrons in Earth’s upper atmosphere. That payload will ultimately reach the moon in a NASA-directed flight.

Later in her internship, Riebling had the opportunity to blend her technical experience with her passion for education and her degree program in the College of Agriculture. She served as one of the instructors for the MSU Explore: Earth, Space and Science Camp in July, a weeklong camp designed to provide an immersive experience in science to underrepresented students from Montana’s rural towns and reservations.

“We led a workshop that was aviation themed and taught the students about the science of flight,” Riebling said. “By the end of the week they were building and testing gliders, making changes based on how well they flew and learning the elements of some flight engineering. It was really neat.” 

While she had been uncertain at first about joining BOREALIS, Riebling said the experience has made her into a better educator and a better student. She hopes to be able to make careers and research in STEM fields as approachable to her future students as the BOREALIS program made them for her.

“I also want to take the things I learned and put them toward tech ed outreach,” she said. “I think we need to focus on getting kids in our program and letting them know that this is an option for their careers.”

NASA funds space grant consortiums in all 50 states as well as Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., designed to allow all students access to space-related internships and programming regardless of location. To learn more about the Montana Space Grant Consortium visit https://spacegrant.montana.edu/.

“This program allows us to look at a wide range of things,” said Walach. “We have two faculty mentors, but we’re really just there to guide and support. The students are the real driving force for these projects. This program really gives them a lot of things they can utilize both in the classroom and in their futures.” 

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Grand Opening of Bozeman’s new French inspired kitchen store and culinary classroom: La Cuisine


La Cuisine Founder Tina Cusker found herself craving fellowship during the COVID restricted months and was inspired by current events to act on designing a store committed to providing social experiences that would bring gathering back to the heart of the home and building a stronger community through our partnerships and endeavors. Enhanced by her European culinary and travel journeys, Tina hopes to inspire La Cuisine patrons to have confidence they can once again open their homes and gather friends and family for an exceptional culinary experience.

La Cuisine offers a curated selection of gourmet cookware, cutlery and gadgets along with locally made products from artisans such as Basiclai, Lulu Pottery and Montana Block Co., and top European brands including Staub, Zwilling, and Denby. La Cuisine features a commercial kitchen for a state-of-the-art culinary learning experience. Tina has partnered with instructors and world-class chefs across the Gallatin Valley to bring forth a kitchen curriculum to serve every level of home cook from the curious beginner to the passionate foodie. Students may choose from a vast array of cuisine, technique focused and entertaining style classes.

Gift giving will be exceptionally easy thanks to gift cards, complimentary gift wrapping and a Bridal registry service.

The kitchen will be available as an intimate event space for less than 25, and commissary kitchen rentals to wholesale food providers, in addition to private cooking classes for unique celebrations and corporate team-building events.
The inaugural cooking class, Let’s Get Sauced! is scheduled for Tuesday, September 28 at 6:00PM featuring Chef Sadie Morales from Sadie’s Catering. It is the sauce that takes your dinner from ordinary to extraordinary. Participants will learn how you can transition three mother recipes into six while they sip on preselected wine pairings. James Beard award-winning Chef Tory McPhail will host the second class on Tuesday October 5th with an autumn harvest, elegant 4-course menu. Tickets for all weekly classes can be purchased online or by calling the store, and wine can be ordered from The Wine Gallery by 3PM on the day prior.

The store will host official Grand Opening festivities and ribbon cutting on Wednesday, September 29 at 4:00PM. This event, free to attend, is co-hosted by the Bozeman Chamber of Commerce and will feature autographed cookbooks, giveaways, complimentary hors d’oeuvres and store discounts.

Soon to be Bozeman’s premier gourmet cookware store and culinary classroom, La Cuisine offers more than 1,000 unique products for the kitchen and operates the most innovative cooking school in southwest Montana, with plans to conduct more than 50 classes yearly taught by local chefs and instructors with shopping also available online at www.lacuisine-bozeman.com.

La Cuisine is located at 2405 W. Main, Ste 6, next door to PhD Skis.

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Friday, Sep. 17th, 2021

Off-season hours announced for Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park  Winter hours run Oct. 1 through April 15 

WHITEHALL – Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park will move to off-season hours of operation starting Friday, Oct. 1.  

From Oct. 1 through April 15, 2022, the main visitor center will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays. The center will be closed Mondays and Tuesdays and observed holidays on these dates: Nov. 11 and 25, Dec. 24-26 and 31, and Jan. 1.  

