596 May 2010

it’ sf re e!

• Where to eat on the street • The wide world of water shoes • Making more room in your home

[596] life in the helena area

artoutlook local artists draw inspiration from helena’s small-town atmosphere

A Great Place to Be...

Great Northern Town Center

Randy Rickman publisher Butch Larcombe editor Sheila Habeck art director Eliza Wiley photo editor Jim Rickman advertising manager Shawna Swanz special projects manager contributors Dylan Brown

Honey, Seriously?!

Is this the biggest fork we have?

EEYOW! $%#*&!

There! Are you happy? I now have no hair on the back of my fingers!

This grill is so hot i'm going to end up burning my--

In that case, Byron TURNEve AROUND AND John SEE iF Doran iT’ll WORK ON YOUR Martin J.TOO. Kidston BACK

Marga Lincoln Alana Listoe Butch Larcombe John Harrington Peggy O’Neill

[contents] editor’s note 6 LAUGHS CHANCE GULCH

food & drink Eat on the Street: Some of Helena’s best takeouts 8 Lewis & Clark Brewing Co. has a new home 12

BY DENNY LESTER

gear Water shoes can go from outdoors to the office 18 homes Add On or Build? Homeowners turn to renovations 46 features Helena Institute organizers looking forward to second year 22 Art Outlook: Profile of four local artists 25 Minstrel Maker: Townsend man crafting beautiful guitars 34 Boot camp class pushes exercisers to the next level 42 Website is a treasure trove of historical Helena images 52 7 reasons why Thomas Jodoin is Helena’s best all-around runner 58 my office Judge Charles Lovell’s office full of personal mementos 60 laughs chance gulch 62

cover photos Daniel Roberts, Fred Haefle, Bob Morgan and Sarah Jaeger photos

by Eliza Wiley.

Margaret Regan photo

by Lisa Kunkel.

A.L. Swanson photo courtesy of Al Swanson.

life in the helena area

[596]

[editor’s note]

L

Life in Helena is unique in many ways. But our community’s appreciation of and connection to the arts separates it from many other cities and towns in Montana and across the country.

With art comes color, form and grace that in some ways parallel the arrival of spring. As we planned for this second issue of 596, a focus on the arts in the Helena area seemed like a logical choice, one in sync with the season and in the interest of residents.

Within these pages, we check in with the folks working to develop the Helena Institute, an initiative aimed at bringing people here to take part in artsrelated activities. While the Institute got off to a slow start last year, there is still plenty of optimism about the program. “Often, great businesses are launched off of mistakes and there’s an incubation period you have to have,” local furniture maker Al Swanson told writer John Harrington. “But the end result is going to be fabulous.”

As part of the artsy package, we also check in with a handful of folks whose work has helped put Helena on the regional art map. The profiles range from ceramic jewelry maker Margaret Regan and writer Fred Haefele to renowned potter Sarah Jaeger and painter Bob Morgan. Writer Jessica Solberg aptly describes Morgan as Helena’s Norman Rockwell in recognition of a body of work that vividly captures the community’s past and present.

John Doran, the editor of the Independent Record, gives us an early-morning, sweat-soaked look at the world of the Boot Camp offered by Crossroads Sports & Fitness Club. “We wanted something intense, that was hard, and that was really going to push people,” says Boot Camp founder Sara Murgel. They succeeded, a fact Doran readily confirmed, once he caught his breath.

In a similar style of inspiration via perspiration, Doran kicks off a new feature, dubbed 7 Reasons Why, by tracking down Thomas Jodoin, one of the region’s most accomplished runners. The local attorney offered Doran a simple explanation for his extraordinary motivation: “I don’t like to be left behind.”

From the sublime to the sweaty, here’s hoping this issue reflects the diversity of life that exists in 596. [!]

Butch Larcombe Editor

photo by eliza wiley

spring/summer 2010

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[food & drink]

eat street on the

helena offers plenty of places to grab a bite on the go

It’s easy to overlook lunch in these days of hyper-efficiency. So often, the noon meal is multi-tasked into the rest of our daily duties.

Instead of taking a break to enjoy a bite of food, we so often hunker down at our desks, dropping bologna sandwich crumbs into our keyboard and greasing up the computer mouse with hydrogenated oil from a bag of chips purchased from the vending machine.

It’s enough to irk the computer tech guys, only they, too, are dining in front of their own computer screens trying to conserve their time so they can fix all the equipment problems caused by the excess of food debris.

So here’s a thought. Get out. Spring is not a time to be walled in.

And there are plenty of places where you can literally “grab a bite to eat.” No utensils required. No waiting for a table. No competition to have your conversation heard over the din of other diners or televised sporting events. u

by peggy o’neill

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This page: David Lyons heads up the hill with a burrito from Taco del Sol, top. Dylan Brown grabs a slice of pizza from Park Avenue Bakery, left. Jeremy Gould exits Coney Island with two hotdogs. Facing page: Paige Esposito hands Peggy O’Neill a sausage, mushroom and spinach crepe through the walking mall window at the Filling Station. Photos by Dylan Brown and Peggy O’Neill

enjoy eat, walk, walk, enjoy eat, eat, walk, enjoy enjoy eat, walk,

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Peggy O’Neill enjoys a panini from Cafe Zuppa on the Trolley Block, left. A gyro from Coney Island.

Once you get your food, take it for a walk. The walking mall is a good place. It’s a mall for, well, walking, and it features a cornucopia of food-on-the-fly options.

First stop, Coney Island. There’s no simpler food than a hot dog.

You get your meat, grain and ketchup servings for the day all packaged together in a neat little cardboard boat. If you’re feeling the need for something more sophisticated, Coney Island has some of the best gyros in town. This comes wrapped in paper, so as not to let

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the lettuce, tomatoes, feta, seasoned meat and tzatziki sauce fall out of the pita. It can be messy, so make sure to grab extra napkins.

If a gyro isn’t sophisticated enough, head down to The Filling Station and pick up a crepe. Choose wisely, as some crepes might require a fork and a place to sit down. A recent crepe special of lamb, roasted potatoes, red pepper, spinach, mushrooms and Swiss cheese held together well for the two blocks it took to eat, and was very delicious.

y

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If you’re looking for a good excuse to check out The Placer, Café Zuppa is a good reason to walk in and walk back out, equipped with a Panini. They have several Panini choices: ham, brie and Dijon mustard; mozzarella, pesto and roasted red pepper; tuna and cheddar and a few others. We walked out with a turkey, roasted red pepper, provolone and pesto Panini and didn’t drop a single crumb on our way to another food-on-the-fly staple.

Taco del Sol makes big burritos. But it’s possible to keep the contents contained while walking at a brisk pace. The Mission Supreme, filled with beans, rice, salsa fresco, meat (we chose carne asada), cheese, guacamole and sour cream, could last through a hike up Mount Helena, should you be so inclined.

