tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7089086652254774032024-03-10T20:22:41.649-07:00Patchwork Nation: Ronan, MontanaA series of reports produced by the University of Montana School of Journalism for the Patchwork Nation project.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-708908665225477403.post-25097999146552263562010-07-20T08:23:00.000-07:002010-07-20T08:23:47.563-07:00100 Years of White Settlement on Flathead Reservation Marks Uneasy Milestone<b>By Carly Flandro <br />
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On one side of the Ninepipes Museum in Charlo, at the heart of the Flathead Reservation in Northwest Montana, the display is dominated by Indian jewelry, blankets and traditional beaded moccasins. On the other side, it’s a collection of cowboy hats and paintings of white men on horses.<br />
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Indians and settlers have lived side by side on this reservation for 100 years, but at the museum – and in the community – the division between them is still evident.<br />
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This year is the centennial anniversary of the Flathead Indian Reservation being opened to settlers. In 1910, under the Homestead Act, settlers were allowed to claim land that had been set aside for the Kootenai, Salish and Pend d’Oreille tribes. Though the natives and non-natives didn’t share cultures, beliefs or lifestyles, they now share this history – which both groups are striving to preserve and re-tell.<br />
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Bud Cheff is in his mid-70’s, but when he gives a tour of the Ninepipes Museum – which he constructed and financed – he’s like a young boy, starting a new story before the last is finished.<br />
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Cheff, who has spent his life collecting the artifacts, pictures and paintings that fill the museum, walks to a glass case and looks at a shotgun inside. He squints, pointing out notches that have been carved into the gun’s leather handle. Each represents a buffalo killed, he says. Many of the notches have worn away by now, but there used to be more than 30.<br />
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That was in a different time, when wild buffalo roamed Montana from Pablo to Ravalli County, the last free-roaming herd in the country. Those buffalo were eventually captured and sold to Canada to make room for homesteaders, Cheff says.<br />
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“It took ‘em about seven years to catch them all, though,” he says, a small smile growing from the corners of his lips.<br />
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Cheff, who wears cowboy boots and a hat, is white, but grew up learning Indian traditions. His father used to go out with the natives to dig roots, gather herbs and hunt for pine nuts. That background has made Cheff integrate well with natives in the area.<br />
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“I don’t think there are any prejudices here,” he says.<br />
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Ruth Swaney, who’s affiliated with the Salish tribe, doesn’t agree.<br />
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She grew up on the reservation, attending school with white children during the 1970s. One day, in particular, she says she’ll never forget. Her little brother had been growing his hair out so he could braid it. Several boys started harassing him and a teacher came over to see what was happening. When she found out, she violently grabbed Swaney’s brother by the hair.<br />
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“That’s all your long hair is good for,” the teacher said before releasing him.<br />
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Swaney’s also seen prejudiced natives – including her father, a formal tribal chairman. <br />
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“Do you know what the Indian problem is?” he would ask when speaking at different events. “It’s 210 million white people.”<br />
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The crowd would gasp or cheer, depending on who was in it.<br />
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But the disconnect between the reservation’s co-existing races isn’t always so obvious, she says. There are subtle separations, including the physical location of homes. Indians tend to live in government housing, while white people live together in more expensive neighborhoods. The two groups also attend different social events that identify with their cultures. For example, Swaney attends pow-wows, where she doesn’t see many white people.<br />
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These daily divisions and tensions are the aftermath of profound changes; for the native people, 1910 was the year they began to lose their culture, language and land.<br />
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“Changes to our lifestyle occurred so rapidly that the adjustment is still going on today,” she says.<br />
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For her two daughters, it seems the reality of those adjustments was most harsh in their teen years. Both attended Ronan High School, where interaction with white teens was unavoidable.<br />
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Catherine Addison, 22, remembers feeling intimidated and outnumbered by the white students. So, whenever she could, she would hang out with other natives. Though she was a student athlete with a 4.0 GPA, Addison says she was accused of being a “gang member” and restricted from hanging out with more than two or three people at a time.<br />
