Montana PBS and Montana State University staff and alumni recently won Emmy Awards for local productions at the 58th annual Northwest Regional Emmy Awards. The winners were announced Saturday, June 5, during a virtual awards gala hosted from Seattle.

The Northwest Emmy Awards are a division of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Entries in the contest came from the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska and Montana.

Winning entries from Montana PBS included a one-hour documentary, “Charlie Russell’s Old West,” about Montana’s legendary cowboy artist, which received an Emmy in the documentary (cultural/historical) category. Those cited on the award were Paul Zalis, co-producer/writer; Maria Anderson, associate producer; and William Marcus and Aaron Pruitt, executive producers.

In addition, Montana PBS’ science film, “The Last Artifact,” about the redefinition of the kilogram, received an Emmy in the documentary (topical) category. Recipients include Jaime Jacobsen and Ed Watkins, producers; and Aaron Pruitt, executive producer.

“The Last Artifact” also received an additional five Emmys in the following professional craft categories:

• Director: Jamie Jacobsen and Ed Watkins.
• Writer, non-news (short/long form content): Ben King, Ed Watkins, Stefanie Watkins.
• Photographer, non-news (short/long form content): Rick Smith, Scott Sterling.
• Editor, non-news (short/long form content): Ben King, Stefanie Watkins.
• Audio: Jeremiah Slovarp, Luke Scheeler, Parker Brown, Sheridan Tongue.

Finally, Montana PBS producer and on-air host John Twiggs was inducted into the prestigious Silver Circle of the Northwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, or NATAS. The Silver Circle recognizes individuals who have than 25 years of public service, as well as mentoring, leadership and professional accolades. In addition to Twiggs’ service at Montana PBS, he is an adjunct professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Montana.

To see the full list of Emmy nominations and winners or to learn more about NATAS Northwest, visit natasnw.org. To learn more about Montana PBS, visit montanapbs.org.

Research shows that literacy and physical activity are both important for kids. A new, free activity at Bozeman Pond Park – a result of a partnership between Montana State University and the city of Bozeman – allows children to simultaneously read and be active.

The Bozeman Pond Literacy Walk at 700 S. Fowler Ave. offers a way for kids and their families, caregivers and friends to be active while reading a children’s book. Permanent, weather-proof displays placed approximately 10 feet apart along a path on the park’s north side each contain a page of a children’s book. Some of the displays also feature artwork from local schoolchildren. Members of the community are invited to visit the path, read the book and enjoy the activity. The displayed book will rotate monthly from roughly mid-April to mid-October each year; the first book is “The Rainbow Fish” by Marcus Pfister.

“We’re so excited about this project,” said Karie Orendorff, assistant professor of health and physical education in the MSU College of Education, Health and Human Development, who led the project. “Our Literacy Walk combines physical activity, literacy and quality time with families and friends. We really hope the community embraces it.”

To kick off the new activity, hundreds of kindergarten through fifth grade students from Hyalite Elementary School toured the Literacy Walk on Monday. MSU students, faculty members and administrators, as well as staff from Hyalite Elementary and the city of Bozeman, led groups of children through the walk and served them ice pops under sunny June skies.

“Who wants to do the reading?” one MSU administrator asked as she led a group of kids through the Literacy Walk.

“Rub your belly and pat your head as you go to the next station,” a leader instructed another group of students.

“Are you swimming like a fish?” another group leader asked a student.

Orendorff and others have been working on the project for more than a year. Orendorff reached out to the city’s Parks and Recreation Department last spring to see about partnering on the project, and she said the idea was met with enthusiasm.

The Literacy Walk is funded by a $5,000 Faculty Excellence Grant from MSU and a matching grant from the city of Bozeman, Orendorff said. The first copies of “The Rainbow Fish” were donated by MSU’s health enhancement major. Orendorff hopes that local businesses will donate future books.

As a former health enhancement teacher, Orendorff had long thought an activity like the Bozeman Pond Literacy Walk would be beneficial for kids.

“As an educator, I 100% believe in literacy,” she said. “Reading – and hopefully a love of reading – is one of the most important skills that our children can have. I really believe that reading is the key to any success in education.”

Orendorff noted that numerous research studies have shown that students who are more active retain more information. Studies also show that active students have fewer behavioral problems and better school attendance and that physical activity helps promote brain stimulation.

In addition, Orendorff said, the Literacy Walk’s kickoff event is also a great opportunity for MSU students who plan to pursue careers as teachers to gain a meaningful experience with kids.

