BOZEMAN – Montana State University junior Sophia Adams says her childhood experiences as the younger sibling of a brother with autism shaped her wish to serve people living in difficult circumstances.

“I felt a responsibility to look out for other people,” said Adams, an aspiring medical doctor and Honors College student majoring in biochemistry in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in the College of Letters and Science. “I like the idea of being a safe space in medicine and being able to hold that space in a world that’s kind of scary for some people.”

But Adams isn’t waiting until she finishes medical school to make a difference. Since coming to MSU as a freshman from her home in Maple Valley, Washington, she has devoted her time and talents across campus. For that, she was recently named one of 10 Montana college students to be awarded a $1,000 George M. Dennison Civic Engagement Scholarship Award by the nonprofit Montana Campus Compact.

“These students represent some of the amazing college student leadership we see at our campuses every day,” said Haven Gourneau, chair of the organization’s CEO Council and president of Fort Peck Community College. “It’s because of students like these and so many more that college presidents have faith in the future of our communities and state.”

As a sophomore, Adams began volunteering at the MSU VOICE Center, which provides confidential services and information for people impacted by sexual assault, interpersonal violence, relationship violence, harassment and stalking. This year, Adams was hired as a paid student staff member in the center. It’s work she describes as “the most impactful thing I’ve done in my college career.”

She has volunteered since her freshman year at the Empower Student Center, located in Norm Asbjornson Hall, which provides support, tutoring and other resources to underrepresented minority students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, as well as undergraduate women in engineering and computer science. She also volunteers with the MSU student organization Students Against Sexual Assault.

“I believe people should be generous with their resources to the capacity they have,” said Adams, adding that one of the biggest lessons she has learned at MSU is that she needs to take care of herself in order to maintain that capacity. “To sustainably give back in the long term, you need to help yourself first.”

VOICE Center Director Anna Slown said Adams stands out because of her “incredible energy.”

“She jokingly describes it as ‘small dog energy,’ because she is willing to fight for what’s right,” Slown said. “She’s talked about the importance of doing this work and learning all that she can in this office and taking it into her future professional job, whether that’s in the medical field or something else. She’s getting it in her head that she can fight for other people and use her voice to uplift others.”

In addition to her other commitments, Adams works in the laboratory of Emma Loveday, assistant research professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and MSU’s Center for Biofilm Engineering. Loveday describes Adams as an enthusiastic student who has “never shied away from doing anything that’s a little tough.”

“She’s a fantastic student and I’m really proud of her for receiving the scholarship,” Loveday said.

After she graduates next year, Adams says she will take a year to gain clinical hours and experience then apply to medical school. She may specialize in women’s health, sexual health, or obstetrics and gynecology, though she says she also has developed an interest in virology and infectious diseases through her work in Loveday’s lab.

She credits Loveday, Slown, Empower Program Director Susan Kelly and the VOICE Center staff for giving her the tools she needs to effectively serve others.

“I’ve really enjoyed my time at MSU – I’ve met really great people here, and I have great mentors,” Adams said. “My ability to give back is because of what they’ve given me.”

Students often gravitate towards well-known destinations like New York City or Los Angeles when planning a budget-friendly and exciting trip in the USA. However, plenty of hidden gems across the country offer unique experiences without breaking the bank. Here are five unusual travel destinations in the USA that are perfect for students on a budget. 

1. Portland, Oregon

Portland offers a unique blend of outdoor adventure, urban culture, and sustainable living in the Pacific Northwest. Explore the city's quirky neighborhoods like the Alberta Arts District or Mississippi Avenue, where colorful murals adorn the streets and independent boutiques line the sidewalks. With affordable accommodation options like hostels and budget-friendly eateries serving local fare, Portland is a haven for student travelers seeking an eclectic and wallet-friendly experience.Amidst the allure of these exciting destinations, it's crucial to keep your academic duties in mind. If you're overwhelmed by deadlines and wonder, “Who can write my college paper for me?” don't hesitate to seek assistance with your tasks. Ordering a paper from a trusted service can help you enjoy your travels without the stress of unfinished assignments.

2. Austin, Texas

Known as the "Live Music Capital of the World," Austin is a vibrant city bursting with energy, creativity, and Texan charm. Dive into the city's rich music scene by catching a live show on legendary Sixth Street or exploring the eclectic shops and eateries along South Congress Avenue. For outdoor enthusiasts, Barton Springs Pool offers a refreshing respite from the Texas heat, while the nearby Hill Country provides endless opportunities for hiking, swimming, and exploring natural wonders. Austin welcomes students with open arms and plenty of Southern hospitality.

