L-R: Renderings of the Rialto exterior and interior 

Renovations to the historic Rialto theater in the heart of downtown Bozeman are well under way. The venue is scheduled to open in January 2018, hosting an exciting lineup of top-tier talent from around the country.

Originally built in 1908 as a two-story storefront and converted into a theater in 1924, the Rialto has a long history of serving Main Street in Bozeman’s central commercial district, although it has been vacant for more than a decade. Bozeman’s ThinkTank Design Group, along with general contractor North Fork Builders, is refashioning the vacant theater to set the stage as an artistic and cultural hub. Honoring the Rialto’s historical relevance, iconic features will be replicated, such as the art deco–style marquee and signage at the front of the building, designed by local artist and metal sculptor Erik “Ole” Nelson of Media Station.

This major reconstruction project demonstrates ThinkTank’s ongoing commitment to Bozeman and the community. “We are excited to revive an underutilized remnant of our history that brings culture and inspiration to the city,” said Brian Caldwell, project architect at ThinkTank. “It’s an iconic theater that will become a modern and creative outlet for local and traveling artists, with an entirely new design that reflects the imaginative spirit of Bozeman.”

The reinvented venue will include a ground-floor theater called the Black Box, which will accommodate up to 400 people and feature a mezzanine level, offering a variety of options for artists, live performances and private events. The theater acoustics and sound system were designed by the award-winning consulting firm Charles M. Salter Associates, Inc. Theater programming will range from some of the country’s most sought-after bands to local musicians, spoken-word performances, movie nights and more.

The second floor will house the Burn Box, a stylish space overlooking Main Street that will serve wine, beer and a rotating menu from local chefs and food artisans, crafted around the entertainment style. The Burn Box will welcome in ticket holders and the general public for a drink and bite on days of scheduled programming. Adjacent to the Burn Box will be the Light Box, a gallery that will showcase work from local artists, host special events for the community and serve as an additional space for private events for 15 to 150 people.

“We are creating a vibrant, one-of-a-kind hub where people can experience Bozeman’s evolving culture,” said Productions and Operations Manager Drew Fleming.

“The Rialto will attract exceptional and unique acts, artists and audiences, becoming a place where artistry truly thrives.”

The theater plans to reopen with an all-ages show on January 16, 2018, by indie rock band Hippo Campus, and the Victor Wooten Trio will take the stage on January 17. The following weekend, on January 26, Car Seat Headrest will make its debut at the Rialto, followed by musician and comedian Reggie Watts on January 27. For more information and a complete list of upcoming programming, visit www.rialtobozeman.com.

Montana Shakespeare in the Schools enters its 25th season in 2017 with a tour of “Twelfth Night” to regional middle and high schools. Several public performances will also be offered.
 
MSIS will perform the comedy to nearly 12,000 students in communities throughout Montana and Wyoming as a part of its annual fall tour, which begins Oct. 6.
 
The 10-week tour is the first of two educational outreach programs offered during the academic year by Montana Shakespeare in the Parks, which is based at Montana State University. The fall tour will conclude in mid-December. Montana Shakes!, a tour designed specifically for elementary school children, will tour from late February to mid-May

 
To accommodate schools’ scheduling needs, productions are trimmed to 80 minutes. Tailor-made workshops that relate back to the play accompany the production.
 
Kevin Asselin, executive artistic director of Montana Shakespeare in the Schools, said the goal of the troupe is to bring live, professional performances of Shakespeare’s plays to middle and high schools across Montana and Wyoming, emphasizing rural, underserved areas.
 
“Shakespeare in the Schools is one of the only programs in the country to reach as extensively into rural areas, bringing Shakespeare the way it was meant to be experienced, in a live performance,” Asselin said.
 
Chicago-based Marti Lyons will direct the production. Lyons has directed for Actors Theatre of Louisville, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Lookingglass Theatre Company and Writers’ Theatre, among others.
 
“’Twelfth Night’ is a comedy, but a comedy that bursts forth from a deep sadness,” Lyons said. “In this world, like in our world, love and joy can grow in the midst of sorrow and longing.”
 
The professional eight-member cast who make up the touring company have been chosen from national auditions. They will rehearse for three weeks in Bozeman before presenting the play to 49 middle and high schools in Montana and Wyoming.
 