On the way, you’d pass the Park Avenue Bakery. There are plenty or reasons to step inside. One of the best reasons is the pizza. There’s no better walking food than a slice of Park Avenue pizza ... or a Park Avenue cookie, or a Park Avenue brownie, or a Park Avenue baguette, or a piece of Park Avenue Earl Grey chocolate cake. What?

You don’t think you can walk and eat cake? You can eat an Earl Grey chocolate cake anywhere.

If you do, you might want to cut your calories the next day and eat a pita from The Pita Pit. The pita makers there are especially adept at packing as many veggies as you want into a tight pocket—no worries of spillage. In addition to a variety of meats, you can also choose from hummus, falafel and babaganoush (eggplant spread) and chicken souvlaki.

So, there you have it. More than a week’s worth of ideas for foodson-the-fly. Give yourself and your computer a break; your computer tech will thank you. [!]

spring/summer 2010

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[food & drink]

Max Pigman, owner of Lewis and Clark Brewing Co., stands on top of the old Columbia Paint building that will be the new site of his growing Helena business.

story By John Harrington photos by Eliza Wiley

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Hoping to lend something of a new meaning to the phrase “paint the town,” Max Pigman is moving his beer-making business and taproom into one of the oldest industrial buildings in Helena.

Sometime later this year, Pigman aims to relocate his Lewis and Clark Brewing Co. from its current home beneath the Brewhouse to the former Columbia Paint plant at the corner of Dodge and Argyle.

The building will offer lots more manufacturing capacity—the company’s existing equipment would allow it to make far more beer than is possible in the current space—as well as a unique industrial setting for a taproom for beer lovers to enjoy a pint or fill a growler.

Pigman envisions a public space with lots of comfortable amenities but no shortage of historical charm. Taproom toys like pool and foosball tables will occupy space that looks much as it did a halfcentury ago.

“The more we play with it, we’re really having fun with the historical nature of the building, so anything we can do to play off that historical significance, we’re doing,” Pigman says.

So while he’s blasting the paint off of every exposed surface in the building, Pigman plans to leave in place as much of the quirky architecture as possible. Bare wood and exposed stone walls will be abundant.

The taproom will ultimately have an upstairs space as well as an outdoor patio on the east side of the building, though those spaces may not be ready when the business moves. Pigman plans to move the beer-making operation first, then the taproom once the brewing capacity is up and running. He’s aiming for a late summer or early fall transition.

The former paint factory was at one time two separate buildings, and was added onto and remodeled in scattershot fashion over the decades. Today, it covers some 30,000 square feet, with several large rooms connected by various hallways, stairways and catwalks.

The building has been vacant since 2008 when Columbia Paint, which was founded here shortly after World War II, was bought by u

brewmaster gains new appreciation for local history during renovation for new taproom

digging up the past for a new

watering hole spring/summer 2010

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‘You can’t buy or build character, and this place is just oozing character.’

Max Pigman

This page: Pigman plans to leave marks from the building’s original smokehouse on the rock wall of what will be the men’s restroom. Facing page: Pigman has found some well preserved old glass bottles during the renovation. Pigman has sandblasted the beams of the historic building.

competitor Sherwin Williams.

The location was home to two buildings as far back as 1888, according to information at the Montana Historical Society. One of those buildings was the Montana Packing and Provision Co., a meat-packing business owned by T.C. Power, who would go on to become one of Montana’s first U.S. senators.

To accommodate fresh meat in pre-refrigeration days, the building has a third-floor room with no windows and 20-foot ceilings. Large

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blocks of ice were hoisted into the room in summertime, and the ice then cooled the meat hanging on the floors below. The building was at one time also an agriculture implement dealership and grain mill, as well as a seed warehouse.

Atop the third-story ice room, Pigman plans to use a Lewis and Clark weather vane, with a Web cam mounted on William Clark’s hat that can be manipulated by online viewers to take in the entire panoramic view afforded from the spot.

Pigman doesn’t intend to use all 30,000 square feet, and he’s looking for tenants to take up some space once the renovations are complete.

CWG Architects of Helena is assisting Pigman with the design, and his brother’s firm, Pigman Builders of Hamilton, is serving as general contractor. Pigman has done lots of demolition work inside but is awaiting a final building permit before proceeding with the actual renovation.

It’s not the first time Pigman has turned the business toward the past. The enterprise was founded as Sleeping Giant Brewing Co. in 1995, and Pigman changed the name to Lewis and Clark in 2004, two years after he bought the brewing company.

“You can’t buy or build character, and this place is just oozing character,” he says. “This project has turned me into a real history buff for Helena. It has spurred my interest in anything from that era, and it has been a lot of fun.”

spring/summer 2010

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exploreDowntownHelena

exploreDowntownHelena

[gear]

[ ] In the heat of summer, the only way standing in a Montana stream can get any better is with a good pair of water shoes.

Today’s outdoor stops—and now some department stores—are stacked full of shoes in all variety of shape, style, feel, color and purpose. But real water shoes means more than a $5 pair of flipflops; it means support, comfort and traction for the serious water play many Montanans enjoy.

What’s wonderful about so many types of today’s water shoes is their versatility, or what some like to call “functionable fashion.”

A pair of Chacos couples nicely with a knee-length skirt for the office. Keens are completely acceptable worn with a pair of Dockers for the morning meeting. Children who haven’t quite yet learned to tie their lace-up shoes can easily slip on a pair of Tevas for playing tag on the playground.

Stephanie Powell, a senior litigation paralegal with the state of Montana, is a self-proclaimed shoe freak. She’s owned Keens, Tevas and Merrells. But Chacos are her favorites. u

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This page: The Chaco ZX2 is a tradional, all around sandal that adds flare with their bright colored dualstrap system and toe loop. Facing page: The Vibram Fivefingers Sprint is a new water shoe that gives outdoor enthusiasts the feeling of going barefoot.

officecasual water shoes can go from weekend to the workplace

story by Alana Listoe photos by Eliza Wiley

spring/summer 2010

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This page: Dylan McLeod kicks it in a pair of Keen Kids Newport H2. Center: The Salomon Tech Amphibian 2 is a stable waterproof shoe. The Amphibian’s mesh sides help keep out rocks and dirt.

Facing page: Keen’s ladies Whisper is a versitile sandal that is great for hiking or a casual office setting.

“I hike in them, wear them to work and mow the lawn in them,” Powell says. After coming home from a camping trip, she simply sprays off her black utilitarian Chacos and they are ready to wear to work the next day.

“I prefer to be barefoot so anything that feels close to being barefoot and protects your feet is big in my book,” Powell says. “I’m all about comfort.”