3. Asheville, North Carolina

Tucked away in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Asheville beckons with its bohemian spirit, vibrant arts scene, and breathtaking natural beauty. Explore the city's eclectic downtown, where historic buildings house galleries, craft breweries, and farm-to-table eateries. Outdoor enthusiasts will delight in the abundance of hiking trails, scenic drives, and waterfalls. Asheville offers students a laid-back and budget-friendly escape into the heart of Appalachia.

4. New Orleans, Louisiana

Step into the lively ambiance and rich heritage of the Big Easy by embarking on a journey to New Orleans. Navigate through the vibrant streets of the French Quarter, where the melody of jazz fills the air and colorful Creole cottages grace the sidewalks. Treat your taste buds to the culinary wonders of the city, from savoring the iconic beignets and chicory coffee at Café du Monde to relishing mouthwatering po'boys and gumbo from local food trucks. New Orleans welcomes students to bask in Southern charm and savor an unparalleled cultural escapade.

5. Sedona, Arizona

Escape to the breathtaking landscapes of Sedona, where towering red rock formations, crystal-clear streams, and lush desert flora await. Hike among the stunning rock formations of Red Rock State Park, explore the ancient ruins of Montezuma Castle National Monument, or embark on an off-road jeep tour through the rugged desert terrain. After a day of adventure, unwind in one of Sedona's affordable campgrounds or cozy motels with panoramic views of the surrounding mountains.

Whether you're seeking outdoor adventure, urban exploration, or cultural immersion, these offbeat destinations promise an unforgettable student adventure filled with discovery, adventure, and lifelong memories. So pack your bags, hit the road, and embark on the ultimate student getaway to these hidden gems across the USA!

BOZEMAN — The Bozeman Police Department is proud to sponsor the sixteenth session of the popular Citizens’ Police Academy. This free class will meet every Thursday evening from 6 to 9 p.m. over the course of eight weeks. The academy starts on March 21, 2024, and will run through May 9, 2024.

“Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a police officer with the Bozeman Police Department? Do you often question why the Bozeman Police Officers do what they do or wonder what challenges the community faces? We aim to answer these questions and more at our Citizens’ Police Academy.  This highly interactive academy fills up fast and has a limited number of seats, so we encourage people to apply soon,” Officer Scott Vongehr stated.

One of the main objectives of the Citizens’ Police Academy is to have fun while fostering stronger communication between the citizens of Bozeman and the police department. It also aims to enhance citizen understanding and awareness of the role of the Bozeman Police Department.  

This will be a hands-on training with an emphasis on student involvement. Classes about the department and criminal justice system will be offered to the students so there can be a better understanding of the services the Bozeman Police Department provides to the community.  Students will learn about the different divisions, such as patrol, detective, and support services, all taught by Bozeman Police Officers. 

Those interested in attending or those with questions can contact Community Resource Officer Scott Vongehr at svongehr@bozeman.net or 582-2969. Applications can be found online at https://www.bozeman.net/departments/police/community-involvement/citizens-police-academy.

BOZEMAN – Hunter Education classes will be offered in several locations throughout southwestern Montana this year. Many of these classes are or will soon be open for registration.

All in-person classes are free. Students must be at least 10 years old to take a Hunter Education class. Students must be at least 11 years old to take a Bowhunter Education class.

The following Hunter Education classroom classes are scheduled in the region:

• Belgrade: starting Feb. 23
• Helena: starting March 15
• Butte: starting April 8 (tentative)
• Bozeman: starting April 15 (tentative)
• Logan: starting May 6
• Helena: starting May 17
• Clyde Park: June (tentative)
• Logan: starting July 15
• Livingston: August (tentative)

Students ages 12 through 17 who take Hunter or Bowhunter Education online will also be required to pass an in-person field day. There will be a field day for online Hunter Education students in Bozeman on March 2.

Hunter and Bowhunter Education courses are being planned in other areas. FWP’s website will be updated periodically as classes are arranged. To see what classes are available or to sign up, visit fwp.mt.gov/hunt/education.

Hunter, Bowhunter and Trapper Education classes are taught by skilled volunteer instructors, offering hands-on learning experiences and opportunities for students to ask questions of experienced instructors. Students learn how to handle firearms and archery equipment safely, basic survival skills, hunting ethics, wildlife management, game identification, landowner-hunter relations, and Montana hunting laws and regulations.