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Nearby, her 2-year-old daughter plays with some toys. Addison looks at her and says she’s already worried about how she will be treated in high school. She knows her daughter will be smart, outspoken, tall and dark-skinned. It’s sad, Addison says, but those traits make her worry. Her daughter will stand out and be a target for harassment.<br />
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Addison and her sister, Marianne Addison, 25, have learned the painful history of their people from their own reading and from their mother, but it’s not a history they are bitter about.<br />
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“We can look back and be hateful,” Marianne says. “Or we can acknowledge it and be aware of it, and then get better.”<br />
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She and her sister are both mothers, and they too will pass their people’s history to the next generation.<br />
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Many other young people who live in Montana may not have had the opportunity to learn the history of the Flathead Reservation. Julie Cajune, a former educator and tribal member, is trying to make sure they do.<br />
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Cajune recently received a $1.4-million grant to write books and create a film about the history of the Salish and Kootenai tribes, making the information more accessible for Montana teachers and students in particular.<br />
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Natives and non-natives have both been trying, through museums, books, or otherwise, to tell their stories. Usually, they do so separately. This year, however, in acknowledgment of the 100-year anniversary of the homesteading act, the two groups agreed to tell their history together with commemoration events.<br />
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Lois Hart, the president of the Polson Flathead Historical Museum, began planning for the events two years ago, and asked the tribes for their support. They agreed at first, then decided they wanted no part in the commencement. <br />
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“We wanted the unblemished history to be told unfettered once and for all,” says Rob McDonald, the spokesman for the Salish-Kootenai tribes. “But it was not coming together that way, and people were on the verge of being very upset. They were afraid it would turn into the whitewashing of history and become a celebration of the beginning of the tribal holocaust story.”<br />
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Hart has since decided to scale down the event, which she is calling a “Polson Centennial,” acknowledging the creation of the town with the Homestead Act. The centennial will take place through August and was kicked off with a July Fourth parade and ice-cream social.<br />
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“I admit the tone is different than when it was going to be a commemoration,” Hart says. “But I won’t use the word celebration. The lives of the homesteaders were not easy, and a lot of our (historical) programs will be sobering.”<br />
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To McDonald, trying to plan the event together was like filling a room with gunpowder and looking for a way not to start a spark.<br />
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On the Flathead Reservation, it seems history can be volatile.<br />
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Maybe Cheff understood that when setting up the displays in his museum lobby, and knew that – while this hundred-year history is best told under one roof – it still needs to be told from opposite sides of the room.Lee Banvillehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13520335354866234605noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-708908665225477403.post-64098694763816195852010-06-28T08:18:00.000-07:002010-07-20T08:20:43.337-07:00States, Communities Struggling With Medical Marijuana RegulationsWhether it's the LAPD attempting to close 400 of the city's marijuana dispensaries or Montana adding nearly 20 percent more card-carrying medical marijuana users just last month, states and municipalities are struggling this summer with legislating about medical pot.<br />
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Some 15 states have passed laws that legalize medical marijuana in some form. For most of them, dispensing the drug remained a small and tentative program until October of last year. That was when the Obama administration decided to take a hands-off approach to state operations.<br />
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"It will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with serious illnesses or their caregivers who are complying with state laws on medical marijuana," Attorney General Eric Holder said then, adding all bets were off with trafficking across state "behind claims of compliance with state law to mask activities that are clearly illegal."<br />
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The stance assumed the various state laws were ready to actually regulate the industry. But attitudes and rules vary greatly state-by-state and county-by-county in Patchwork Nation. What has ensued is a flood of new patients and dispensaries, the corresponding complaints against them, a few hurry-up efforts to modify the laws and, in a few isolated cases, violence against marijuana stores.<br />