Montana Shakespeare in the Schools began in 1993 with two professional actors performing scenes from Shakespeare’s plays with minimal costumes and scenery. It has grown to include an eight-member professional company that offers a full Shakespearean production complete with rich, originally designed costumes and scenery, as well as a talk back session and a full complement of workshops.

 
Special performances, open to the public, will be held in Buffalo, Wyoming; Fishtail; Dillon; and Bozeman. For more information on these performances, visit Montana Shakespeare in the Schools’ website.
 
Shakespeare in the School's 16th annual Elise Event, a fundraiser named in honor of the late Elise Donohue, will be held at 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 28, at MSU’s Black Box Theater, located on the corner of 11th and Grant Street on the MSU campus in Bozeman. The event will include a performance of “Twelfth Night.”

 
Montana Shakespeare in the Schools is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts: Shakespeare in American Communities. Additional support comes from the Montana Arts Council: Artists in Schools and Communities and Montana Cultural Trust; the Homer A. and Mildred S. Scott Foundation; the Sidney E. Frank Foundation; the First Interstate Bank Foundation; the First Security Bank Foundation; and the Applied Materials Foundation, along with generous individual donors.

Montana Shakespeare in the Parks is an outreach program of The MSU College of Arts and Architecture.
 
For more information about Shakespeare in the Schools, visit the website at shakespeareintheparks.org or call 406-994-3303.
 
Shakespeare in the Schools 2016 tour – “Twelfth Night”
 
Oct. 6 – Anderson School, Bozeman
Oct. 9 – Plentywood High School, Plentywood
Oct. 10 – Medicine Lake High School, Medicine Lake
Oct. 11 – Bainville High, Bainville
Oct. 12 – Sidney High School, Sidney
Oct. 13 – Pine Hills Correctional Academy, Miles City
Oct. 16 – Worland High, Worland, Wyo.
Oct. 17 – Cody High, Cody, Wyo.
Oct. 18 – Powell High, Powell, Wyo.
Oct. 19 – Meeteetse High School, Meeteetse, Wyo.
Oct. 20 – Arts Roundup, Big Timber
Oct. 23 – Sweet Grass County High School, Big Timber
Oct. 24 – Buffalo  High School, Buffalo, Wyo.
Oct. 24 – Buffalo  High School, Buffalo, Wyo. – public performance
Oct. 25 – Sheridan High School, Sheridan, Wyo.
Oct. 26 – Lame Deer High School, Lame Deer
Oct. 27 –Tippet Rise Art Center, Fishtail – public performance
Oct. 30 – East Valley Middle School, East Helena
Oct. 31 – Capital HS, Helena
 
Nov. 1 – Helena High School, Helena
Nov. 2 – Townsend Middle School, Townsend
Nov. 3 – Belgrade  High School, Belgrade
Nov. 6 – Hardin High School, Hardin
Nov. 7 – Roundup High School, Roundup
Nov. 8 – Sheridan High School , Sheridan, Mont.
Nov. 8 – University of Montana Western, Dillon – public performance
Nov. 9 – University of Montana Western, Dillon
Nov. 10 – Gallatin County Homeschool Group, Bozeman
Nov. 13 – Plains High School, Plains
Nov. 14 – West Valley Middle School, Kalispell
Nov. 15 – Kalispell Middle School, Kalispell
Nov. 16 – Columbia Falls High School, Columbia Falls
Nov. 17 – Columbia Falls High School, Columbia Falls
Nov. 18 – The Ellen Theater, Bozeman – public performance
Nov. 20 – Polson High School, Polson
Nov. 21 – Petra Academy, Bozeman
Nov. 22 – Shields Valley High School, Clyde Park
Nov. 27 – Belt High School, Belt
Nov. 28 – Power School, Power
Nov. 29 – Simms High School, Simms
Nov. 30 – Ronan High School, Ronan
 
Dec. 1 – Florence-Carlton High School, Florence
Dec. 4 – Frenchtown High School, Frenchtown
Dec. 5 – Alberton High School, Alberton
Dec. 6 – Loyola/St. Joes High School, Missoula
Dec. 7 – Ennis High School, Ennis
Dec. 8 – Lone Peak High School, Big Sky
Dec. 11 – Corvallis High School, Corvallis
Dec. 12 – Sentinel High School, Missoula
Dec. 13 – Whitehall High School, Whitehall
Dec. 14 – Chief Joseph Middle School, Bozeman
Dec. 15 – Manhattan High School, Manhattan

When Montana State University students watched a wall of darkness rush across the central Wyoming prairie at supersonic speed, then wash over them and bring a sudden chill to the summer day, they couldn’t contain their awe.
 