Montana law requires that anyone born after Jan. 1, 1985, complete a Hunter Education class or qualify as a youth apprentice hunter before purchasing a Montana hunting license. All first-time bowhunters must complete a Bowhunter Education course or show proof of a prior year’s archery license from another state or province.

BOZEMAN – A Montana State University doctoral student has been awarded an international prize for his experimental study of dinosaur nesting strategies.

Jason Hogan, a student of paleontology in the Department of Earth Sciences in MSU’s College of Letters and Science, received the Alfred Sherwood Romer Prize from the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology after presenting his research at the society’s 2023 annual meeting. There, he described the experiment he devised to explore a possible evolutionary transition from the crocodile-like nesting habits of reptiles to those of modern birds.

Professor David Varricchio, head of MSU’s earth sciences department and Hogan’s faculty adviser, said it is only the second time an MSU student has won the Romer Prize, which is awarded annually in recognition of an outstanding contribution in vertebrate paleontology by a predoctoral student. The other was Greg Erickson, now a professor at Florida State University, who received the award in 1991.

Hogan’s award-winning experiment was inspired by about a half-dozen Chinese and Mongolian fossils of warm-blooded oviraptorosaurs sitting on nests of partially buried eggs. Those specimens – small, feathered dinosaurs from the Cretaceous period – were closely related to the lineage of modern birds.

Hogan said some researchers speculated that the adults guarded their egg clutches as modern crocodiles do; others believed they sat above the nests to keep eggs warm. Many scientists favored the first theory because they believed the ground would suck heat from the eggs, but Hogan wanted to see whether an adult situated above a nest could keep partially buried eggs above ambient temperature.

“Having a fossil of an adult sitting on a nest and knowing the adult was warm-blooded led us to a first experiment, which showed us it was not as inefficient as presumed,” Hogan said.

He also was intrigued by the oviraptorosaurs’ volcano-shaped nests, which contained rings of eggs placed at three levels. Such architecture and behavior are absent among species living today, but because the conical nests could accommodate more massive egg clutches over a smaller surface area than two-dimensional nests, Hogan speculated that may have allowed one adult to cover more eggs.

“It’s so odd that it has to be good at something,” Hogan said. “This behavior persisted through time, so they were clearly doing something well.”

To see if that something might include indirect contact incubation, Hogan built replicas of oviraptorosaur nests and stocked them with unviable emu eggs, which are similar to dinosaur eggs in mass, shell thickness and even their blue-green coloring. He placed thermometers into each egg, then set a surrogate parent dinosaur – essentially a 175-pound temperature-controlled hot water bottle – above the partially buried nests, then recorded temperatures of the eggs at pre-determined intervals. The results indicated that a warm-blooded adult sitting above a nest could transfer heat through the sediment into an egg clutch, suggesting a possible evolutionary link between buried crocodilian nests and the exposed bird nests seen in modern time periods.

Two papers describing Hogan’s work were published this year in the journals Paleobiology and Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

Hogan, who holds a bachelor’s degree in earth and ocean science from Duke University and a master’s in science education from Harvard, has been at MSU for seven years. He decided to pursue a Ph.D. after teaching high school science for a few years because he was interested in teaching at the college level. He chose MSU for the opportunity to study with Varricchio and for the paleontology resources available at the Museum of the Rockies.

Varricchio said the Romer Prize recognized both the “very smart study” that Hogan conducted and his excellent presentation at the conference, which reflected his science education background and years as a science teacher.

“Winning the Romer is great for Jason, and also brings recognition to the paleontology work at Montana State,” Varricchio said. “I feel super fortunate to have Jason as part of our program.”

Hogan expects to finish his studies soon, then seek a teaching and research position at the university level. He said he is excited by advances in paleontology over the past 20 years, particularly the incorporation of more biology.

“There are lots of different ways to get into the field – you can dig in the dirt, be a biologist, study behavioral biology or be a statistician – it brings more life to the discipline,” he said. “It’s a lot of fun.”

On February 10, 2024, at 2:34pm, West Yellowstone Police Department Dispatch received a 911 call from a snowmobiler who was recreating with a friend when their group was flagged down by a snowmobiler who had sustained serious injuries. The caller indicated the injured snowmobiler was unable to ride their snowmobile out and was in need of immediate medical treatment near Cabin Creek, 17.5 miles north of West Yellowstone, Montana.