Park trails remain open for walking or mountain biking. Though the water facilities are shut off for the winter, the campground remains open, offering both electric and non-electric sites as well as reservable cabins.  

Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park is about 15 miles southeast of Whitehall, along Montana Highway 2. For more information about the park, please visit stateparks.mt.gov/lewis-and-clark-caverns or call 406-287-3541. 

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FWP wardens seek information on bull elk poaching near Butte 

BUTTE – Game wardens with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks are seeking information on a bull elk that was shot and killed northwest of Butte last week.  

The six-point bull was killed on private land along North Browns Gulch Road about 5 miles northwest of Butte. The bull elk carcass was abandoned in the field after it was shot.  

Wardens interviewed a witness, who reported hearing gunshots around 9:30 p.m. on Sept. 10. The witness observed a pickup truck at the scene, shining a spotlight on the dead elk, then fleeing the area toward Hail Columbia Road. The pickup was described as being dark in color with “Chevrolet” on the tailgate. The truck bed also had a silver Delta toolbox.  

Anyone with possible information is encouraged to call the FWP violation reporting hot line at 1-800-TIP-MONT. Callers can remain anonymous and could be eligible for a cash reward of up to $1,000.  

Anyone with possible information can also contact Butte Game Warden Regan Dean at 406-490-9377. 

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Whitefish mortality observed in upper Yellowstone River 

Initial test results indicate PKD as likely cause 

LIVINGSTON – Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks fisheries biologists are monitoring an area of the Yellowstone River where several dead mountain whitefish have been observed.  

Anglers first reported seeing a small number of dead fish over Labor Day weekend. On Sept. 8, FWP staff floated between the Grey Owl and Mallard’s Rest fishing access sites and observed 57 dead whitefish. They collected several dead and dying fish to submit them for testing.  

Tests that have been completed so far on some of the collected fish indicate they likely died of proliferative kidney disease, or PKD — a condition caused by a parasite affecting salmonids, such as mountain whitefish and trout. PKD has affected fish in the Yellowstone River in recent years, the most significant outbreak happening in 2016. 

Biologists will continue to monitor conditions on the Yellowstone River. No trout mortality was observed during monitoring efforts to date. At this time, no closures or restrictions are expected for the Yellowstone River or its tributaries.  

Anglers can help reduce stress for fish by following these practices when catching and releasing fish, though fish mortality may still occur:  
• Land the fish quickly.  
• Wet your hands before handling the fish.  
• Keep the fish in water as much as possible.  
• Remove the hook gently. Using artificial lures with single and barbless hooks can make hook removal faster and easier.  
• Let the fish recover before releasing it. 

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Gallatin Valley Mall Invites Families to Fall Festival

Gallatin Valley Mall along with Best of 406 Marketplace invites families and children to the Fall Festival at GVM on Saturday, October 16 from 11AM-4PM.

This free event will include a vendor market showcasing local makers and their unique offerings, plus numerous other activities for kids of all ages throughout the mall. Check out the bounce house, face painting, pumpkin decorating with Giggles, photo booth, free Halloween costume grab bags from Montana Parent Magazine, fresh kettle corn and cotton candy, a special performance from 406 Cirque, and more!

To learn more visit gallatinvalleymall.com/events.

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Thursday, Sep. 16th, 2021

MSU to award honorary doctorate to Taylor Brown at fall commencement

Montana State University will honor Taylor Brown, a widely respected broadcaster, rancher and former state legislator, with an honorary doctorate during commencement ceremonies set for Friday, Dec. 17, in the Brick Breeden Fieldhouse.

Today the state’s Board of Regents approved an honorary doctorate for Brown, a third-generation Montana rancher from Sand Springs and a two-term state senator. Brown has also had a prominent career in television and radio broadcasting spanning more than 40 years.

Brown was born in Sheridan, Wyoming, and grew up on his family's cattle ranch in eastern Montana near Sand Springs. He attended high school in Lewistown and received a bachelor's degree in animal science from MSU, where he also served a year as student body president.

After graduation, Brown returned to his family’s ranch, then started his broadcasting career in Billings as a farm broadcaster with Northern Broadcasting System. He and his wife, Shannon, later purchased the radio network in 1985 from future U.S. Senator Conrad Burns. Today Northern Broadcasting includes the Northern Ag Network, the Northern News Network and flagship radio station KGHL AM-790 and FM 94.7. It provides radio, television and digital content dealing with agriculture, markets, state news and weather to approximately 70 stations in four states. As a result, Brown has been regarded for decades as one of Montana's most recognizable radio voices, particularly in rural areas.

