NAME Wicket OCCUPATION Scat detection dog AGE 3 HOBBIES Playing with balls, chasing the stream from a hose Go to work,” Aimee Hurt calls. It’s a cool August afternoon in Montana’s Blackfoot Valley. Dressed in an orange vest and bear bells, Wicket begins sweeping across the trail, running in wide arcs, jumping downed trees, traveling […]
Politics
Posted inNovember 12, 2007: L.A. Bets on the Farm
Tractor politicking
Dennis McDonald pulls Montana to the left
Posted inOctober 1, 2007: Sheep v. Sheep
Spinner of yarns, maker of floats
Name: Black George Simmons Occupation: Volunteer ranger at the White Grass Ranger Station in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming Unofficial duties: Making root beer floats for hikers, tallying mouse deaths, publishing The White Grass Morning Report newsletter Business White Grass Dating – For Ladies: “The Alice’s Restaurant of the Dating Services” Claim to fame: Chief […]
Posted inSeptember 17, 2007: Facing the yuck factor
He loves nature. And dams.
NAME Paul Ostapuk AGE 50 HOME BASE Page, Arizona VOCATION Engineer and meteorologist at the Navajo Generating Station, part of the Salt River Project NOTED FOR what he does when not paying the bills. Ostapuk is the Arizona director of the Old Spanish Trail Association, a member of the Glen Canyon Natural History Association and – […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2007: A Climate Change Solution?
Clean energy activist reflects on corporate influence in New Mexico legislation
NAME: Ben Luce AGE: 44 Resume: Ten years at Los Alamos National Laboratory working on nonlinear dynamics; co-founder and former director of the New Mexico Coalition for Clean Affordable Energy; founder, Break The Grip. Minimum number of Task Force seats Governor Richardson appointed him to: Five (all relating to energy.) Minimum number of harmonicas carried […]
Posted inWotr
It’s time to break the silence on the Iraq War
Forty years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. famously said: “A time comes when silence is betrayal. And that time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.” King’s opposition to the war in Asia was immediately denounced as “demagogic slander” by Time magazine. But others also spoke out. George W. Ball, undersecretary of State, told […]
Posted inAugust 20, 2007: Bonfire of the Superweeds
Sculpting a reason to love the wind
NAME Gary Bates AGE 61 HOMETOWN Amsterdam, Montana OCCUPATION Sculptor, former farmboy KNOWN FOR Creating huge kinetic sculptures SAYS “I don’t know if these pieces are going to work. I hope they are. But you never know for sure.” WHAT THE HECK DOES “KETCHERSCHMITT” MEAN, ANYWAY? It’s a made-up word combining “catcher’s mitt” and “Messerschmitt” […]
Posted inAugust 6, 2007: Guns R Us
Pony up
When it comes to fund raising, Mitt Romney is the West’s presidential candidate
Posted inAugust 6, 2007: Guns R Us
Changing the world, one car at a time
NAME Greg Rock VOCATION Inventor, owner and co-founder of the Green Car Company FAVORITE BEER Red Hook HE SAYS “If we go the green route, I think the world will follow us. If we don’t, hopefully the world won’t!” WHAT HE’S READING NOW The International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook When he speaks about […]
Posted inJuly 23, 2007: Hydrogen Highway Revisited
Throwing raptors into flight
NAME: Rob Domenech VOCATION: founder and lead biologist for Raptor View Research Institute HOME BASE: Missoula, Montana KNOWN FOR: banding more golden eagles in the U.S. than all other banding stations combined SPARE-TIME SPORT: grappling jujitsu On an exposed ridge in Montana’s Helena National Forest, high on the blustery Rocky Mountain Front, Rob Domenech recoils […]
Posted inWotr
An EPA staffer fights to the end
Six years into this grand experiment called the Bush-Cheney administration, it’s easy to be blasé about how drastically morale has fallen within the offices of federal agencies. It’s with respect, then, and not flippancy, that I write these words: The political system that destroys the careers and lives of environmentally minded civil servants is about […]
Posted inJune 25, 2007: Predator hunters for the environment
Worth the work
NAME: Jeremias Pink AGE: 24 VOCATION: Graphic designer, nonprofit organizer, bicycle mechanic HOME BASE: Pocatello, Idaho KNOWN FOR: Giving away bicycles HE’S READING: Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man: A Study in Terror and Healing by anthropologist Michael Taussig FAVORITE FOOD: “I eat what I’m told.” HE SAYS: “Whether or not we’re accomplishing our mission […]
Posted inJune 11, 2007: Brave New Hay
John Nichols and his 19th miracle
NAME: John Nichols VOCATION: Author of 19 books offiction and nonfiction, including The Milagro Beanfield War, The Sterile Cuckoo, Conjugal Bliss, The Voice of the Butterfly and If Mountains Die. AGE: 66 Thoughts on Death and THE Afterlife “You just die. It’s over, Rover.” Advice: “Part of surviving is not to stress yourself out and […]
Posted inJune 11, 2007: Brave New Hay
UnGuarded
National Guard suffers at home as equipment goes overseas
Posted inMay 28, 2007: Problems In Paradise
Fightin’ against the feds
Name: Mike Noel Vocation: Utah state representative (R-Utah District 73) Day Job: Executive director of the Kane County Water Conservancy District Favorite Foods: “I actually got introduced to sushi with a buddy of mine up at the Legislature. I really like that. I kind of go with all the cooked stuff. I don’t like baby […]
Posted inMay 14, 2007: Two Views of the Verde
Saving the Sierra, tale by tale
NAMES: jesikah maria ross, Catherine Stifter PROJECT: Saving the Sierra: Voices of Conservation in Action RÉSUMÉ EXCERPTS: Stifter: Two Peabody awards for independent radio productions; firefighter, EMT, and water truck driver for North San Juan volunteer fire department; lives off the grid in solar-powered cabin. ross: UNICEF youth radio project in Ethiopia; community media projects […]
Posted inApril 30, 2007: Rural Education 2.0
Tripping over T-Rex
Name: Bob Harmon Hometown: Bozeman, Montana Vocation: Chief preparator of paleontology at the Museum of the Rockies and crew chief Known For: Finding the first dinosaur bones with soft tissue Bob Harmon is not an excitable man. His face isn’t animated as he points out the sauropod leg he is building out of fossils and […]
Posted inApril 16, 2007: Phoenix Falling?
Bay bags his way to the top
NAME: Brian Bay AGE: 23 VOCATION: Front-end grocery store manager and full-time student WORLD CHAMPION: of grocery bagging HOBBIES: Coin collecting. Goes to work with a pocketful of change and trades it out for interesting coins. FAVORITE MOVIES TO QUOTE FROM: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Princess Bride, Three Amigos and Dumb and Dumber One […]
Posted inApril 16, 2007: Phoenix Falling?
Montana puts limits on national Trout Unlimited
One of the great things about living in Montana is state law allowing public access to any stream, no matter whose monster home lies alongside it. But just a few weeks ago, I received an e-mail from Montana Trout Unlimited saying the national group wanted to back away from involvement in any dispute — and […]
Posted inApril 2, 2007: Disposable Workers of the Oil and Gas Fields
Two weeks in the West
“An industry of this size is not something you can just turn on its head in six weeks.” —Colorado Oil and Gas Association Executive Director Greg Schnacke on the rash of oil- and gas-related bills moving through the Colorado General Assembly Sacred trumps sewage: Snowbowl ski area near Flagstaff, Ariz., wants to use treated […]