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<a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/06/states-communities-struggling-with-medical-marijuana-regulations.html">Read more at the PBS NewsHour...</a>Lee Banvillehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13520335354866234605noreply@blogger.com101tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-708908665225477403.post-805077926292819512010-06-14T08:15:00.000-07:002010-07-20T08:18:48.095-07:00In Montana, GOP Looks to Regroup After Primary InfightingAs we get further from last week's primaries and the rush of analysis on races in Nevada, Arkansas and California, there's more to say about what's happening politically at the state level. In Montana, there was only one statewide race for a sole U.S. House seat. The lion's share of candidates ran for state House and Senate seats, sheriff and judgeships.<br />
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In this year of anti-incumbent fervor, more minor races wound up contested, especially on the Republican side of the ticket. Many political commentators in the state chalked these new candidates up to the tea party movement, and some of the more contentious contests did pit more moderate Republican incumbents against harder conservatives.<br />
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In the end, though, it seems Tuesday's primary confirmed a basic truth of politics: People dislike all incumbents except their own. In Montana, only one incumbent lost a seat in the state Legislature, and that first-termer lost to a term-limited state senator who decided to switch houses in Helena. So, where, to paraphrase Bob Dole, is all the voter outrage?<br />
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For a while, it looked like it was out there and centered right in the middle of the Republican Party.<br />
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<a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/06/montana-fights-highlight-national-focus-of-tea-party-voters.html">Read more at the PBS NewsHour...</a>Lee Banvillehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13520335354866234605noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-708908665225477403.post-76453270501570756082010-03-04T15:21:00.000-08:002010-03-04T15:28:58.700-08:00Federal Money Works the Beat in Ronan-- <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">By Carly Flandro; Photos by Rollo Scott</span><br />
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When Troy Rexin got the news, he almost pulled his car over so he could get out and dance along the freeway.<br />
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After being unemployed for a year, the former auto mechanic had finally gotten a job. He would be a police officer – a job he’d always wanted – in Ronan, Mont.<br />
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Now, several months later, Rexin sits in the Ronan police department and scrubs hard at the toe of his black boot, rubbing in the polish with a cloth. It’s a brand new pair of boots, but for the new police officer they’re not shiny enough.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/newshour/tags/ronanpolice/show/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsT9v57EWeyX5wbyZ1WIFDrPXrK-xf-c9Mel0W45ZPdn1flbUwjIXnAjYunJWn2MvE6ay9E3ESwU3XhUKoY_DZkenrsHIoiEOSYBcMTiKU51D8eXRrsJrQyO7wy-j_UZNGMD0_W8rc3vs/s320/4401829811_cdcbacf1d7_b.jpg" /></a></div>Rexin paid for the boots, as well as the black uniform, gun and badge that he’s wearing. Together, they cost him almost $2000. The police department didn’t have the money to pay for his new attire, so Rexin was required to buy it for himself. In fact, the department doesn’t have the budget to pay for Rexin – so it’s relying on a grant from the federal stimulus program to provide his salary.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
Now, the department has six employees to safeguard nearly 2,000 local people.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
“Ronan is getting bigger so the crime rate is increasing,” says James Seymour, the patrolman training Rexin. “It’s a big, big help for us to have an extra person that we don’t have to pay for.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
The Tractor Country community applied for a grant with the U.S. Department of Justice as part of President Obama’s massive economic stimulus programs. The grant will pay Rexin’s salary for three years, and the police department will pay his salary during the fourth year. After that, Rexin’s job security will depend on the department’s budget.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
In the meantime, Rexin is just happy to have a job – an opportunity provided by federal efforts to kick-start an economy that stripped him of his former position at a car garage.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
“I’ve heard stories of how the stimulus isn’t helping, but it’s helped me out a lot,” Rexin says. “This is the first job I’ve ever had where I wake up and want to go to work.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/newshour/tags/ronanpolice/show/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4011/4402597726_f8a4a0b8d3_b.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">On this Friday evening, Rexin and Seymour are working a ten-hour shift from 6 p.m. to 4 a.m. For Seymour, who came two hours early, it will be a 12-hour shift. He came early to finish paperwork, and he did it for free because it needed to be done.<br />
