Mental illness is a worldwide epidemic that does not discriminate against anyone whose path it crosses. It could be seen as the high school student battling depression who feels that the only way to be heard is to search for his/her parent’s firearm. It could be the anxiety stricken neighbor who has been considering suicide for the past year. Or even your best friend, who is afraid that you will look at them differently if they tell you that they have been sad for a long time.

National debates continue to grow in regards to the public safety of children and adolescents within schools amidst the tragedy of shootings in Aurora, CO and Sandy Hook Elementary school. Not to mention the 13 school shootings that have ensued within the first 6 weeks of 2014.

The question is, what is actually being done to address this growing epidemic?

We need to take this opportunity to educate ourselves on an important piece of legislation that is being considered in Congress as we speak. It is called H.R. 320- Student Support Act.

The Student Support Act is a revision of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. The Bill states that if passed into law the Secretary of Education will match grants of up to $1 million for the additional hiring of school social workers, school counselors, and school psychologists across the nation. The purpose of the addition is solely to aide in the support and wellbeing of children and adolescents suffering with a multitude of mental health issues. Across the nation, the current average caseload of children to support staff is 471 to 1. If passed, the additional funding will cut the insufficient ratio by nearly half.

The Surgeon General of Public Health and Human Services has found that one in every ten children in the United States is suffering with a mental illness. Of that, only one in three are receive the treatment needed to help them succeed. The National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI) suggests that one half of chronic mental illness begins by the age of 14.

Some would argue that the passage of this Bill would be costly on taxpayers, however the American Medical Association found that with the rise of individuals with mental health concerns from 1996 to 2006, the projected cost of care went from $35 billion to $58 billion. If that trend continues, it will cost American’s $81 billion in 2016 to fund the treatment of mental health disorders as opposed to the $1 million to aide it its recovery.

We sit in front of our televisions at night hearing about the latest school shootings and feel such sorrow for those who have been affected. We discuss it almost as if it has become a normal occurrence in our society as we stride along throughout our day. We hear the latest reports as the days pass, hoping that events so horrendous never happen to the 22,393 K-12 students who reside within Gallatin County.

But how do we know it won’t? How do we know that our schools are sufficiently staffed with those who have been trained to work with student’s anger, frustrations, and anxieties?

Now that you know what mental illness looks like, what resources could be available, and how much we would be saving in long run, I encourage you to act.

Timing is everything and the time to act on behalf of our Montana children and adolescents is now.

The month of May begins Mental Health Awareness Month. I encourage you to learn one new thing about mental illness and pass it along to just one person. Pass along the fact that NAMI-Bozeman holds a connection support group every month. For more info call Alicia at (406) 600-8102 or (406) 994-9134. Or become an advocate for the importance of this issue by taking 5 minutes out of your day to contact our Montana Representatives and tell them that you are in support of H.R. 320. Follow this link to find our state Representatives and Senators contact information. If you or someone you know is suffering in silence with a mental health disorder, know that you are not alone. There are fellow community members that care and want to help.

Interchange is a festival inspired by a series of chaos and imperfect moments. We all have closets, stories and social trauma. The profiled, the homeless, veterans, rape victims, being gay/transgendered, being bullied or telling someone you may die. We all have it. It’s the alternative to pushing away for fear of un acceptance. This year our topics include Racism, Human Trafficking, Women’s Rights, Homelessness, Veterans and the LGBT movement. This June 25-29, we’ll feature a Film Festival, Leadership Summit, The Remix Runway Show, Parade, Garden Party and Concerts featuring Paul Oakenfold, People Under The Stairs and more!
 
Check out our Kickstarter campaign “Planet Of Misfits”: This is a social investment and we risk the wages of obsession. Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and acknowledging that our greatest fear is what we desire most.  Like a kaleidoscope, we find the wonderfully complex grey area and smother ourselves in it.  The wallflowers. If we invest in social experience and develop empathy into our leaders, into everyone, we all learn, we all win. www.iaminterchange.com/kickstarter

The Sewing Academy On The Road is a traveling series of workshops on 19^th century dressmaking and Living History research & interpretation techniques.  These workshops will cover a variety of wardrobe construction techniques, demonstrations and hands-on instruction as well as take home materials. You may take one session or take them all. Please visit http://www.thesewingacademy.com/workshops/1890smt/ to register for workshop sessions.

Registration deadline is May 1, 2014.  MOR Living History Farm volunteers receive a discounted fee for this program.

Submissions are due Friday, April 25, for the third annual World Championship Belt Buckle Competitionhosted by the Montana State University School of Art.
 