“For my (MSU) students this is an opportunity for them to interact with kids,” she said. “It gives them more hands-on time with students, which is what preservice teachers need.”

Three MSU health enhancement students – Chris Hodapp, Josh Mertz and Haddy Slade – volunteered to lead groups of children through the Literacy Walk on Monday.

“I enjoyed the opportunity to hang out with kids,” said Mertz, a senior from Boise, Idaho. He said he could envision using the activity in the future as a health enhancement teacher.

“This is something you could definitely implement around an elementary school campus,” Mertz said.

Hodapp, a junior from Watkinsville, Georgia, said he jumped at the opportunity to volunteer at the Literacy Walk.

“This is a really great opportunity to work with children in the age groups I’m thinking about teaching,” he said. “It’s also an opportunity to engage with the community.”

Lauren D’Angelo, reading specialist at Hyalite Elementary School, said MSU and the city of Bozeman reached out to her about the Literacy Walk the same week that she was starting to think about Hyalite’s end-of-year reading celebration.

“With the COVID pandemic year that it was, we really wanted to make (the reading celebration) as special as we could for these kids who have worked so hard to learn throughout the year,” D’Angelo said. She said she was pleased with how the project came together.

Throughout the morning, as children moved from one structure displaying a page of the book to the next, D’Angelo said she noticed lots of smiles from the kids and felt their joy at being outside.

“Today has been really great,” she said. “The kids want us to read to them. They look at each page. We know we are creating a love of reading here.”

Girl Scout Troop 3875 is donating a little free library to Town & Country Foods in Belgrade to earn their Bronze Award. Four girls in their troop are working hard to earn it, it is the highest award a junior girl scout can achieve. Every girl is required to work 20 hours in order to earn their Bronze Award. The scouts had to recognize a problem in the community. They thought of several ideas, but they finally chose to do the free library. They also had to design and find a location for the little library. They eventually decided on Town & Country. It is a busy place, so many people will see and use it. They were able to make this all happen with some incredible donations from:


Specialty Forest Products

Bridger Cabinets

Kenyon Noble

Montana Science Center
Belgrade Community Library
Town and Country Foods
And the support of their amazing parents and guardians

This press release was provided by Troop Member 3875 Kayla.

From space, it is easy to see which areas of the Earth are covered in snow, but the appearance of snow on certain terrain is only part of the picture.

“The goal is to understand how much snow is on the ground,” said Montana State University snow hydrologist Eric Sproles. “Is it 5 inches deep or it 50 inches deep? And what’s the density of that snow?”

Sproles, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth Sciences in the College of Letters and Science, leads one of six field sites in the western U.S. for NASA’s SnowEx project, which is seeking better ways to measure snowpack and its physical properties on a global scale.

The NASA-led effort is at the end of a five-year campaign that has expanded to include partners in the military, academic institutions and the U.S. Forest Service. At its core, NASA’s SnowEx tests which qualities of snowpack can and cannot be measured from above.

If SnowEx is a success, the next project will develop a snow-focused satellite. NASA’s Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite, known as ICESat-2, launched in 2018. ICESat-2 uses a laser to measure the height of snow as it accumulates over the Earth’s topography. But the data doesn’t give insight into that snowpack’s composition, and ICESat-2 has tasks outside of measuring snow.

Sproles leads the SnowEx site at MSU’s Central Agricultural Research Center in Moccasin, the only site in Montana and the only one based in the prairie rather than the mountains.

“Prairies and grasslands cover a huge portion of the Earth’s surface,” Sproles said. “Temperate grasslands make up about 10% of the Earth’s surface and 30% of those are snow-covered seasonally, not just places that get snow but where the snow accumulates and melts.”

Not only are the prairies geographically expansive, but they are also the core of food production, be that livestock or crops.

The Moccasin site is flat, or what Sproles termed “topographically challenged.” It has 14 different cover types, with fallow and crops such as lentils, peas and winter wheat on one square kilometer. This variability allows Sproles and his team to test their ability to measure snowpack over different surfaces and to look at which retain the snow most effectively. Wind, which blows at the site often and averages about 12 mph, will move snow from barren ground, but the research has already found that leaving crop stubble such as longer wheat stalks can help the area hold onto snowfall and its moisture.

“There are some really interesting questions I think we’re getting at here that we wouldn’t be able to up in the mountains where we are normally working,” Ross Palomaki, an MSU doctoral student who has been developing tools to map river ice, said in a NASA video about the Moccasin site.