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Ronan policemen are used to volunteering their time. Just a few blocks away, Seymour says, the police chief is spending his weekend night fixing his patrol vehicle.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
“I don’t think of this as a job because that would be something you do every day for a paycheck,” Seymour says. “The people who work here do it because they are dedicated and loyal, and they don’t complain about doing stuff in their off-time.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
Rexin, who has been hunched over his boot while he scrubs it, straightens his back and holds the boot in front of him. He can see his reflection, so he knows it’s shiny enough.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
He puts it on, and the two officers get ready to patrol the town. They step into their SUV and close the doors. It, like the majority of their vehicles, has more than 100,000 miles on it.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
They drive to a parking lot adjacent to Highway 93, which runs through Ronan, and watch for cars that are speeding or violating the law. It’s twenty minutes before a blue van drives by going ten miles over the speed limit.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
“There’s one,” says Seymour, stepping on the gas as they pull out of the parking lot.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
This is the only crime they’ve seen in the last four hours of their shift. It’s been a slow night so far, but it could get busy at any minute.<br />
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Either way, with an extra police officer on hand, they’ll be prepared.</div>Lee Banvillehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13520335354866234605noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-708908665225477403.post-10432352204603506322010-02-15T11:32:00.000-08:002010-02-15T11:33:40.654-08:00"Tea Party" Revolution, Ronan Style-- By Lee Banville<br />
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The goals of the “tea party” movement are much discussed among the punditry – reform the Republican Party, take on President Obama’s healthcare plan, elect Ron Paul president. But for some tea partyers on the Western front of the movement, the mission is clear: Restore the Constitution.<br />
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Here in the “Tractor Country” community of Ronan, Mont., a group known as <a href="http://www.calling-all-conservatives.com/">Calling All Conservatives</a> is ramping up. A monthly meeting on Tuesday brought out more than 300 people.<br />
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Inside the Ronan Community Center, a couple of things are clear – mainly, it’s packed. People mill about tables stacked with books to help you plan for a failure of the electrical grid. There’s a sign-up sheet for the “10th Amendment Working Group” (named for the amendment reserving to the states all rights not explicitly outlined in the Constitution).<br />
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Along the far wall, folding tables crowded with dozens of potluck dishes abut a display selling the book “The Gun Laws of Montana.” The people who’ve come out range from their late 70s to their teens and, although they chat as musicians play acoustic guitar and mandolin, they’re not here just to socialize. They want to talk serious politics and debate constitutional theory.<br />
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<b><a href="http://patchworknation.csmonitor.com/csmstaff/2010/0215/in-montana-tea-party-revolution-begins-with-a-pot-luck/">Read more</a> at the Patchwork Nation site at the Christian Science Monitor.</b>Lee Banvillehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13520335354866234605noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-708908665225477403.post-24545534234888683042010-01-25T10:42:00.000-08:002010-01-25T11:26:01.309-08:00Former Plum Creek Employee Seeks New Beginning-- By Rollo Scott<br /><br />Late last year, <a href="http://ronan.patchworknation.org/2009/11/months-later-mills-closure-weighs-on.html">we reported</a> on how the closure of the Plum Creek mill in Ronan continued to impact the local economy and the mill's former workers. Rollo Scott sat down with one of the workers laid off by the mill closure and what he is doing to support his family and change his career.<br /><br /><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="450" height="533" id="soundslider"><param name="movie" value="http://www-tc.pbs.org/newshour/patchworknation/july-dec09/CraigRiderFINAL/soundslider.swf?size=1&format=xml&embed_width=450&embed_height=533" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="quality" value="high" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="menu" value="false" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#000000" /><embed src="http://www-tc.pbs.org/newshour/patchworknation/july-dec09/CraigRiderFINAL/soundslider.swf?size=1&format=xml&embed_width=450&embed_height=533" quality="high" bgcolor="#000000" width="450" height="533" menu="false" allowScriptAccess="sameDomain" allowFullScreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></object>Lee Banvillehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13520335354866234605noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-708908665225477403.post-54919406579490355942009-12-28T08:59:00.000-08:002009-12-28T09:02:25.408-08:00Ronan Vets Skeptical of Obama's Commitment in Afghanistan-- By Carly Flandro<br /><br />At the VFW in Ronan, Mont., old veterans sit at tables and sip their coffee. An American flag leans against the wall behind them, a symbol of what they've dedicated their lives to. They are talking and visiting, like they do almost every morning. <br /><br />This morning, though, they are talking about Obama. <br /><br />The president recently announced he would send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, a plan that has not been strongly supported throughout the country. Ronan, however, sits in one of two community types that Patchwork Nation found were split over the troop increase. <br /><br />Although "Tractor Country" polls show that as many people support an increase in troops as a decrease, here among Ronan's military members and veterans the overwhelming majority of voices are strongly opposed to Obama's decision.