“It would not be exaggerating to say that today virtually every farmer, rancher and agribusiness person in the state of Montana knows of Taylor Brown and his involvement with agriculture and public education,” Pat Hatfield, former head of the Department of Animal and Range Sciences in the MSU College of Agriculture, wrote in materials nominating Brown for the honorary doctorate.

Brown served two terms as a state senator from 2009 to 2016, where he represented Montana Senate District 22. As a legislator, he chaired both the agriculture and education committees and served as majority whip. He was known in the Legislature as a supporter of agriculture, Montana State University, MSU Extension and the Montana Agricultural Experiment Station.

During his time in the Montana Legislature, Brown helped to lower business equipment taxes and worked to significantly reform worker’s compensation costs. He helped restore critical investment in ag research and worked to increase support for career and technical education. Brown was also a champion for the creation of the WIMU Regional Program in veterinary medicine, which helps Montana resident students receive a reasonably priced veterinary education. He was also important to passing funding to expand the WWAMI Medical Education Program for the first time in 40 years, allowing entering classes to grow from 20 Montana resident students per year to 30. Brown led the effort for the Montana University System’s first performance-based funding, and he supported holding tuition costs steady for Montana students and their families during the 2013 and 2015 Legislatures.


Hatfield said that Brown has committed himself to sustaining agriculture in Montana through service and outreach. Brown is an advocate for rural farm and ranch families and is a supporter of 4-H, FFA, the Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity and the REAL Montana leadership program. In 2009, Brown launched an agriculture information website, northernag.net, and he is also a past president of the National Association of Farm Broadcasters.

“Anyone who knows or works with Taylor Brown in any capacity knows how much he gives personally to a great many causes, and how he uses his own company as an example of the way business leaders can make a difference,” Hatfield wrote. “Not only does he donate generously of his personal time but he gives direct financial support to many worthwhile programs. He volunteers the powerful voice of his network, and its many affiliated radio and television stations, to generate unparalleled support for a long list of community service projects.”

Brown played a major part in securing private funding for MSU’s Animal Bioscience Building, which was completed in 2010. As the first chairman of the MSU College of Agriculture Development Board, Brown headed a grassroots effort to raise approximately $9 million of the $15.7 million needed for the building, rallying nearly 200 ranchers and businesses to help fund the facility. The building is now the permanent home of the MSU Department of Animal and Range Sciences.

“Taylor was an invaluable advocate for the Animal Bioscience Building,” MSU Alumni Foundation CEO and President Chris Murray wrote in a letter supporting Brown’s honorary doctorate nomination. “It was his loyalty, diligence and time which helped to ensure this building became a reality.”

Brown and his wife, Shannon, have three children, Travis, Courtney and Colter, who manage the family businesses: LO Cattle Company and Northern Broadcasting System.

More information about MSU's in-person and livestreamed fall commencement ceremonies is available online at montana.edu/commencement/.

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Wednesday, Sep. 15th, 2021

Volunteers needed for cave restoration at Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park  Regular cave cleaning is an important part of cave conservation 

WHITEHALL – Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks staff at Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park are seeking volunteers to help with a post-season cleaning of the caverns.  
Volunteers in this event will get the chance to see the caverns up close as they work to reduce some of the impacts of visitors’ presence in the cave.  

The project will be Saturday, Oct. 2, and will begin with an orientation at 9 a.m. at the main (lower) visitor center. Staff and volunteers will then continue to the cave, toothbrushes in hand.  

During the season, algae, lint and dust have built up from thousands of visitors who have come to experience the cave, so it’s important to periodically clean the formations so they can continue to grow and change. Participants will help restore parts of the cave that have the most human impact. This follows other events happening nationwide as part of National Public Lands Day.  

Volunteers are asked to bring a mask, clean gloves (these can be gardening gloves), a water bottle, a headlamp, and clothing that have never been worn in another cave or mine. This is a precautionary measure to reduce the spread of white-nose syndrome in bats. Volunteers with helmets or kneepads are encouraged to bring them as well. All cleaning supplies will be provided by park staff.  

Those who would like to participate are asked to contact Zack Story as soon as possible. Please send an email to zack.story@mt.gov before Sept. 25 with your name, the number of people you would like to bring, any food requirements you may have, and the equipment you will be bringing or may need.  

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