“We were all going crazy,” said Jaxen Godfrey, who was one of five MSU students on a Montana Space Grant Consortium team that included students from University of Montana, Chief Dull Knife College and Miles Community College.
 
Their experience of the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse lasted only about two minutes. But the bulk of their research has just begun.
 
“We have all this data to go through,” said Godfrey, a sophomore majoring in physics in the Department of Physics in MSU’s College of Letters and Science.
 
To study how the atmosphere responded to the sudden, midday darkness brought on by the eclipse, the team launched 19 helium-filled balloons. Each carried a small device called a radiosonde, which measured temperature, pressure and humidity as the balloons ascended to altitudes of 80,000 feet or more.

 
Total solar eclipses do unusual things to air and clouds, but the effects in the upper atmosphere aren’t well documented or explained, according to Jennifer Fowler, Montana Space Grant Consortium’s assistant director. For instance, the celestial phenomenon is thought to change atmospheric waves that affect everything from wildfire behavior to wind turbine performance.

 
“They’re like waves on water,” Fowler said. “There’s a theory that says that these waves are generated by the eclipse itself ... but nobody had measured them during an eclipse. That’s exactly what we decided to try and do.”
 
The experiment was part of a larger effort called the Eclipse Ballooning Project, which MSU-based Montana Space Grant Consortium started in 2014. The project’s main activity - involving 55 teams from across the country - was livestreaming high-altitude video of the moon’s shadow crossing the Earth using camera-equipped balloons. Fowler proposed the radiosonde experiment as a way for the project to address a significant scientific question.

 
Some of the 55 livestream teams launched radiosonde balloons, and Fowler helped recruit an additional 12 teams. In total, the teams launched 40 radiosondes, from locations that included the Oregon coast and St. Louis.
 
During the eclipse, Fowler was in Wyoming with the Montana team. For two days, starting on Aug. 20, the team launched a radiosonde every six hours from a site near Fort Laramie to record the atmospheric conditions before, during and after the eclipse.
 
During the roughly two-hour period when the moon crossed the sun, the team launched radiosondes at 20-minute intervals from Fort Laramie - which was positioned along the center-line of the eclipse’s path - as well as at two sites near the edges of the roughly 70-mile-wide moon shadow.
 
The students did all the work, Fowler said. She “got to sit back and enjoy the show.”
 
Godfrey, who was participating in the project as a summer intern with Montana Space Grant Consortium, was at the Fort Laramie site. She and a handful of other students filled the 4-foot-diameter latex balloons with helium, calibrated the radiosondes with a laptop, then downloaded the data with a handheld radio unit as the balloons took flight.

 
Godfrey will use their data, along with that gathered by other teams, to study how the lowest 10,000 feet of the atmosphere - called the planetary boundary layer - responded to the eclipse.
 
“I feel lucky to be part of something so big that happened across the country,” she said.
 
Ian Fleming, a sophomore physics major from Petersburg, Alaska, also helped launch the radiosondes from Fort Laramie. He will compare the data to predictions from computer models, which could help improve the models.
 
Currently, “simulating winds is tricky at best,” he said.
 
The data are also being made available to other researchers, Fowler said.
 
“This was great, real-world, hands-on training for students,” she said. “When they know that someone is going to use their data, they are much more engaged.”
 
The team launched five other balloons equipped with the livestream system and other cameras, including a 360-degree camera system designed by the students at Chief Dull Knife College in Lame Deer.
 
Forrest Oldman, a member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe and a freshman at Chief Dull Knife College, helped download the video livestream and relay it to NASA’s website.
 
“It was kind of out of my comfort zone,” he said. “That’s why I did it.”

The Community Food Co-op invites you to dine at the Community Café on Monday, October 2 from 5-8 pm, where Co-op Guest Chef Kelly Walunis will prepare a special Indian inspired menu featuring local Montana ingredients to help generate revenue for the Community Café.
 