<br /><br />But unlike some opposition based on increased troop levels, these vets say it is his intention to withdraw troops by July 2011 that prompts their disapproval. To them, the so-called "exit strategy" indicates that the president is not dedicated to winning the war.<br /><br />"If you're going to commit people, to expose themselves to die, you ought to try to win and go home," says Ken Wersland, who was in the military for 26 years.<br /><br />As an Air Force bombardier, Wersland spent time in Japan, Vietnam, Germany, Turkey and Spain. Those years, Wersland says, changed his perspective about his country. <br /><br />After being in the military, he's become more politically conservative. Wersland is skeptical of Obama, but says his plan could be worthwhile if it helps Afghanistan to form a stronger infrastructure and provide better education for its citizens. Regardless of what happens, Wersland says it's a soldier's job to obey, not question decisions.<br /><br />"No matter your rank, you have the last two words in every decision: yes sir or yes ma'am. And that's the way it is," he says. "If anybody thinks other than that, they cannot be successful in the military."<br /><br />Dan Hall, another Vietnam veteran, pulls up a chair next to Wersland. Hall fought on the ground, which Wersland says is very different from fighting in the air.<br /><br />"Air war is quiet and impersonal," Wersland says. "You can inflict damage (with a bomb) but you can't hear it go boom or smell it. You're not down there worrying about leeches on your legs or mines in the ground."<br /><br />Those mines have lingered in Hall's memory, especially the one that detonated when a fellow soldier stepped on it. The explosion propelled Hall up and backwards into the air, leaving him with two to three feet of scars and permanent hearing loss. <br /><br />Hall has experienced the gravity of war, and he says that the 30,000 new troops being sent to Afghanistan should go with the intention of winning -- that way, the traumas they'll endure will have had a purpose.<br /><br />"If they go over there, get involved and pull out, it'll be a lot of deaths for nothing," he says. <br /><br />The physical tolls of war are often tragic, but so are the mental tolls, says Bert Todd, a Korean veteran. The suicide rate among service personnel is the highest it's ever been, he says. People are being deployed multiple times, and some have been sent to war five different times.<br /><br />Todd's son, Kyle, is in Iraq on his second deployment. <br /><br />"His mother has nightmares," Todd says. <br /><br />Todd, too, thinks about what could happen to his son. He could come back with serious physical or mental problems, or worse -- he could not come back at all. <br /><br />"But," Todd says, "there's nothing I can do about it."<br /><br />The conversation lightens quickly as Hall talks about drinking dirty water from streams when he was in Vietnam, and Todd takes the excuse to laugh, to think about something else. <br /><br />At her house, Charleen Crenshaw thumbs through a photo album, looking at pictures of her son. He's in the military, and there are pictures of him in uniform, and others of his wife and children. <br /><br />Crenshaw, who wears a t-shirt that says "freedom isn't free," is one of four people in her family who are in the military or have been at some time. She's a human resources specialist, and went to Kuwait in 2006. <br /><br />Crenshaw says she will always obey her commander in chief, but she's concerned about the decisions Obama has made. <br /><br />"Obama's never even been in the military," she says. "It doesn't seem like he has as good of a grasp on what's going on as he should." <br /><br />Crenshaw says the extra troops could be beneficial, though, because they'll supplement the soldiers who are already there and hopefully prevent some deaths by creating a stronger force. <br /><br />But she also knows how those soldiers' absences from home will make a difference. When her son is gone, it's one less place at the dinner table. When her husband is gone, there is less help with the kids. And when she's gone, it means someone else will have to cook and clean. <br /><br />"When a soldier deploys, it's not just him," Crenshaw says. "His family deploys with him, and so does his community."<br /><br />In Ronan, Mont., the military members and veterans know the importance of obeying the commander in chief. But they also know that 30,000 is not just a number -- it is people, families and communities. If all that is going to be further ricked in Afghanistan, they say, they should go until they win.Lee Banvillehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13520335354866234605noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-708908665225477403.post-80114393992633532052009-11-30T09:51:00.000-08:002009-11-30T10:06:30.297-08:00Months Later, Mill's Closure Weighs on Ronan and Its Workers-- By Carly Flandro; Photos by Rollo Scott<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/newshour/4133096294/sizes/l/in/set-72157622795526192/"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 266px; height: 400px;" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2606/4133094688_b1415308b2.