Bryan Petersen, professor in the MSU School of Art and organizer of the online competition of wearable, one-of-a-kind wearable examples of handcrafted art in a belt buckle format, said that Daniel Icaza of Costa Rica, champion of last year’s contest, will visit the MSU School of Art Metalsmithing Department to co-jury the competition and speak with art students. Peterson will also co-judge the competition,
 
Petersen said the World Championship Belt Buckle Competition has grown in popularity and created a venue for buckle makers and artists working in contemporary art in the buckle format from throughout the world.
 
The competition has managed to sustain itself financially and create a visiting artist fund for the MSU Metalsmithing Department, Peterson said. For instance, the contest has allowed MSU’s student-run guild to hire Icaza to teach a technical workshop on a Japanese metalsmithing technique, called Mokume-Gane, in which layers of copper and brass are forge welded into a laminated billet and then patterned with either concentric circles or a linear patterns.  Icaza used the technique in his 2013 winning buckle entry, “Space Cowboy.”
 
The winner of this year’s contest will receive a belt buckle made by John Winston of Bunnell, Fla., who was runner-up in the 2013 competition. Winston has made pirate-themed belt buckles collected by such people as Johnny Depp, Jerry Bruckheimer and Steven Segal, and will be contributing a buckle in his renowned pirate style to the competition.
 
“Winston explains the significance of the buckle to pirates describing how they were some of the first to create and wear buckles, taking a cinch strap from a horse and fashioning a large brass buckle,” Petersen said.
 
For more information about the contest, go to www.worldchampionbuckle.com or www.facebook.com/worldchampbuckle.
 
 

Registration is now open for Montana State University’s Peaks and Potentials program, a weeklong enrichment camp offered June 15-20 on the MSU campus.

Peaks and Potentials is designed to give high-ability/high-potential students entering grades 5-7 next fall the opportunity to explore special topics of interest and work with experts in various subject areas. A signature from an appropriate school official is necessary for the student's acceptance.

Sessions for this summer's camp include a variety of topics in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) as well as the arts and humanities, including jewelry making, honeybee investigation, world music, nutrition, water science, renewable energy and more. Evening activities include swimming, volleyball, soccer and others.

Students have the option of staying on campus or commuting to and from camp each day. Enrollment is limited, and the camp generally fills to capacity. Registrations are available online at: http://eu.montana.edu/peaks/, or in the MSU Office of Continuing Education, 200 Culbertson Hall.

Instructors are MSU faculty, graduate students and experienced professionals from the area. University students and professionals act as directors and counselors throughout the week. All classes emphasize personal instruction and small group interaction as well as a “hands-on” approach. Academic, recreational and social activities offer students a chance to interact with their peers and sample campus life.

The camp is sponsored by MSU Extended University. For more information, contact MSU Extended University at ContinuingEd@montana.edu or (406) 994-6683.

Montana State University offers several online summer credit courses for open enrollment. Courses are offered in many disciplines, including writing, astronomy, photography and other fields.

Courses include “History of Yellowstone,” HSTA468; “College Writing,” WRIT101; “Evolution and Public Opinion,” LS491; “Introduction to Astronomy – Mysteries of the Sky,” ASTR110; and “Exploring Digital Photography,” PHOT154.
Most courses begin May 12.

The courses are open to anyone interested in the topics. These particular courses also apply toward MSU's online bachelor's degree completion program. This flexible program helps students with an associate’s degree or 60 or more college credits complete a bachelor’s degree in Liberal Studies from Montana State University Online.

To register or read the full course descriptions, visit MSU’s Extended University at http://eu.montana.edu/credit/. For information about the bachelor's degree completion program, contact Sarah Hendrikx at (406) 994-7441 or sarah.hendrikx@montana.edu or visit http://eu.montana.edu/online/degrees/completion/.

Montana State University Extension in Gallatin County will host a plant clinic in their office in Belgrade on Wednesdays during the growing season. The weekly clinic will run April 16 – Oct. 1, from 1-4 p.m. at 201 W. Madison Ave., Suite 300, Belgrade.

Level 3 Master Gardeners will staff the plant clinic with assistance from Emily Lockard, Gallatin County agriculture agent, and Dara Palmer, assistant coordinator for Master Gardener.

Questions will be answered through phone calls and walk-ins from the public. The public is encouraged to bring plant samples for identification or disease diagnosis. Yard and garden insect samples can also be brought for identification. Plant and insect samples can be dropped off at the Extension office during their normal business hours, but yard and gardening questions will be answered during the Wednesday clinic hours. The public can call (406) 388-3213 to have questions answered and to request yard and gardening information.

If you would like to learn more about Gallatin County MSU Extension visit www.gallatinextension.com.