Sherre Ferry at The Base Camp said Chacos and Tevas are technically considered sandals. They have a nonabsorbent foot bed, good traction on the sole and have quick-dry, adjustable straps.

One of the biggest indicators of what makes a true water shoe is a back strap, Ferry says. Keens, for example, have a back strap so they don’t fall off in the water, but they also have a toe protection. The Keen Newports are a popular model.

“They are good for the casual water-adventure type that wants a shoe for everyday,” Ferry says. They all run close to $100 a pair, although children’s Keens are closer to $45. “They are just like the adult ones,” Ferry notes. “It’s so nice because they are great for water, but also good for every day.”

A more technical water shoe is the Tech Amphibian made by Salomon. It looks like a tennis shoe but is designed to be used in and out of the water. The shoe drains well and has two places to adjust with a strap.

For the very advanced water enthusiast, wet shoes are made with neoprene and have sticky rubber tread, like the new Vibram Fivefingers shoes. Manufactures describe this as “barefoot technology” because you don’t get the stiff support with other water shoes, and it gives the feeling of being shoeless.

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The shoes may look a little odd, as if a person is wearing gloves on their feet, but for rafting or kayaking, they are a sure bet. Ferry says these shoes are nice because they can be worn in the water as the water flows in and out or on the shore. But she cautions they are not a shoe for everyday wear.

Eric Tillberg says his staff at Bob Wards in Helena only considers a shoe a water shoe if the toe is covered. During a recent Wednesday at work, he was wearing a pair of Mion Floodgate shoes. “I wore these kayaking on Sunday, rock climbing on Monday and to work today,” he says.

Other manufactures, such as Columbia, North Face and Vasque, all have water-shoe designs so the question may be less about what type is superior and more about what shoe works the best with your feet.

There’s only one way to find out: Go shopping. [!]

spring/summer 2010

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Live&Learn Helena Institute gearing up for its second session after a slow first year [22]

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Photo courtesy of Al Swanson

Learning as they go, organizers of the nascent Helena Institute have high hopes for the second go-round at promoting the Queen City as a place of lifelong learning.

Unbowed by modest attendance in the Institute’s initial month-long season in 2009, program leaders have revamped the format, spreading the “Learn to Live” concept over several spring and fall weekends, most tied to existing events in town. This year’s calendar of “showcase weekends” kicked off in April with the Spring Art Walk in Downtown Helena. Other showcase weekends are scheduled for May, June, September, October and November.

The initial weekend included classes in quilting, making a leather-bound journal, wine appreciation and photography, among others.

Furniture maker Al Swanson is simultaneously leading the parade and racing ahead of the curve when it comes to bringing visitors to Helena for hands-on learning experiences. Swanson is a believer in the Institute, in part because he’s already been teaching classes for several years, and has seen the organic growth and other fringe benefits to his business that come from nurturing an out-of-town clientele. He’s drawn customers from out-of-state, and believes the concept can work for other artisans and experts in various fields across the city.

Swanson and Heidi O’Brien, a marketing expert hired by the fledgling Tourism Business

By John Harrington Improvement District and paid with bed tax dollars from local hotels, have visited trade shows to promote the Helena Institute.

“With weekends like these it’s a lot easier logistically to do it,” Swanson says. “It’s about people coming and having a world-class Helena experience, and each instructor becomes a concierge to the city.” u

spring/summer 2010

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‘Often great businesses are launched off of mistakes, and there’s an incubation period you have to have. But the end result is going to be fabulous.’

Al Swanson

Photo courtesy of Al Swanson

Swanson says a slow start isn’t necessarily a harbinger of doom for the concept. In the past, he’s taught classes to a single person—“and that person understands and appreciates that that’s how you chose to spend your time even if it wasn’t economical to do so,” he says.

But even if it’s not a big money-maker to teach a single person a single class, that person might go home and tell friends about the experience, and that’s when the growth starts. “People will talk about that, and that’s why this investment is going to take some time,” Swanson says. “This is what Helena is about, and eventually it will become a year-round, ‘this-is-what-we-do’ concept.”

The “Learn to Live” brand has its roots in the middle of the last decade, when the Helena Area Chamber of Commerce and Lewis & Clark County collaborated on a Community Tourism Assessment Project through what is now the Montana Office of Tourism.

Three years later, several public and private entities pooled some $50,000 for a Washington consultant to help the city develop a unique brand to draw visitors to the area. According to Destination Development, the firm hired to develop the brand, visitors are drawn to visit places for specific reasons. Trying to sell Helena as having “something for everyone” won’t work, the consultant concluded.

Nor would boasting of broad concepts like “outdoor recreation” that everyone believes they already enjoy at home.

The consultants were impressed with the broad range of artistic and other pursuits available, and looked for a way to tie them together with a common thread. The result of the branding exercise eventually became the “Learn to Live” brand and spawned the Helena Institute.

Carolyn Keller, an avid runner, biker and swimmer who works as a planner and grant writer for the Gateway Economic Development District, an offshoot of the region’s economic development authority, says she believes in the concept as a tool for growing tourism.

“I feel strongly that the model we build will be successful,” she says. “Al (Swanson) has been doing this for a long time, and other artists have been doing this for a long time, and it works. It’s offering the courses, inviting others from outside of our region to come in, [24]

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show them the rest of the experience that is Helena and get them to spend money.”

And it’s that ancillary spending beyond the courses themselves that organizers hope will excite the rest of the region’s hospitality industry and retail businesses. According to the Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research at the University of Montana, out-ofstaters spent $3 billion in the Treasure State in 2008.

Yellowstone and Glacier national parks are considered the state’s biggest tourism draws, and while Helena has attempted to market itself as a stopping point halfway between the two parks, there’s a lingering sense that Helena is missing out on tourism dollars. The Helena Institute aims to change that.

The first year wasn’t an instant success. Last August’s calendar of classes attracted fewer than 100 attendees, many of whom were from the Helena area to begin with.

Jena Sabatini, owner of the Hampton Inn as well as the underconstruction Residence Inn by Marriott just north of the airport, says several factors may have contributed to last year’s lackluster attendance. For one, the classes were scheduled for the month of August, and selling people on taking a class can be harder during what even adults consider to be summer vacation.

Plus, there was a sense that people from within a few hours’ drive of Helena, whom organizers believe will be the most likely attendees as the concept gains traction, will be an easier draw to events scheduled for weekends.

Finally, the Institute may have tried to go too far, too fast in its initial year. “We pushed hard to launch it last year, but in hindsight we probably needed more lead time,” Sabatini says.

Classes began at the end of July, and the Institute’s website wasn’t even up and running until June. That’s not a problem this year, as www.helenainstitute.com went live with a schedule, maps and other information well in advance of the first weekend.