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>When the Plum Creek lumber mill closed, the workers hung up their white hard hats for the last time. But they didn’t hang them in their lockers as they had for years. They put them outside on the fence posts that circled the mill, where people could see them. <br /><br />The mill closed four months ago, but dozens of the hard hats still sit atop the wooden fence. They are dirty and scratched, and the Plum Creek logo has worn away on most. On one, the name “Rick” is written in faded red marker. Many are plastered in safety stickers, some dating back to a decade ago. <br /><br />It’s quiet, empty of the logs and people that once crowded its vast lots. Now, only puddles and unused buildings remain. <br /><br />Partly due to competition from Canadian lumber mills, the Pablo, Mont., mill closed after being in business for more than four decades. Approximately 80 people were laid off, forcing some to walk away from the only job they had ever had. <br /><br />However, because foreign imports played a role in the mill’s closure, the workers are eligible for up to three years of free schooling under the government’s Trade Adjustment Assistance program – an opportunity many are seizing. <br /><br />Ellen Kaphammer, who worked at the mill for 21 years, says losing her job was almost like a blessing in disguise. It allowed her to go to nursing school, something she always wanted to do. Kaphammer, 54, has never been to college, so it’ll take her four years to become a registered nurse – she and her husband will pay for the last year. <br /><br />“I always try to make the best out of every situation,” she says. <br /><br />It’s a Saturday afternoon, and Kaphammer has just gotten home from a care clinic in Ronan, where she works as a nursing assistant. She’s still wearing her work clothes – tightly laced tennis shoes and blue flowery scrubs. <br /><br />Kaphammer, who’s taking classes from Salish Kootenai College, would like to find a job close to Ronan when she’s done with school so she and her husband Karl don’t have to move. Whatever job she finds, though, she knows she won’t make as much money or receive as many benefits as she did before. The jobs at the mill were the best in the valley, and everybody knew it. <br /><br />She still remembers the day she found out the mill would close. <br /><br />“The bosses called a mandatory meeting, which is never good,” she says. <br /><br />It was the end of April, months after other lumber mills in the area had closed and the Pablo mill workers thought they were safe. So when managers announced their mill would close, not just temporarily, but forever, the workers were shocked. <br /><br />“You could’ve heard a pin drop,” says Kayo Reynolds, a former electrician at the mill, describing the moment managers announced the closure. <br /><br />He remembers the two months after that, as he and his co-workers tried to motivate themselves, knowing that their work would soon be meaningless.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/newshour/4133087686/sizes/l/in/set-72157622795526192/"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 223px; height: 300px;" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2601/4133087686_b08e1682a5.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>“That was the toughest 60 days of my life,” he said. “We took a lot of pride in what we did.”<br /><br />Unlike Kaphammer, Kayo, 47, is still charting his post-Plum Creek life. He plans on taking online classes in the spring, but he’s not sure yet what he’ll study. In the meantime, he’ll just try to stay busy. <br /><br />The Reynolds live in a white farmhouse outside of town, where cattails are their closest neighbors. Behind the house is a new shed that Kayo built, and freshly chopped firewood is piled on the back stoop. <br /><br />Inside, Kayo’s wife Yvette stirs their supper on the stovetop. Kayo sits at the kitchen table, talking about the remodeling he’s been doing. He’s re-wired and re-plumbed the whole house, and has a list of projects he hasn’t started. <br /><br />Their kitchen window frames a landscape they see every day. The sun shines through gaps in the clouds, illuminating the dark blue of the Mission mountains. Round bales of hay are stacked in the foreground and a single horse stands nearby. <br /><br />Along with the beauty salon that Yvette owns, the Reynolds have a ranch with 25 cows and 20 horses. They wanted to live on a ranch because they thought it would be the best way to raise their kids. Their two sons now work as hired hands in central Montana. <br /><br />“They won’t get rich, but they’ll have a good lifestyle,” Yvette says. <br /><br />And it's that lifestyle he worries he may lose because of the mill's closing. Kayo says he may have to move to a larger city to find work, but he’ll do all he can to avoid that. And while he’s without a job, he thinks they’ll be okay, as long as Yvette keeps cutting hair and he can sell a cow or two. <br /><br />“We’re just gonna try to hold ‘er together and see what happens,” he said. <br /><br />Kayo isn’t so much worried about himself as he is about some of his co-workers, especially the younger ones. They’re the ones that needed their jobs the most, the ones who still have mortgages to pay and kids to feed. <br /><br />Then there are the older workers who were laid off soon before they would have retired. Now they must decide if they will retire early or learn new skills for a job they’d only have for a few years.