Gallatin County Sheriff Search and Rescue (GCSSAR) volunteers from the West Yellowstone detachment, GCSSAR Big Sky detachment, Hebgen Basin Rural Fire District, and Gallatin County Sheriff’s Deputies responded to the request for aid. The GCSSAR team members, along with law enforcement, communicated with the initial caller over cell phone to establish critical details leading to how best to serve the injured individual. Due to the remote backcountry location of the victim, it was determined the best and most efficient way for responders to assist would be through utilization of a helicopter. Billings Clinic Medical Flight Team was dispatched to assist with the rescue. Quick-reaction teams from GCSSAR West Yellowstone and Big Sky also responded with snowmobiles and a specialized snowmobile towed ambulance. The victim was air lifted from the remote backcountry location in Cabin Creek to Bozeman Health Deaconess Regional Medical Center for further evaluation and treatment.

Gallatin County Sheriff Dan Springer would like to commend the passerby snowmobilers whose quick action, effective communication, and GPS capabilities allowed the proper resources to be dispatched to ensure a hasty and efficient response from rescue teams.

Two Montana State University RadPC payloads pictured in a MSU lab on Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024, in Bozeman, Mont. Both computers spent time on the International Space Station before being returned to MSU. MSU photo by Colter Peterson

BOZEMAN – Montana State University doctoral student Hezekiah Austin recently received two packages with a unique return address: that of the International Space Station.

Each box contained a computer specially developed by MSU researchers to withstand the unforgiving environment imposed by outer space, known as RadPC.

Austin, who has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from MSU, was introduced to the RadPC project when he applied to pursue his Master of Science in electrical engineering, which he earned this past spring.

“Brock LaMeres interviewed me,” said Austin. “He mentioned that he had multiple grants available, one was going to the ISS. He eventually put me on that project.”

LaMeres, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, originally designed RadPC as an alternative to the large and expensive computers that are standardly used on spacecraft. The standard space computers can cost around $250,000, explained Austin, due to the parts inside them requiring special materials to withstand the radiation in outer space.

“RadPC is looking at a price somewhere between $5,000 to $20,000,” said Austin.

This difference in cost is due to the nature of the computer’s design. RadPC uses a processor that could be found in normal desktop computers, but it’s running special MSU-developed software that allows the machine to continue to function even when struck by a disruptive radiation particle whizzing through space.

Throughout the project, MSU researchers and students worked closely with San Mateo, California-based Stottler Henke, a company focused on artificial intelligence development for aerospace applications. During his research on the project, Austin outfitted RadPC to successfully interface with the company’s hardware and software.

Two payloads containing RadPC were sent to the ISS while Austin was working on the project. The first payload was in orbit for five months before it was sent back to Earth. Upon the computer's return to MSU’s campus, Austin and the team began to study the data from the computer's trip.

“This is the first time that RadPC has been used in a stressful environment as a full computer,” said LaMeres. “The unique part of it is that the payloads came back in time for Hezekiah’s master’s degree. It’s rare that you get anything back.”

The data presented from the ISS told the MSU researchers that their recovery mechanism was good, but that the computer’s design was not well-suited to be programmed by anyone other than members of the MSU team, explained Austin. He used that feedback to streamline things so that RadPC could be programmed more easily by anyone.

Soon after, Stottler Henke informed the researchers of another opportunity that would allow them to send this new iteration of RadPC back to the ISS.

“Naturally, we said yes,” said Austin.

This time, RadPC stayed in orbit for 13 months, and it took an additional seven months to get the payload back after its return. But, despite the long wait, the ISS payloads are both home and can be viewed in Norm Asbjornson Hall 324 inside the window display.

“By this upcoming August, we are looking to get RadPC as a commercially viable product that can be sold,” said Austin. “Long term I’ll be doing my Ph.D. research on adding in the capability of in-flight image processing.”

For more information about RadPC and its history at MSU, visit Brock LaMeres’ research overview website.

HELENA – Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks will implement changes this year to the reservation process for state park sites. The changes will create more opportunities for recreationists to enjoy state parks and comply with legislation passed by the 2023 Legislature.  

Starting this year, visitors will have up to three months prior to their planned arrival date to make campsite and lodging reservations or purchase tour tickets. This is a change from the six-month booking window in the past. Visitors need to be aware that the maximum stay per site changed from 14 consecutive nights to 7. The last change allows at least 20 percent of state parks’ campsites to be available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Sites are reservable from the third Friday in May through the third Sunday in September. People can start making reservations on Feb. 17 at 9 a.m. by visiting  fwp.mt.gov/stateparks/ or calling the call center at 855-922-6768.