The menu will feature pork from locally-raised hogs purchased by the Co-op at the Junior Livestock Market Sale. The hogs were raised by Lane and Sage Smart and Samantha Draeger. Two of the hogs came from the Smart boys, who raised their animals without feed-grade antibiotics or growth hormones. The hogs had regular walks, a cozy shelter and a big mud bath. Earning from the sale will go towards their college savings.

The Co-op is proud to partner on this event with Pioneer Meats of Big Timber, who graciously processed the animals free of charge. The hogs yielded over 300 pounds of meat. Whatever is not used during the dinner will be donated to the Community Cafe for future meals.
 
Proceeds from the event will go directly to the Community Café, Bozeman’s only pay-what-you-can restaurant. This will be the second year in a row the Co-op and Pioneer Meats have partnered to serve a meal at the Community Café. Last year, the event helped generate over $4,000.
 
“The Café welcomes everyone from the community to enjoy a delicious, locally sourced dinner,” says Chelsea Eddy, Front of House Manager for the Community Café. “What makes it special is the unique payment model that provides an affordable and accessible meal for everyone.”
“As a community owned business, giving back is vitally important to us,” explains Alison Germain, the Co-op Marketing and Membership Manager. “It’s something we’ve always done, to the tune of about $60,000 a year.”

The Community Cafe is located at 302 North 7th Avenue in Bozeman. For those who can’t attend the Co-op’s Guest Chef event at the Community Cafe, donations can be made online, with the goal to raise $1,500 by October 2.

###

The Community Cafe is part of the HRDC’s Emergency Food and Nutrition Initiative, working to improve food security in Southwest Montana. The Café was founded when an increase in families needing emergency food boxes was observed at the Gallatin Valley Food Bank. The HRDC was established in 1975 and serves Gallatin, Park, and Meagher Counties in southwest Montana.  HRDC is a non-profit community action agency, dedicated to strengthening community and advancing the quality of people’s lives. 

The Gallatin Valley Land Trust and the Leep family have finalized a conservation easement on 321 acres of open land in the Amsterdam/ Churchill area west of Bozeman.  This is the third conservation easement GVLT has completed with the Leep family, limiting the division and development on the land in perpetuity. This conservation easement will ensure the Leep family’s highly developable land remains viable for agriculture and will protect the scenic views and wildlife habitat that open land offers in our rapidly growing Gallatin Valley.

The Leep family has been farming in the Gallatin Valley since the 1920’s.  Sherwin and Greg Leep grow wheat and alfalfa hay with three of their adult sons. The property is situated in a quickly growing area in an un-zoned part of the county, less than four miles from Four Corners and less than 5 miles from Belgrade.  While the property sits near a growing community, it is also an important puzzle piece in a larger conservation effort, stitching together four other GVLT conserved properties creating a block of 2,000 conserved acres in agricultural production. While the property could easily hold hundreds of homes, Sherwin Leep believes the land’s best and most productive use is agriculture. “It is special. I would say that this is some of the best farmland in the valley. It is located beautifully. It is close to the Gallatin River corridor so there are some wildlife components to it. There are a lot of compelling reasons that this ground should never grow houses. It should stay in agriculture.” The Natural Resource Conservation Service agrees; they designated the property as having 100% agriculturally significant soils, 96% of which were considered prime soils for farming.

The Leep family is committed to farming in this area. They’ve used the funds from the purchase of conservation easements to reinvest in more agricultural land in the area. This conservation easement was funded in part by the Gallatin County Open Lands Program and the NRCS Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP).  These local and federal dollars make a conservation easement, which reduces the value of the land significantly, a viable financial option for farming families like the Leep family. It allows them to continue their legacy of farming while protecting the wide open spaces of our Montana landscape.

As Belgrade and Four Corners grow west, many farmers in the Amsterdam and Churchill area are using voluntary conservation easements in partnership with GVLT to protect large blocks of land, ensuring viability for traditional family farming operations far into the future. Landowners, GVLT, and taxpayer funded Gallatin County Open Lands Program are making a strategic effort to keep certain parts of our valley from being fragmented into small parcels as the area experiences unprecedented growth. This fragmentation makes it much harder to farm, both logistically and economically, and reduces the wildlife habitat and scenic quality of the entire landscape. Taxpayers have invested $20 million in the Gallatin County Open Lands Program since 2001 and have succeeded in protecting 50,000 acres on over 50 properties concentrated in strategic areas of highly developable open land in the valley.  Taxpayers have also successfully leveraged federal and private dollars to match their local investment at a rate of 5 to 1. The Leep family’s 321 acres is an exciting and important addition to a growing list of nearby projects, within 5 miles of 14 other Open Lands Program funded projects. With the last remaining dollars in the Open Lands Program allocated and development showing no signs of slowing, GVLT, partners, and landowners like Sherwin Leep are aware that time is of the essence and we must try now to reinvest in our valley’s future.  “I think it is really important that some of these properties are conserved now because this is the time. We better do it now because they won’t be here 50 years from now. It’s important.”