Because light bounces off snow, radiation from the sun is reflected rather than being absorbed into the Earth. Keeping snow on the ground is, therefore, one way to retain more moisture in the soil and offset the impacts of climate variability, Sproles explained.

Sproles created a class around the SnowEx research, titled Field and Remote Measurements of Snowpack, and amassed a team with three graduate and five undergraduate students.

In October, the team raced the storms to Moccasin to install nine moisture stations loaned from the USDA and a sensor which can detect water on the ground and soil moisture within 200 yards. Two weather stations measure snow depth, wind speed, temperature and relative humidity. All of that equipment was removed before April’s planting and will be reinstalled in the fall.

Throughout the winter the class took detailed ground measurements that will be used to confirm the data collected by drone, plane and satellite that mapped the albedo or reflective quality, topography and snow depth. One technique involved an advanced form of microwave pulses that reflect differently based on snowpack and snow density.

“My intent is to keep our site rolling for a couple years so we don’t just have one year of data — we can say what is the variability between years, how did things change,” Sproles said.

He is already seeing advances based on the research.

“SnowEx is applied science,” Sproles said. “It’s science working for the people, both in Montana and beyond.”

Small insights — such as the observation that 10 inches of wheat stubble will maximize water retention — can help producers make better decisions to manage the water, carbon and nitrogen balance on their land.

“It’s a result that has broad applications and implications,” Sproles said. “We can begin to manage how much snow we keep on the prairie.”

Sproles grew up in Florida, but his time as river guide in northern Colorado, Costa Rica and Chile pushed him toward studying snow and water.

“I really became interested in water resources in the West,” Sproles said. “I was seeing firsthand how it was playing out both economically and environmentally.”

His perspective went global while working as a research hydrologist in Chile, where Sproles first heard of SnowEx. NASA’s research effort was on his mind when joined the MSU faculty three years ago, and he proposed the prairie site at a SnowEx workshop in his first year. The snowpack in Montana and Chile are very different, as are the snowpack in mountainous or topographically challenged areas. A true breadth of understanding must look beyond borders, Sproles said. To highlight this for students, the Geospatial Snow, Water, and Ice Resources Lab at Montana State uses the motto “Based in Montana with a backpack ready for the world.”

Snow and water systems cannot be researched in a bubble because these resources have a far-reaching impact, Sproles explained. The snow in the Andes melts and waters the citrus fruits that end up in American grocery stores or feeds the grapes that become Chilean wine.

“We rely on snowpack everywhere,” he said. “We’re in a highly interconnected world and understanding it and managing it is important.”

Read more from Sproles and his SnowEx site team at https://blogs.nasa.gov/earthexpeditions/2021/05/12/snowex-little-blogs-from-the-prairie-part-1/ and https://blogs.nasa.gov/earthexpeditions/2021/05/13/snowex-little-blogs-from-the-prairie-part-2/. Gabrielle Antonioli, an MSU master’s student studying snow science, was a research technician for the NASA SnowEx project based in Boise, Idaho. Her post is at https://blogs.nasa.gov/earthexpeditions/2021/02/25/snowex-scientist-finds-her-love-of-snow-science-on-the-slopes/.

Bannack State Park’s signature event, Bannack Days, will return this year with many familiar activities, displays, and re-enactments celebrating Montana’s first territorial capital.  

Bannack Days are scheduled to happen Saturday, July 17, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, July 18, from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.  

About 20 miles west of Dillon, Bannack State Park is a National Historic Landmark and the site of Montana’s first major gold discovery in 1862. More than 50 historic buildings line Bannack’s Main Street. During Bannack Days, the ghost town comes alive with displays, re-enactments, artisan demonstrations, music and other family-friendly festivities.  

Admission is $5 for individuals ages 9 and older, or $20 per family. Children ages 8 and younger are free. Food and drinks can be purchased from vendors during the event.  

Shuttle services will be available during Bannack Days, but parking space is limited during this busy event. Please leave pets at home. 

For more information about scheduled events, activities and park rules for Bannack Days, please visit fwp.mt.gov/stateparks/bannack or call 406-834-3413. 

The Bozeman Symphony is proud to announce that Music Director Norman Huynh was selected from a record-breaking 612 applicants to participate in the Danish National Symphony Orchestra’s 2021 Malko Competition for young conductors. Huynh is one of 24 participants chosen from around the world, representing 14 different countries, to compete in this prestigious competition that takes place every three years in Copenhagen, Denmark, since 1965. 