“Often great businesses are launched off of mistakes, and there’s an incubation period you have to have,” Swanson says. “But the end result is going to be fabulous.” [!]

artoutlook four artists who helped put helena on the map in the arts world are moving their careers forward with new projects

stories by angela brandt, jessica solberg & martin j. kidston photos by eliza wiley & lisa kunkel

bobMorgan

If art is about making a connection, then painter Bob Morgan has got it down. Morgan has become something of Helena’s Norman Rockwell, telling stories on canvas that invoke a deep sense of nostalgia. “I paint Helena as I remember it,” he says.

We are sitting in his living room, and his wife Gen joins us, having left briefly to check on the soup she’s warming on the stove. It was Gen who bought Morgan his first set of oil paints.

Married for 62 years, the two met as teenagers. By then, Morgan had already taken art classes at Carroll, worked in the ad and display departments at Fligelman’s Department Store downtown, and helped teach an art class at Helena High while still a student.

Bob remembers creating his first drawings at age 5—just little scenes around the family farm. Then his parents gave him Charles M. Russell’s 1929 book Good Medicine, which included many of Russell’s famous illustrated letters. With his mother’s help, the young go to page 28

byJessica solberg

Upon first glance into Margaret Regan’s studio, it may be hard to decipher just what it is she does. There are a few food processors, a couple pasta machines and a convection oven. But there is no food in sight.

With closer inspection, you see jewelry hidden in every nook of the room. Beads are housed in boxes lining the floor behind her desk. Regan describes it as a small-scale pottery studio. She is known for her work with polymer clay.

Her process starts with blocks of clay. It takes a few days of mixing in the food processors to get it the desired hue and consistency.

The clay is then rolled out in the pasta machines and formed in to a designed “cane.”

Next, comes her favorite part—reducing the polymer clay into the right shape and style. “What happens when the scale shifts— that’s very fun. Where I can go from here is a fun process,” Regan says, with a clay cane in her hand. “It’s not a done deal at this point.”

She prefers toned-down colors but will somego to page 29

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by angela brandt

sarahJaeger

Someone said if you only use your own work, it’s like talking to yourself. But using other people’s work is like having a conversation. Potter Sarah Jaeger believes in that idea.

Although the Helena artist is well known for her teapots, cups and bowls, her kitchen cupboard is filled with other artists’ work and no two items are alike.

Growing up in a 1800s farmhouse in Connecticut, Jaeger was surrounded by handmade furniture and other assorted antiques. But she didn’t always know she was an artist. As a child, she was aware she wasn’t talented in drawing and that was all the art she knew.

As she tells it, in her “first lifetime” she was a very verbal person so she went and got an English literature degree from Harvard.

Her senior year of college, she took a pottery class. That became her hobby in her 20s.

“At a point, I thought if I’m really going to do this when I grow up, I should go back to school,” she says. So Jaeger headed for the Kansas City Art Institute. go to page 32

by angela brandt

If you want to chat about writing, you might catch Fred Haefele at the Blackfoot River Brewery sipping a pint. Or you might try asking the author and teacher questions as he wields a saw 50 feet up a tree in his gig as an arborist.

Wherever you catch him, you’ll likely get the same story. It’s one that begins when Haefele was a kid reading the likes of Vance Bourjaily’s Confessions of a Spent Youth, or Joseph Heller’s Catch- 22.

“I always wanted to be a writer, from junior high school on,” says Haefele, best known for his 1998 memoir, Rebuilding the Indian. “I just had no idea how to go about it, so I thought I’d try to garner as much world experience as I could.”

Haefele may trace his days as an aspiring novelist back to when Hunter Thompson emerged as a cultural icon. Yet his writing career didn’t find direction until 1978 when he moved to Colorado. It was shortly after that move that Haefele decided to go back to go to page 31

fredhaefele by martin J. Kidston

Morgan learned to read using those letters. And he poured over the artwork, copying the drawings.

Today, Morgan is among a small number of Russell experts in the world, and he’s one of a few who can authenticate a Russell work.

He continues to paint iconic Western scenes reminiscent of Russell’s Montana.

But what he is best known for are his evocative small town scenes: teenagers gathering around the jukebox at the Parrot; Christmas shoppers on snowy Main Street; folks meeting at Hap’s.

David Kettman, owner of the Ghost Art Gallery, has been selling Morgan originals and prints since 1990. “Bob paints memories. That’s why people connect with him, particularly in Helena.” Adds Richard Sims, director of the Montana Historical Society: “Bob is a master at reminiscence. He evokes the best of Montana.”

Morgan’s relationship with the Society spans more than a half-century. He has been an exhibition designer, curator, acting director, and member of the board of trustees. In 1992, he was appointed curator emeritus and still serves in that capacity.

He also co-founded the popular Western Rendezvous of Art, now in its 32nd year. “The Rendezvous put us on the map of Western art events, and we owe that to Bob Morgan,” says Sims. Morgan also came up with the idea for the Quick Draw, the art gathering’s signature event, in 1974.

At 80, Morgan paints virtually every day. “I’m down in the studio by 9 a.m. and I work until 4:30 or 5, when the cat gets fed.”

In his well-lit basement studio, natural light pours in from a large window facing his easel. The walls are lined with shelves packed with

bobMorgan

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art magazines and World War II books. There are two file boxes of “scrap” organized by subject in manila folders—clippings showing period clothing, structures, and wildlife.

On the floor, leaning against the bookcases, are his works in progress. One, depicting a Blackfeet man and his son on horseback, has been a challenge. “I just don’t like this area,” he says, pointing to a spot behind the man’s head where the blue sky blinks through golden aspens. “It’s just not right.”

“And this,” he says, walking toward large shelves packed with hardcover Western art books, “is my reference library.” He runs his hands along the spines, printed with names such as Maynard Dixon, N. C. Wyeth, Nicolai Fechin, Newman Myrah, Jim Reynolds, and Winold Reiss.

A lifetime as a professional artist and Morgan is still a curious, passionate student, trying to figure out how to be better, how to achieve what he sees in his art books. “When you are satisfied, that’s the beginning of the end,” he says.

Bob is supposed to be taking it easy these days. After “some work on his ticker” a few years ago, he tried to slow down, get rid of the stress—but he is still involved in community events and fundraisers. Helena American Legion Baseball. The Montana Military Museum at Fort Harrison. The Helena Symphony.

times assign herself to work with a color like a pure yellow as a challenge. The blocks of clay she begins with often come in garish colors.

“I need to knock some down so they’re not so offensive,” she says.

Regan makes earrings, necklaces, cufflinks, hair sticks, barrettes, bracelets and more. She has ventured into other facets and made such items as maraca eggs and large bowls. “I pretty much make what I want,” she explains. “I will always make what interests or pleases me. I am not basing my work on a market or trend.”

Regan has never timed the process to make her wares and in a way, she prefers not to know. “There are so many different things I can do.