What is a conservation easement? The Gallatin Valley Land Trust (GVLT) partners with private landowners to conserve working farms and ranches, fish and wildlife habitat, open lands and scenic views.  To protect these special places, GVLT uses conservation easements, which are voluntary agreements with landowners that limit development on a property while keeping it in private ownership.  Each easement is tailored to the specific property and runs with the title of the land in perpetuity. GVLT is responsible for upholding the easement’s terms.  Because a conservation easement limits development rights and therefore decreases the value of the land, landowners may be eligible to write off the difference as a charitable donation. In some cases, landowners receive financial compensation for a portion of the value of the conservation easement.  The public benefits from the protection of conservation values such as prime agricultural soils, wildlife habitat, river corridors and the overall character of our region.

About Gallatin Valley Land Trust
Gallatin Valley Land Trust connects people, communities, and open lands through conservation of working farms and ranches, healthy rivers, and wildlife habitat, and the creation of trails in the Montana headwaters of the Missouri and Upper Yellowstone Rivers. For more information, visit www.gvlt.org.

Colt James Ranches has launched a Kickstarter campaign for the world’s first gourmet Wagyu beef stick. An idea born out of the belief that the fine flavors of Wagyu shouldn’t be limited to the dinner table, these grab-and-go beef sticks offer a high protein snack that packs a punch when it comes to both flavor and quality; Colt James Ranches refuses to compromise one for the other.

That’s because Colt James Ranches believes in the best. Best methods, best cattle, and ultimately best taste. This small batch operation offers a new take on something old, calling upon sustainable practices to create a high-quality, one-of-a-kind product.


Colt James Ranches distinguishes itself from other Wagyu ranches by employing a holistic management approach that paves the way for a brighter, more socially responsible future for ranching and cattle rearing. Their innovate approach provides a product that leaves no unanswered questions about source, content, or quality. This gifts consumers a simple, straightforward ingredient list and full transparency about where their food is coming from. The end product is a beef stick that is nutritious, distinct, and delectable, and that underscores the importance of connecting land and food.

For Colt James Ranches, achieving that robust Montana flavor that defines their product begins with the methods. As a 5th generation Montana rancher, founder Colter DeVries is no stranger to the ways of ranching. He is carving out a niche for himself in a state dominated by ranching by taking a new approach that focuses on sustainability and ethicality, striking a perfect balance between what’s best for his cattle and what’s best for his consumers.

With Chop Sticks, Colt James Ranches certainly seems to have found what’s best. There are plenty of beef sticks on the market. Chop Sticks distinguishes itself as a cut above the rest by pairing better-than-USDA Prime Wagyu beef with fresh herbs and spices that deliver the taste of the West you’d only expect from the finest cut of meat. Available in three different flavors and packed with 7 grams of protein and essential fatty acids, this product is designed not only to please, but to nourish.

Colt James Ranches’ Chop Sticks are available to order on their Kickstarter page now.

For more information about Colt James Ranches, please visit www.coltjamesranches.com.

Waterfowl hunters intending to hunt on the Canyon Ferry WMA (CFWMA) near Townsend this fall are reminded that water levels in Pond 3 will be quite low due to a management-action water drawdown. As a result, the boat ramp on Pond 3 will not be usable.
 
Approximately two-thirds of the surface area of Pond 3 is currently dry, and water levels in Pond 3 will continue to drop through the fall.
 
In addition, water levels in the CFWMA’s other ponds may be below desired levels at least for the youth waterfowl opener this weekend and possibly the first part of the general waterfowl season because of this summer’s drought conditions.
 
Montana's two-day youth hunt Sept. 23-24 for waterfowl (ducks, geese, coots, mergansers) and ring-necked pheasants is open to:
·         legally licensed 12-15-year-olds who have completed hunter education and who are accompanied by a non-hunting adult at least 18 years of age,
·         properly certified and legally licensed apprentice hunters 10-15 years of age who are accompanied by a non-hunting adult "mentor" at least 21 years of age.
 