 
Huynh is honored to represent Bozeman, Montana, and the greater United States as he competes against the world’s elite conductors on the DR Koncerthuset podium. Only one young conductor will win first prize, a check for 20,000 Euros and conducting contracts with several European symphony orchestras.  

 
In the Danish National Symphony Orchestra’s press release, Chief Conductor Fabio Luisi and chairman of the Malko Competition jury, said, “Not only have we had an exceptionally wide field of applicants for this year’s competition in spite of the pandemic. We are pleased to see the very high standard of the candidates. This is truly the young world elite in a discipline that demands excellent musical and personal skills from the young people.”  

 
To apply to this prestigious competition, applicants must be under 35 years of age and have studied to become or have become a professional conductor. Each applicant was required to send in a video recording that was highly scrutinized by an international pre-jury. Like Huynh, all 24 finalists this year already have promising conducting careers and are ready to compete at the highest level.  

 
“When Norman auditioned as a finalist for the position of Music Director with the Bozeman Symphony it was clear to the search committee along with many individuals who contributed to that process that Norman is a rising star. It is incredibly exciting to have Norman participating in this prestigious competition, representing the Bozeman Symphony, Bozeman, Montana, and the region. Norman is putting the arts and culture that exists in Bozeman on display to an international audience. He is a wonderful example of the caliber of talent reflected in our growing community and young professionals relocating here. I hope that the community can recognize his achievements and take every opportunity to engage with Norman, the musicians of the orchestra and choir, and the exciting 2021-2022 concert season that is planned,” said Emily Paris-Martin, Executive Director of the Bozeman Symphony. 

 
 
The 2021 Malko Competition from June 7 – 12, 2021, is made up of three rounds ending with a finale, where the top three participants will compete for first place. Viewers can watch Huynh compete live during round one at 8:15 am (MST) on Monday, June 7, 2021, streamed worldwide on the Malko Competition’s website (www.malkocompetition.dk). In addition, the Bozeman Symphony will give live updates on its website and social media platforms with Huynh’s progress throughout the competition.  

 
For more information about the 2021 Malko Competition, please contact the Bozeman Symphony at (406) 585-9774 or info@bozemansymphony.org. 
 
 
Norman Huynh, Music Director - American conductor Norman Huynh continues to establish his reputation as one of classical music’s most adventurous ambassadors. Hailed for the exuberance with which he leads orchestras across Europe, Asia, and North America, Huynh has received equal renown for his ability to attract new audiences to the orchestra. The 2020 season inaugurated his tenure as Music Director of the Bozeman Symphony, joining an existing appointment as Associate Conductor for the Oregon Symphony.

Huynh has attained international prominence in the first years of his career, most recently through an invitation to the Bruno Walter Young Conductor Preview, a selective showcase hosted by the League of American Orchestras. 
 

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While the coronavirus pandemic has proven once more that the tiniest germ can upset global civilization, a Montana State University team has responded by illustrating that ancient strategies used by bacteria to battle viruses can be repurposed into transformative technologies.

Leveraging his lab's expertise in the bacterial immune system called CRISPR, MSU researcher Blake Wiedenheft turned the urgency of the first wave of COVID-19 last spring into an opportunity to develop a more rapid and sensitive virus test. Now, roughly a year later, his team has demonstrated that the new diagnostic tool can accurately detect even relatively small amounts of coronavirus in patient samples in less than 30 minutes and sometimes in as little as one minute. The work was recently published the journal Cell Reports Medicine.

"The coronavirus revealed the limitations of our standard diagnostic tools, which are relatively slow and expensive," said Wiedenheft, associate professor in the Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology in MSU's College of Agriculture. "The fact that a bacterial immune system could be repurposed to address those shortcomings is remarkable."

The technology could also be used against other viruses such as Zika and Ebola, Wiedenheft added. "We intend to continue to develop this into a superior diagnostic tool that could really help patients and be an important contribution in the fight against disease," he said.

The technology is based on a Type III CRISPR system, which, in bacteria, monitors for viral invasion. CRISPRs work like molecular homing devices that search and destroy the genetic material of viruses, but the Type III CRISPR systems that Wiedenheft's team is studying have an additional feature that made them well-suited for repurposing into a diagnostic tool, according to Andrew Santiago-Frangos, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher in the Wiedenheft lab. When Type III CRISPRs bind to their viral targets, they undergo a structural transformation akin to lighting a signal flare, he said. That flare is detected by various other CRISPR molecules, which then destroy the virus.