The material is very, very versatile,” she says.

Inspiration for her pieces could come from anywhere, from the formation of clouds in the sky to the hues in someone’s flushed cheeks. “I’m pretty much on visual receptor mode at all times,” she says.

Regan, a Billings native whose work is available at the Holter Museum of Art and at several art shows across the country each year, says she has always loved to create, and got her start with carving soap figures and moving to throwing pots and weaving. “I believe there’s such thing as fine craft,” she says. “There’s craft and art. You can use craft material in a way that the outcome is art.”

She first worked with polymer clay about 18 years ago when visiting a friend’s studio. “I was kind of lucky that day in Seattle,” she

margaretregan

Bob Morgan with one of his cowboy paintings.

And Carroll College football. “I go to every Carroll football game.” The best part, he says, is that the players are gentlemen.

It takes one to know one. [!]

go to page 30

spring/summer 2010

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Photos courtesy of Margaret Regan

says. “Finally, I found a material that I could make into more than me and my sisters needed.”

In 1993, she left a job as sergeant at arms for the Montana Senate to pursue art full-time. She stayed in Helena because she says it’s the best fit for her and her art, not only because it’s beautiful but also due to its appreciation for the arts. “I think that Helena has a very good community. We’re very lucky,” she says. “I think it’s the Bray. Such fantastic artists come through (there) and a fair number have chosen

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to stay.”

Being self-taught has worked to her advantage because she has been more open to experimentation. The first time she saw others work at a polymer clay conference, she learned others artists made their pieces very differently. Now, she teaches her ways to others.

Her advice to aspiring artists is simple: “Stay focused and just believe you can do it. You have to act every time like it’s going to work whether you know it will or not.” [!]

school. The University of Montana’s creative writing program had piqued his interest, although he didn’t think the school would take “a guy with a GPA” like his.

“I sat in on a couple classes and was hooked,” Haefele recalls. “It was a low-key, under-the-radar program back then.

At the time, there were a lot of guys who returned to school at an older age. I was already in my 30s or early 40s—a nontraditional student.”

If wisdom comes with age then so too does life experience.

It’s that experience that plays behind the words of a successful story, doing what prose alone cannot.

As Haefele tells it, he was in the right place at the right time when a book editor walked in with a “cool idea” about a story based on rebuilding a motorcycle with a basket full of parts. It just so happened Haefele knew a thing or two about motorbikes.

“It fell out of a heaven,” Haefele says. “My agent asked if I’d be interested in writing it and I said, ‘You bet.’ I had motorcycles and had unfinished business with them.”

Haefele set out to write a process book focused on rebuilding an Indian Chief motocycle. But nothing is ever that simple. As life would have it, Haefele’s wife, Caroline Patterson, had become pregnant around the time the book deal came together.

Like any good writer, Haefele rolled with the punches. The twin events—book and baby—would alter the outcome of the story.

“When I found out the gestation of the baby and the motorcycle story were going to run simultaneously, there was no way to keep them separate,” Haefele says. “In this form, the book became something else. I was surprised when they ended up calling it a memoir.”

As the University of Nebraska Press puts it, Haefele’s book goes beyond the painstaking restoration of a motorcycle. The story “chronicles one man’s journey through the fearful expanse of midlife in a quest for peace, parts, and a happy second fatherhood.”

However it’s described, Rebuilding the Indian and the bulk of Haefele’s contemporary work—there’s more coming—has moved far from his forays as a youthful writer reading Bourjaily, Thompson and Heller.

Haefele, who’s well-known among Montana’s pool of writers, laughs and says he was once heavily influenced by Denis Johnson and his 1983 dark novel Angels.

“When I read my earlier stuff, it’s painfully obvious who I’m trying to imitate,” Haefele admits. “I think much of the evolution has gone through finding a voice I’m comfortable with and developing it, instead of trying to write like someone else.”

Haefele has turned his attention toward a new novel, which has promise, he says, “if the chain” doesn’t break.

A university press has also shown interest in a series of short pieces he has completed, and he’s finishing a story for Outside magazine on the pine-beetle epidemic.

“If you stop to think about what you’re doing (writing), you’re sitting in a quiet room trying to stay awake while the rest of the world is out there doing something fun,” Haefele says. “You’re working the deep end of the pool.” [!]

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After that, she moved to Helena without ever having previously set foot in Montana. She came for a two-year residency at the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts. She stayed and Helena has become home. This year, she hosted her 21st spring studio sale at her Broadway Street home.

Helena was a great match. She found a house that was a dump, but she could afford it and saw its potential. Just like a proverbial lump of clay, Jaeger has molded the house into a masterpiece since purchasing it in 1989. Jaeger has remodeled and made it her own, complete with a pottery studio in the back, a display room for her work and an ample kitchen to show off her cohorts’ wares.

The arts community in the Queen City also is a fit. “People in Helena are tuned into ceramics more than your average town,” she says, attributing that fact to the Archie Bray. “Once an institution like that gets established, it starts to attract others.”

Helena is a perfect home for Jaeger and her 16-month-old Wheaton terrier, Archie, named after Archie Bray.

“It’s great to live in a small town with open-space trails a block away,” Jaeger says. “For me, Helena has just gotten better and better as I have lived here.” Although she never expected to stay in a small town, “it’s a much easier place to be artistic.”

Jaeger has taught at Pomona College in California, the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In addition, she has given workshops at schools

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and art centers across the nation.

Jaeger’s work can be found in galleries across the country, including at the Holter Museum of Art in Helena.

About a third of her pieces are sent to galleries and two-thirds are sold directly.

She works with porcelain, which is precious but durable. Likewise, Jaeger says she wants her pots to be elegant and easy, beautiful and friendly. She likes the surface to attract touch and be appealing to the eyes.

While she works year round at her home studio, Jaeger says she seems to be most productive in winter when she has much longer stretches of uninterrupted time. In the spring, she is both inspired by and distracted by her garden. At times, the hours are long.

“When I’m in the middle of something, it just kind of takes over,” she says.

Jaeger is a fan of abstract botanical patterns. She uses some of the same patterns for years. But they keep evolving.

“I love my monochrome pots but I love the art of decorating, the sense of bringing something special into everyday life,” she says. [!]

This page: Jaeger at work in her studio. Facing page: Jaeger is known for her functional pottery with its brilliant colors.

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After 25 years of making custom guitars for Gibson and Santa Cruz, Daniel Roberts has retreated to the Townsend area to create high-quality guitars.

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Minstrel Maker p

After working for big-name guitar manufacturers, Townsend luthier strikes out on his own

Story by Marga Lincoln Photos by Eliza Wiley

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I

In the hands of master luthier Daniel Roberts, pieces of maple, mahogany and spruce are cut, shaped and glued to take on a new life as a guitar. And when they leave Roberts’ rural shop, they travel to eager musicians around the world.