<br /><br />In more rural parts of the country, the economic recession that has driven unemployment into double digits has not hit as hard. But that is cold comfort for Lake County, Mont. where the unemployment rate has climbed from 5.5 percent in April of 2008 to 8.3 percent in September of this year. And in these smaller communities, a closure like Plum Creek ripples throughout the area.<br /><br />The mill used to pay $300,000 a month for the electric bill, money that will now be lost. The schools and the state will also lose the tax money the mill brought in. Some people will inevitably have to move from Ronan to find jobs, or travel a good distance to work. <br /><br />There’s still gossip around town that somebody’s going to buy the mill and start it up again, but that possibility seems more like a desperate hope than a likelihood. <br /><br />Most have turned their hopes to school, but even so, they wonder if a degree will be of any help in getting them a job. Until then, they’ll live off the half-paychecks that unemployment brings them, studying, searching for jobs, and biding time. <br /><br />And every now and then, when they drive from Ronan to Pablo, they’ll pass by the old mill and marvel at how still it is. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/newshour/4133169770/sizes/l/in/set-72157622795526192/"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 170px;" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2553/4133172006_16a22404dd.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Kayo used to drive by and see lights out and know he’d have to go make them work again. The mill is almost completely dark now, and when Kayo drives by, he knows he can’t fix it. <br /><br />The mill’s mint green and faded white buildings stand alone on empty dirt fields. There are no bustling people, no logs and no jobs. <br /><br />All that’s left is a row of abandoned white hard hats.Lee Banvillehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13520335354866234605noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-708908665225477403.post-4070038859366988072009-11-12T13:18:00.000-08:002009-11-13T08:21:28.997-08:00A Town at a Turning Point<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2623/4099715962_4d8d5e6627_b.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 500px; height: 356px;" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2623/4099715962_4d8d5e6627.jpg" border="0" alt="The Lake Flour Mill; Photo By Rollo Scott" /></a><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size:16pt;">T</span></b>he Lake Flour Mill stands tall, reaching the tops of the telephone wires. Its original coat of white paint is worn, fading into the splintery boards. Pigeons fly to a hole in the roof, away, and back again. A metal panel screeches as it flaps in the wind.<br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">On the weather-beaten side, the company’s name can still be made out<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">. </i>Its newer incarnation, Westland Seed, stands a few hundred feet behind it, a squat, white paneled building.<br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">In Ronan, Mont., the contrast between past and present is distinct.<br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">“Ronan as an agricultural center is slowly going away,” says Kim Aipperspach, the town’s mayor. “At one time we were a tractor town, but we’re not a tractor town compared to the rest of Montana.”<br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Aipperspach, whose first name is stitched in cursive letters on his blue-striped work shirt, also owns Arnie’s Car & Tire. He sits on the edge of his chair and leans forward as he talks about his community.<br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Ronan, he says, is a place for the average working Joe. It’s a small town, where just a hair under 2,000 people live. It once centered around farming and ranching, but even though it’s statistically still the heart of Patchwork Nation’s “Tractor Country,” its focal point is shifting.<br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2513/4099550004_485510495e_b.jpg"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2513/4099550004_485510495e_m.jpg" border="0" alt="Main Street Ronan; Photo By Rollo Scott" style="float: right; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 184px; " /></a><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size:16pt;">D</span></b>ark clouds hide the peaks of the Mission Mountains. Below them, Ronan’s two busy streets intersect at a T.<br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">They’re both main streets, one of them because that’s its name and the other, Highway 93, because that’s where the traffic is. They used to be one and the same until the highway was relocated, demoting Main Street into a limb of the central thoroughfare.<br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Now, many businesses have migrated to the busier highway, leaving empty buildings behind. It worries some people who don’t want to see the original Main Street fade.<br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">But Aipperspach says the street hasn’t disappeared, it’s just accommodated change and moved to where the people are.