Santiago-Frangos isolated the Type III CRISPR complex from bacteria and reprogramed it to recognize segments of the coronavirus genome. By understanding how the CRISPR system generates the molecular flare, the team was able to design three different chemical reactions, two of which result in color changes that can be seen with the naked eye, Santiago-Frangos said.

Working alone in the lab because of COVID-19 precautions in the early weeks of the pandemic, Santiago-Frangos saw a test solution turn from purple to orange, the first proof they were onto something. "There was a lot of excitement," he said.

Other scientists had previously demonstrated that related CRISPR systems called Cas12 and Cas13 could be repurposed to detect Ebola and Zika. Those tools have proven valuable, but the intrinsic signal amplification provided by the molecular flare of Type III CRISPRs may provide additional advantages, Wiedenheft noted. Type III CRISPRs hadn't been previously used for diagnostics, he said.

CRISPRs are perhaps best known for Cas9, which has been repurposed into a precision genome-editing technology that is rapidly reshaping medicine, enabling previously unthinkable cures for genetic diseases and the promise of overcoming cancer. The 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to University of California, Berkeley, professor Jennifer Doudna for her role in pioneering that technology. Wiedenheft worked in Doudna’s lab from 2007 until he joined MSU's faculty in 2012.

The breakthrough of turning Type III CRISPR systems into a rapid diagnostic tool "is more evidence that CRISPRs are versatile and powerful platforms for biotechnology," Wiedenheft said. Adding to the excitement, "we can reprogram these systems overnight to recognize other viruses like Ebola or influenza."

The next steps in making the technology useful are streamlining and packaging the chemistry into a form that can be administered in a medical setting, he said. The technology is in the process of being patented by MSU and licensed it to a local startup company, VIRIS Detection Systems, that is currently working on Food and Drug Administration authorizations. The company hopes to roll out the CRISPR-based test later this year. Wiedenheft is the founder of VDS and an inventor on patent applications related to the technology.

"Being from Montana and knowing about our rural areas around the state that don't have easy access to the usual diagnostic equipment, it's been really cool working on this project," said Laina Hall, a senior with a dual major in biochemistry and microbiology who worked closely with Santiago-Frangos. "It's given me a new perspective on science, working on something that can lead to applications that can help people."

Hall is a co-author on the paper with Pushya Krishna, a senior and dual major in English literature and cell biology and neuroscience; both are among MSU's four winners this year of Goldwater Scholarships, the nation's premier scholarship for undergraduate students pursuing research careers in the natural sciences, mathematics and engineering.

Other co-authors of the paper include, in the Wiedenheft lab, postdoctoral researchers Anna Nemudraia and Artem Nemudryi; research assistant Helen Lee; graduate students Calvin Cicha and Tanner Wiegand; and undergraduate researcher Ava Graham; and other Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology faculty Jodi Hedges, assistant research professor; Mark Jutila, Regents Professor; Deann Snyder, research associate; Royce Wilkinson, research associate; Matthew Taylor, associate professor.

photo credit Kene Sperry

Bozeman, Montana: New Drop-Off Service

Happy Trash Can Composting has announced a new drop-off spot (located at Co-op West Main) for their existing or new customers.

Owners Ryan Green and Adrienne Huckabone have long offered curbside pick-up. However, some folks live outside the pick-up zone, don't have a need for the service or have budgets that make this option unobtainable, including a new "pay-what-you-can" subscription option.

All drop-off subscribers receive a 5-gallon bucket to collect into, compostable liners and can get free compost each month.

In an effort to make composting accessible to more people, the Community Food Co-op is partnering with Happy Trash Can to provide a drop-off location at Co-op West Main. The store has marked bins located on the far west side of our parking lot.

“We are excited to provide this drop-off service to help expand composting in our community,” said Marketing Manager Alison Germain. “Not only does it reduce food waste, but high-quality compost supports local soil health.”

To sign up for drop-off composting, interested customers can contact Happy Trash Can directly.

"Our goal with the drop-off program is to make composting accessible to many in our community," said Ryan. "Our mission is to make diverting food scraps from the landfill as easy as possible. Not only does this reduce waste, but also allows us to create quality compost for local agricultural soils and backyard gardens." 

In addition to the drop-off service, the Co-op has partnered with Happy Trash Can since 2016 to pick-up and compost food and packaging waste. The two businesses have been able to divert 250,000 gallons from the landfill to date!