All regulations apply. The CFWMA is an exception—only to the youth waterfowl season shooting hours—they will be one-half hour before sunrise to noon.
 
Remember, all hunters must ask first to gain permission to hunt on private land. Montana's general waterfowl hunting season opens Sept. 30 for most species and Oct. 7 for pheasants.
 
For more information, visit FWP's website at fwp.mt.gov. Click "Hunting" then click "Youth Opportunities."

Frogs, toads and salamanders often fall through the cracks of scientific study, but according to recently published research from Montana State University, they play a role so important they should be incorporated into strategies for conserving freshwater fisheries.

In his first peer-reviewed paper as sole author, Niall Clancy, 22, said that native fish populations continue to decline around the world despite advances in management practices. Therefore, fisheries managers might want to add new approaches to the old.

Clancy is a 2017 graduate from the Department of Ecology in MSU's College of Letters and Science. His paper, “Can Amphibians Help Conserve Native Fishes?” was published in Fisheries, a monthly journal of the American Fisheries Society, the oldest and largest professional society representing fisheries scientists.

"A complementary suite of techniques and approaches is needed if management is to prevent further losses," Clancy said. "One such complementary approach is the preservation of organisms that maintain ecosystem processes and functions."

Amphibians -- those cold blooded creatures that need both land and water to complete their lifecycles -- are such organisms, Clancy said.

Wildlife biologists tend to overlook amphibians because they aren't fully terrestrial, Clancy said. Fisheries experts do the same because amphibians aren't fully aquatic. But in many flowing and standing waters, young frogs, toads and salamanders are the dominant vertebrates. They change water chemistry, redistribute nutrients and alter the habitat for fish and other aquatic organisms.

Clancy noted that the amphibians in his study can be both predator and prey. Bullfrogs eat young fish and fish eggs, for example. Fish eat tadpoles. Salamanders tend to be carnivores, while tadpoles are generally herbivores. Both affect their environment, but in different ways.


The actions of freshwater fisheries managers would be most effective where amphibian populations abound, Clancy said. To preserve or boost those populations, he suggested that managers remove invasive fish from lakes and streams and stop stocking hatchery fish in lakes that don't normally contain fish. Additionally, they could record the types and numbers of amphibians they encounter while conducting fieldwork.

When land is involved, fisheries managers might take on an advisory role, Clancy said. They could suggest limiting human activity where amphibians live in large numbers. They might encourage riparian buffer zones, the reduction of pesticide application near water, and maintaining or improving microhabitats that are important to amphibians. Among those microhabitats are rotting logs, leaves, dense tree stands and wetlands.

"Fisheries management plans that incorporate amphibians will likely be beneficial for much of the aquatic community," Clancy said.

His paper focused on two categories of amphibians -- one being toads and frogs and the other being salamanders. A third group, called Caecilians, is not found in North America, Clancy said. Caecilians are wormlike amphibians that live mostly underground in the wet tropical regions of South and Central America, Africa and southern Asia.

Clancy said his exposure to amphibians, fish and research came early.

His father, Chris, is a longtime fisheries biologist for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, so Clancy and his sister often accompanied him when he was conducting fieldwork around the state.  Chris Clancy still remembers them joining him several years in a row when he was electrofishing Camp Creek near Sula.

"They were too young to help, but they captured frogs and toads that they put in buckets of water," he said. "After showing them to us, they always let them go."

As a high school student and summer intern at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories (National Institutes of Health) in Hamilton, Clancy co-authored a paper on the stability of a tick-borne group of viruses in milk. Flaviviruses, as the group is called, include the West Nile, Zika and yellow fever viruses.
While attending MSU, Clancy's mentors were MSU ecologists Wyatt Cross and Andrea Litt. He also worked as a freshwater ecology technician in MSU's Department of Ecology, where he assisted graduate students with their fieldwork and lab analysis.

"When I first met Niall, it was clear that he was bright, motivated and passionate about freshwater resources in Montana," Cross said. "His accomplishments over the past few years -- and contributions to my lab group -- have been really impressive. Niall has a penchant for asking good questions and pursuing his interests."