<br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size:16pt;">A</span></b>round Ronan, people shake their heads about the lumber mill that closed last summer, eliminating some 100 jobs. They talk about the Wal-Mart 20 miles up the road and what it’s done to the local economy. They speculate about the town’s newly remodeled hospital and how it will impact their hometown.<br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">At<span style="font-size:16pt;"> </span>the end of Main Street, the St. Luke Community Hospital is different from every other building in Ronan. It’s new, it’s modern, and to the people who live here, it’s colossal. It’s the largest private employer in Lake County, Aipperspach says, and the biggest hospital in the valley.<br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">But for all the talk of new businesses and hospitals, David Sagmiller, the owner of Westland Feed, still sees the farms and ranches that surround Ronan as the foundation of the entire Mission Valley’s economy. The valley, which stretches north from Missoula, Mont., toward Flathead Lake and Glacier National Park, is known as one of the best seed potato areas in the state, and eight potato seed farmers live near Ronan.<br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">“The community relies on agriculture,” he says. “The hospital would never get the community to survive. You can’t live off that.”<br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Rich Janssen, sitting sideways in a booth at the Ronan Café, agrees that agriculture is an important part of the community. However, the dynamics have changed.<br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">“There’s a lot of government and school workers here, too,” he says. “It’s a blue-collar town with a little white collar mixed in.”<br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Janssen, whose friends describe him as “Mr. Ronan,” is an active member of the community. Among other duties, he serves on the hospital’s board of directors and coaches the high school’s junior varsity basketball team.<br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Janssen grew up in Ronan, and remembers seeing more farms and ranches as a kid. He remembers dozens of kids in high school joining the Future Farmers of America club, and now the program struggles to maintain four or five members.<br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size:16pt;">“R</span></b>ONAN,” the large wooden sign arches over Main Street, announcing the place to those who venture off Highway 93. Above that, in small letters, is “Spring Waters.”<br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Ronan is at the heart of the Flathead Indian Reservation, where the Kottenai tribe know it as Spring Waters. Janssen, a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, says that the white and Indian people who live here are now learning to tolerate each other.<br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">“There are still isolated instances of prejudices,” he says, “but I just can’t see not liking someone because of their skin color.”<br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">His community has a history of racial tension, but time is beginning to change that, he says.<br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size:16pt;">I</span></b>nside the café, most people know each other by their first names. Customers look toward the door as people walk in, waving to those they know.<br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Outside, dry, crinkly leaves blow across the street. A man passes two people he’s never met, but still looks up and gives a “Hullo.”<br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Ronan is that kind of place. It’s small town, Montana, and it’s still taking shape.<br /></div>Carly Flandrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01434589236816287950noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-708908665225477403.post-33065489590127299952009-07-07T10:07:00.000-07:002009-07-07T10:19:12.641-07:00A Snapshot of a PlaceAs part of the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/patchworknation/">Patchwork Nation </a>project, the University of Montana Journalism School will be reporting from Ronan, MT over the coming months about how this place sees the economy, politics and culture of America.<br /><br />But what kind of place if Ronan? To adopt the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words, we thought we would let the users of Flickr introduce you to sights of Ronan, a small town nestled on the edge of the Mission Mountains where many of its 1,800 inhabitants make their living from the land.<br /><br />These photos are tagged Ronan and Montana on Flickr.<br /><br /><object width="475" height="356"> <param name="flashvars" value="offsite=true&lang=en-us&page_show_url=%2Fsearch%2Fshow%2F%3Fq%3Dronan%252C%2Bmontana&page_show_back_url=%2Fsearch%2F%3Fq%3Dronan%252C%2Bmontana&method=flickr.photos.search&api_params_str=&api_text=ronan%2C+montana&api_tag_mode=bool&api_sort=relevance&jump_to=&start_index=0"></param> <param name="movie" value="http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=71649"></param> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=71649" allowFullScreen="true" flashvars="offsite=true&lang=en-us&page_show_url=%2Fsearch%2Fshow%2F%3Fq%3Dronan%252C%2Bmontana&page_show_back_url=%2Fsearch%2F%3Fq%3Dronan%252C%2Bmontana&method=flickr.photos.search&api_params_str=&api_text=ronan%2C+montana&api_tag_mode=bool&api_sort=relevance&jump_to=&start_index=0" width="475" height="356"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com11