The Artists’ Gallery in Bozeman’s Emerson Cultural Center will be featuring the art of Carmen Stanislao and Marci Surratt during the month of May.
 
Stanislao will show her bronze sculptures, watercolors, acrylics, oil paintings and a few of her specially commissioned pieces. Her bronzes capture much of Montana’s wildlife in its natural surroundings from big game animals to trout in a stream. Working with the combination of texture, pliability and patina give her the versatility she seeks to show in the variety of her designs.
 
Surratt displays her fondness for farm life through her rich oil paintings. She works out of her “Yellow Barn Studio” west of Bozeman where she is continually inspired by the sunsets, wildlife and the daily life happening in the barnyard. She finds the play of shadows and sunlight as intensely challenging as painting moving animals and has learned to work fast to capture the mood of the story, the true colors and direction of the light.
 
The May show runs from April 28th through May 26th with an Artwalk on the evening of Friday, May 9th.  Come to the Artists’ Gallery between 5-8 pm during the Artwalk to meet these Featured Artists and share a glass of wine while checking out the variety of art at the gallery.

A Montana State University senior who investigated the revitalization of tribal languages in Montana will present his research April 29 on Capitol Hill.

Michael Fast Buffalo Horse of Browning, a member of the Blackfeet Nation, was one of 60 students across the country selected by the Council for Undergraduate Research to participate in the annual “Posters on the Hill” celebration. One of more than 800 who applied, he will display a poster about his research and explain his findings to U.S. senators, representatives and others who stop by to visit.

“Languages are dying at an alarming rate, and the languages spoken by the Native American tribes in the United States are especially vulnerable. Of the 300-plus languages that were spoken on this continent before European contact, only half remain,” Fast Buffalo Horse wrote in a project summary. “The tribal languages of Montana’s Indigenous nations were harshly suppressed historically through restrictive governmental policies, cultural prejudices and forced assimilation.”

To conduct his research, Fast Buffalo Horse examined the historical reasons that the languages became endangered and why preserving them is such a daunting task. He also interviewed tribal educators and visited Montana reservations so he could present the human side of tribal language revitalization and maintenance. His mentor on the project was Jioanna Carjuzaa, associate professor of education, long-time researcher of indigenous languages and recent recipient of one of the nation’s top awards for commitment to and excellence in multicultural education – the G. Pritchy Smith Multicultural Educator of the Year Award.

“These languages are vital to the continued existence of these peoples, their cultures and the unique perspectives that they can offer to the rest of the world,” Fast Buffalo Horse said. “… It is our hope that our research can offer a more complete look at Montana’s tribal history in the face of a rapidly changing future.”

Carjuzaa nominated Fast Buffalo Horse for the opportunity to present his research in Washington, D.C., and will accompany him to the nation’s capital.

“I thought he had a good chance of being selected, so I recommended him,” she said.
Fast Buffalo Horse, who is majoring in secondary education, is one of MSU’s McNair Scholars. As such, he participates in the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Education and designed to prepare first generation, low-income and underrepresented undergraduate students for success in graduate school. Fast Buffalo Horse is also a pow wow dancer who specializes in the traditional Blackfeet Chicken Dance. He recently danced in the 39th annual American Indian Council Pow Wow at MSU.
After graduating from MSU this fall, Fast Buffalo Horse said he plans to pursue a doctorate in history or education with the ultimate goal of becoming a faculty member in higher education.

While in Washington, D.C, Fast Buffalo Horse and Carjuzaa will participate in a meeting at the White House and a private tour of the National Museum of American Indians. The White House meeting was arranged with Bill Mendoza, an MSU alumnus who was mentored by Carjuzaa. Mendoza is the executive director of the White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education.

The Western Society of Crop Science will hold its next annual meeting July 8-9 at Montana State University in Bozeman.

The two-day WSCS meeting will be held at MSU’s Brick Breeden Fieldhouse and will feature presentations from professionals, as well as students working in crop science.

The theme of the meeting will be “Grand Challenges - Great Solutions” and attendees are encouraged to present a paper or poster around the theme. Abstract submission is open through May 1.

WSCS will also present the A.K. Dobrenz Student Paper Awards, earning a cash award for the three best student oral presentations. The 2014 student winners receive $200, $150 and $100 for first-, second- and third-place papers, respectively. The first-place winner also receives a $500 travel stipend to attend the Crop Science Society of America annual conference. Graduate students may also present a poster, however there will be no poster competition.

Visit the WSCS website, https://www.crops.org/membership/branches/wscs, for additional details as they become available for the program, registration, important deadlines and accommodations.