Although Roberts, of Townsend, has been making custom guitars for more than 25 years, it was just this past fall that he ventured out on his own. He admits his timing couldn’t have been worse. The economy was tanking and most folks didn’t have custom guitars at the top of their shopping lists.

Even Roberts’ steady business of guitar repairs had dwindled.

But about that time, he was approached by Helena musician Burt Mittelstadt, who wanted an affordable custom guitar to take on the road. Oh—and, by the way, he was leaving in just a few weeks. Roberts took on the challenge.

His creation is a high-quality, beautiful sounding vintageinspired guitar, named the Minstrel, that competes in price with many factory guitars. An added innovation—Roberts posted The Minstrel’s creation and birth on Facebook.

Since the Facebook album went up, the phone has been steadily ringing with orders. The first four orders rolled in before midnight the night the Minstrel was born.

On a recent morning, he was working on two Minstrels for musicians in Australia and another in Italy. One had just gone out the door to Georgia.

When Roberts talks about the Minstrel, you can’t help but notice both a touch of pride in his creation, and also joyous enthusiasm for work he obviously loves. A Helena native and 1975 graduate of Capital High School, Roberts didn’t envision growing up to be a luthier.

He always loved singing and working with wood, starting as a child building furniture with his grandfather. Fresh out of Montana State University with a fine arts degree, he took a job building instruments with Flatiron Banjo and Mandolin Co. After Gibson Guitar bought it, Roberts was promoted to production manager.

He moved on to become a luthier and production manager for the esteemed Santa Cruz Guitar Co., maker of high-end “boutique” guitars and was the sole maker of their archtops, their most expensive style of guitar at the time.

“When I first started, there were only a few books out about building guitars,” Roberts says. “None of them were very good, but I read them all.” He mostly learned by doing, such as building thousands of Gibsons. “Guys I started with went out and were making guitars selling for $8,000, $10,000 or $25,000. They’re all going to collectors. Mine go to musicians.”

When he designed the Minstrel, Roberts turned to guitars

This page: Roberts reinforces the back strip of a handmade guitar at his Townsend area shop recently. Rows of bendable sticks placed along the guitar bracing allow Roberts to evenly apply clamp pressure while he glues the top bracing. Facing page: The night the Minstrel was born and presented to the world via Facebook, Roberts received four orders. A steady stream of orders have been placed since then.

made from the 1930s to 1950s: “The best sounding guitars I ever heard were vintage.”

He took elements of a 1936 L-OO Gibson and put them into a 1940s Gibson LG-2 guitar body. The next step was choosing the right woods—such as mahogany, maple or spruce—that are “thicknessed” to about 3/32 of an inch. “The difference between a 2.8 mm guitar top and 2.66 mm in a guitar top is huge,” he says.

One reason factory guitars declined in quality, Roberts says, was that they began making the wood thicker and heavier to cut down on instrument repairs, but it killed their sound.

Another element affecting sound are the braces Roberts has designed to maximize the resonancy of the guitar’s treble and bass notes. They also create a slight curve or arch in the guitar top, strengthening it to handle the 160 pounds of pressure that is exerted once the guitar is strung. Each step of the way, Roberts tests the wood for optimum sound—holding it near his ear and tapping it with his finger tip and testing its stiffness.

He pencils notes on the wood and writes detailed descriptions in a notebook. Thus, he learns of the subtle variations affecting a guitar’s sound when it is stringed and played.

To keep his guitars affordable (a Minstrel sells for about $3,000), Roberts sells directly to his customers, through Facebook and You Tube, thereby avoiding a 25-to-50 percent dealer mark-up. Another huge advantage of direct sales is that he is able to work closely with his customers. For those ordering high-end custom guitars, such as an $8,000 Brazilian rosewood version that’s in the works, one-to-one contact is critical and can take hours. In order to build the perfect instru- u

‘I want my instruments out in the world, breathing music and being infused with songs.’

Daniel Roberts

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ment, he needs to know the ideal tones the buyer is seeking, which requires creating a mutual vocabulary. “Musicians talk in visual terms,” he says. “We say it has a warmer tone or a brighter tone...we talk about making it lighter or darker.” Or they might say that the best guitar they ever played “had all these overtones. It was real warm.”

From this information, Roberts selects the best wood. On one end of the sound spectrum is East Indian rosewood with complex overtones, making the tone seem warm and dark. On the other end are the bright and spare tones of maple. Mahogany rests somewhere near the middle.

Boulder’s Best Bets

Roberts often makes guitar tops from Adirondack red spruce or European spruce because these woods, grown in harsher climates, not only have a more distinctive grain but also a better sound. Just as wood has character, so does a guitar, with its voice changing over time.

One of the reasons vintage guitars sound so beautiful, Roberts explains, is that the resins in a top made from a wood such as spruce dry and then crystallize, giving it a more resonant sound. Guitars also respond to being played. Just as leather becomes more flexible from use, a guitar grows more flexible in its tones the more it’s used. “So if

you tend to play in certain keys, those keys will sound really wonderful and more open as the guitar gets older,” Roberts says.

Roberts appears delighted with his latest creation. “For me, the Minstrel is a perfect guitar,” he says. “It has a huge sound for a small guitar. It has great complexity and balance. It has a nice, complete tone and great clarity. It’s spare. It’s got good projection and can be heard. And it will support a voice well.”

Best of all, it’s meant to be in the hands of a musician. “I want my instruments out in the world, breathing music and being infused with songs.” [!]

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sweaty sunrise Boot camp class aims to get its early morning students in the best shape of their lives

i This page: Dave Stergar times his runners during an early morning workout. Facing page: Crossroads’ Boot Camp class at Vigilante Stadium, top. Sara Murgel coaches her class through a round of sit-ups.

It’s 6:20 a.m. on a brisk Monday morning and Dave Stergar is already kicking my butt.

We’re on the third of five intense laps at Carroll College, sprinting up the steep, long set of stairs rising to St. Charles Hall, followed by pull-ups on the walkway railings, dips and jump-ups on the campus retaining walls, push-ups and 50-yard lunges back to the stairs.

Welcome to Crossroads Sports & Fitness Club’s Boot Camp.

“The neat thing about these workouts,” says Stergar, pausing between every couple words to breathe—even the instructor breathes hard—“is that no matter if you do five laps or two, you’re getting a good workout.”

No joke.

To keep up with Stergar—middle-school teacher, professional trainer, triathlete, accomplished backcountry skier—is to push yourself to the brink of collapse.

For Stergar’s 43rd birthday earlier this year, he “treated” his Boot Camp class to 43-yard sprints, 43-yard side shuffles, 43-yard backwards runs, 43-yard high skips, 43 yards of high knees, 43 pushups, 43 sit-ups and 43-second planks.