After graduating in May, Clancy spent the summer in Miles City where he worked as a native species fisheries technician for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Now waiting to enter graduate school in January at Utah State University, he is working as a teaching assistant in MSU's Department of Ecology.

Clancy said his paper in Fisheries was a couple of years in the making. He noted that he had plenty of help from MSU researchers and his father, the fisheries biologist.

"I am impressed with the paper Niall wrote because he researched how amphibian populations may affect fish populations," said the elder Clancy. "Many papers have been written about the opposite scenario. He is a creative thinker, asks questions from an alternative viewpoint and is very interested in under-studied organisms."

Cross emphasized that "This publication was Niall's idea and completely self-motivated. We certainly helped to guide him along the way, but he deserves all the credit for this milestone. Niall no doubt has a long and productive career ahead of him."

Montana State University’s Steer-A-Year program is seeking steer donations for the 2017-18 academic year. The donated steers will allow agriculture students to gain hands-on learning experience in all aspects of the beef industry, from anatomy to production.

Throughout the academic year, students in the Steer-A-Year program provide daily care for steers that Montana ranchers have donated to the university. The steers are then sold in the spring, and profits from the sales fund student activities in MSU’s College of Agriculture.

Additionally, the steers are used as a co-curricular complement to introductory coursework taught by Hannah DelCurto, instructor and program manager of MSU’s Steer-A-Year program. DelCurto uses the donated steers to provide her students with applied learning experiences in courses in the Department of Animal and Range Sciences, such as beef cattle management, professional development in beef production systems, livestock management, and meat science and livestock evaluation.

The donated steers are also used for instruction for MSU’s livestock judging team and animal science internships, which DelCurto coordinates.


Approximately 22 students from various backgrounds and majors in agricultural studies are enrolled this year in the Steer-A-Year course, according to DelCurto. Last year, MSU Culinary Services purchased 13,000 pounds of beef from the Steer-A-Year program, which will be served in MSU’s Miller Dining Commons and at other university events this year.

“We received wonderful industry support, and we’re excited about the growth and trajectory of our program,” DelCurto said. “The practical learning experiences these students glean from the program is priceless because the program represents agriculture from the technical scientific foundations all the way to the consumption. It’s a very unique and enriching program for students.”

The steers live at MSU’s Bozeman Agricultural Research and Teaching, or BART, farm, and students are responsible for everything from feeding the animals to health checks to vaccinations. Students provide steer production data – average daily weight gain, carcass information when the meat is harvested and even genetic testing – to the ranchers who donated them, DelCurto said. Throughout the program, producers receive detailed monthly reports of average daily intakes, feed efficiency and average daily gain. At the end of the program, students provide a detailed carcass report. Students also post steer progress on Facebook at Steer-a-Year at MSU. At the end of the year, awards are presented to steer donors for the best initial feeder steer, the steer with the top rate of gain and best carcass.

DelCurto said Steer-A-Year students learn valuable marketing and communications skills, in addition to technical animal science, all in preparation for the spring steer sale. Funds from the sale of the steers and donations to the program allow students to travel and compete at national level and attend statewide events, such as the Montana Farm Bureau Convention and the Montana Stockgrowers Association meetings. Donated steers directly impact students, particularly those on the livestock judging team.

“The funds allow judging team members to compete nationally and learn the importance of professionally representing Montana and MSU,” she said. “One of the main goals of the program is to provide opportunities for students to develop confidence in environments outside of the classroom.”
Patrick Hatfield, head of MSU’s Department of Animal and Range Sciences, said the program provides a critical link between current agribusiness practice and the classroom.
“Hannah has a done a wonderful job in her few years as our Steer-A-Year and livestock judging leader, and we’re excited to watch the program grow at MSU,” Hatfield said. “We’re thankful to our supporters and producers who also see value in connecting production agriculture to the classroom for MSU students.”

Contributions to the program can be made in the form of a live steer, cash, proceeds from an auction market sale, and gifts of feed, grain or forage. All donations are considered charitable contributions.

Steers will be accepted between Oct. 30and Nov. 17. Ideally, steers should weigh 500-800 pounds, be weaned and healthy and healed from castration and dehorning before arriving at MSU. Transportation and brand inspection paperwork is requested as well.  

For more information about the Steer-A-Year program, including how to donate a steer or transportation support for steer donation, contact DelCurto at 406-994-3752 or hannah.delcurto@montana.edu.