It’s why, after five laps trying to keep pace on this urban gym circuit, I’m contemplating why in the world I subject myself to this. And why 80 other people are, too.

It’s clear that if punishing the masses on stairs and ledges at Carroll College is Stergar’s thing, then whipping bodies into shape through grueling indoor fitness exercises is Sara Murgel’s.

“Today’s workout is going to be fun,” she quips to the class over the microphone attached to her head. “Fun,” it appears, has a different meaning to Murgel, who is Stergar’s coinstructor.

To keep up with Murgel—case manager at Intermountain Children’s Home, professional trainer, once and always a Marine, accomplished sprinter—is to make literally every muscle in your body catch fire.

The typical Murgel workout includes 25-pound plates being lifted overhead, squatted, lunged, crunched, up-downed, squat-jumped and pushed-up over and over again without rest for 50 minutes. Sweat lodges produce less perspiration than Murgel.

I’ve never worked out as hard—not as a 20-something Division I athlete, not as a clinging-to-glory-days professional—as I have in Sara’s Wednesday workout.

It’s no wonder they call it Boot Camp. u

story by john doran photos by eliza wiley

Tyler Kuhn, right, leads the pack during a set of 200-yard sprints around the track at Vigilante Stadium. Scott Jackson, foreground, and other Boot Camp participants do lunge steps backward up a steep hill on the Carroll College campus.

The week culminates—rain, snow or shine except in the deadest of winter—with a Friday workout at Vigilante Stadium. Normally even the most devoted runners might shy away from track workouts, but not here. As tough as centipedes (sprinting from the back of the jogging line to the front) and 200 repeats are, it’s almost a diversion from the intensity of Monday and Wednesday drills.

Like everything else in Boot Camp, one of Helena’s best fitness routines, you get out what you put in. No matter who finishes first, everyone gets a good workout.

Boot Camp, conceived by Murgel, blossomed almost eight years

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ago. She and Stergar had intermittent success with a Tuesday-evening fitness class, and wanted something difficult to push people to get fit. When Tuesday attendance waned, they approached Rhonda Schlosser, the Crossroads general manager, about their new idea.

“It’s really an offshoot of the sports conditioning classes we teach, and we just wanted to do something in the morning,” Stergar says during a recent warm-up on the track which, somehow, turned into two up-tempo miles. “We wanted something intense, that was hard and that was going to really push people,” Murgel adds.

They succeeded. The next thing they knew, 50 people signed up.

Then 60. Then 70. Then 80.

At first, the two instructors ran Boot Camp like drill sergeants.

“We ran it strict,” Murgel admits.

Over time, the class has evolved, becoming less militaristic but no less difficult, as the instructors alter the workouts to keep it fresh for the corps of attendees who register every session.

“Part of what is keeping it so fresh is that we’re both looking for something new,” Murgel says. “We’ve been doing it so long that we need something new, so we’re always looking for different workouts.”

Stergar likens the evolution of workouts to the sports world. “It’s like coaching. Not a lot of people have their own ideas,” he says.

“They borrow from other people. Why reinvent the wheel? It’s a matter of how can we take all these different thought patterns of other fitness professionals and we kind of meld them into our own.

“Our goal is for people to be able to improve in four things, and our class is really designed around doing that,” he adds, referring to the mile run, push-ups, sit-ups and the Boot Camp test, which incorporates strength and fitness. “We try to find different ways to do that.”

Another aspect that the two fitness fanatics emphasize, and which you come to realize quickly in Boot Camp, is the camaraderie in class. You clap, you cheer, you encourage, you inspire. And in turn, you get clapped for, cheered on, encouraged and inspired.

“I like to think of a lot of this stuff we do, one of the reasons why people keep coming back, at least for me, is that team mentality,” Stergar says. “You’re letting somebody down if you don’t show up.

But really the only person you’re letting down if you don’t show up is yourself.”

The recipe works. People who attend the class, and many folks do

over and over again, are either in the best shape of their lives or are working hard to get there.

Aside from a great physical workout, Boot Camp has developed a bit of cachet. Attendees sport “I Survived Boot Camp” T-shirts like marathon runners championing their long-distance finishes.

For Sam Chapman, a forest ranger who relies on fitness for her rugged outdoors life, it’s the people who keep her craving more just as much as the tough workouts. “It’s been great to get to know the people, and that group support just makes it so much easier to get up and actually do it,” she says.

“If we can get people to be consistent, they’re going to see results and that’s going to bring them back,” Murgel notes. “So that’s what we work the hardest at is connecting with people so that they want to come, and then in turn they are here consistently, (and) it’s hard not to get results.”

Part of what allows people to connect is the diverse work load, which enables all Boot Camp participants to thrive. “It’s staged so that you push yourself to your limits,” Chapman says while joining our fast-paced warm-up interview, “and these guys are so inspiring— they’re really intimidating at first (‘Shut up!’ interjects Stergar. ‘Keep running!’ Murgel demands)—but then they’re really inspiring so that you can jog a lap on the track where maybe you could only do half of it before, and just that encouragement matters.”

Every other weekday I return home just before 7 a.m. after an hour-long, intense workout. Every time my wife asks how it went. “It was hard” or “I think I’m going to puke,” I respond.

“You don’t always have to go all out, you know,” she says.

I know I don’t, but I do anyway. Therein lies the beauty of Boot Camp, and the reason that come next session, I’ll be right back at it, battling Stergar up that long flight of stairs. [!]

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[homes]

W

When it comes to a home for Cherche Prezeau, her husband and four children, times have changed.

Since building a five-bedroom, multi-story home in a southcentral Helena neighborhood six years ago, the couple’s three young boys have grown and are close to being teenagers.

A daughter has also joined the family.

This family of six simply needs more space. While that need is clear, the best method of gaining more elbow room was far less so. u

Bekka Cantrell, left, of Sussex Construction, and Cherche Prezeau discuss plans to renovate Prezeau’s home.

story by butch larcombe photos by eliza wiley

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room To grow renovations and additions becoming the new trends in home building spring/summer 2010

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Below: Prezeau’s home and the new footprint for the addition. Right: Cantrell says home additions should be seamless and look like they were part of the original design.

The family looked at buying a larger existing home but found little to their liking. They considered building a bigger home to suit their needs but soon realized that a lot that could hold a larger house would likely take them from the centrally located neighborhood they enjoy.

The slower economy added the uncertainty of how long it might take to sell their current home. And then there is act of moving itself, which Prezeau admits seemed overwhelming.

After doing the math and factoring in the pain of family upheaval, the best choice seemed clear: They should expand their present home, adding features to make it work with the realities of their

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growing family.

Working with Sussex Construction, the Helena contractor that built their home, has yielded a plan to add about 800 square feet on two levels. The added space will provide room for another bedroom and bathroom, and a family/entertainment room.

“Our needs have really changed in the last six years,” says Prezeau.

“We are hoping to create a space where our older kids can hang out without feeling underfoot. We want our home to be a place where our kids will feel comfortable hanging out with their friends.”

Along with adding space, the project will also involve some upgrades to an existing bathroom and replacing hollow-core interior

doors with more-substantial solid versions.

Work on the foundation for the addition has begun. All told, the project is expected to take about four months to complete.

“This is a very nice home,” says Ron Bartsch, of Sussex Construction. “Adding on to it does make sense.”

And after years of plentiful new home construction in the Helena area, the idea of adding on rather than building anew may be a local trend. Bartsch reports having several significant addition/renovation projects in the works and says other builders are reporting similar activity.

Nationally, a mid-April report from the Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University projects spending on home remodeling could increase 5 percent in 2010, the first projected increase in four years.

There might be several forces at play in the remodeling/renovation trend. More folks are considering the environmental impact of their homes and seeking ways to make them more energy efficient and less demanding in terms of maintenance.

“I think all of the building community is experiencing more of that awareness,” says Bartsch. “There is definitely a sense that bigger is not necessarily better.”

Additionally, in the recent past, steadily rising home values may have promoted more “trading up” of homes. A slower economy may have some folks taking a longer-term approach and focusing more on improving their current home and boosting its livability.

“People are building more for themselves than for resale (value),” Bartsch says.

Of course, there are economic realities that come with remodeling or adding space to a home. Creating a budget and being prepared to

spend even a little more than planned is wise, experts say. And don’t be shocked that if the cost of adding new space and making other big improvements totals more than what can likely be recovered in increased home value in just a few years.

“Sometimes, additions cost far more than they value out,” Bartsch notes. That may also be true of desired new features. Prezeau, for instance, was interested in installing radiant heat in the addition to her home. But when it became difficult and costly to integrate radiant heating with the home’s existing heating system, the idea was scratched.

The most economical way to add space to a home is to stay within the original footprint. But depending on the structure, that often is not practical. If adding to the footprint is necessary, it is critical to keep the new space in the same style as the existing structure.

The goal, says Sussex’s Bekka Cantrell, is to make it difficult to distinguish between the new and existing space, both on the interior and exterior. The challenge, she says, “is to be as seamless as possible and as efficient as possible within the space.”

For Prezeau, initial misgivings about the impact of the big addition have given way to anticipation of more space for her family.

“I’m really excited about it now,” she says, noting that much of the exterior work will be finished before any interior walls are removed, minimizing the jolt to the family routine. “It’s not going to be that disruptive to our lives. If we were re-doing a kitchen, we would probably really be in trouble.” [!]

Editor’s Note: We plan to check back on the status of this home project in the next issue of 596, which will be available in mid-August.

spring/summer 2010

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Click back in time History buff collects and shares images of Helena on his website

Over the course of his childhood, Kennon Baird watched the Broadwater Hotel and Natatorium fall into disrepair. Actually, by the early 1960s, the natatorium was already gone, leaving only a ghostly hotel.

“I saw the hotel sit there and decay over the next couple decades,” says Baird. “It was almost impossible to sneak over there.

The guy who owned the land, Norman Rodgers, was serious about no trespassing. I was never inside the old hotel at all. It was this distant curiosity.”

From the slow decay of the Broadwater came a novel idea. Baird, a Web designer and graphic artist, decided to memorialize the architectural wonder with a site dedicated to its history. He would call it, simply, “Helena As She Was: Images of Montana’s Capital City.”

Armed with a few old postcards, Baird built the website and posted the photos, offering what he hoped would become a resource for anyone curious about the lost treasure. That basic offering has grown into a full-blown niche site that attracts more than 100 u

By Martin J. Kidston

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This page, clockwise from top: A summer evening in Downtown Helena, 1954. Presidential Candidate John F. Kennedy made an appearance at the June 1960 Montana State Democratic Party Convention in Helena. “The Night Hawks,” pictured in 1964. From left to right: Country-music legend Charley Pride, Monty Cowels, George Owens, Jimmy Owens. Pride would play in the band, and sometimes as a soloist, after East Helena Smelterite baseball games. Photo courtesy of Monty Cowels. The Marlow Theater employees in 1923. Facing page: The Marlow Theater Band entertained the audience before the movies, top. The Cosmopolitan Hotel, located at 37-39 South Main, was for many years Helena’s finest hotel. Photos courtesy of Kennon Baird unless otherwise noted. spring/summer 2010

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visitors and a flood of new submissions.

“It started out as a site about the old Broadwater Hotel and Natatorium,” Baird says. “I grew up there in the Broadwater area and I saw it every day. It was this romantic ruin. So I did the Broadwater and the rest of it just grew out of that.”

Baird, who now lives in San Francisco, launched the site in 2006.

The Web-based project now covers the city’s early days, including some dazzling shots of Helena’s downtown core with its tall buildings, concrete canyons and electric trolleys.

There was the massive A. P. Curtin block on the south side of Grand Street—a series of four- and five-story buildings razed in the

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1970s during the federally inspired urban renewal period. So were the Electric Block (now a parking garage), the Homer Block (now nothing), the Lee Building in Chinatown (now gone), and the Marlow Theater, among many others.

Four decades later, urban renewal remains a touchy term to some in Helena. Those who remember it say it gutted the city, leaving behind empty spaces and blacktop parking lots. It closed Main Street to vehicles in a move that remains controversial to this day.

One portion of Baird’s site even offers the question: “What happened to Main Street?” It offers a New York Times story on the walking-mall trend that swept the country in the 1970s. Evidence

suggests the idea was nothing more than “an expensive and almost universal failure.” All but a handful of the 200 walking malls built back then remain in place.

“I remember the old downtown when it was a downtown and how it seemed like a real, vibrant place, a real destination,” Baird says.

“Of course, there was the Marlow Theater and all the shops. It was a great place to grow up.”

Baird’s site has grown with the nation’s changing lingo. He calls his site Helena’s own “wiki,” bending on the popular but unreliable Wikipedia and other user-generated libraries.

“I’ve made friendships with people exclusively through the Helena

site,” Baird says. “Through the Helena history thing, we discover we have a lot in common and a similar outlook on life.”

Baird isn’t short on ideas. He recently launched a Helena wiki fan page on Facebook, creating yet another outlet for those wishing to share photos, talk about the old times, the new times and the good times. He already has 1,500 friends.

“People post their own Helena memories, their photos and talk about the old times,” Baird says. “I look forward to going to it every day.” [!]

Check out Helena As She Was at www.helenahistory.org

spring/summer 2010

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art in the

queen city

[7 reasons why]

Thomas Jodoin

is Helena’s best all-around runner 1. Jodoin, 29, enters the 2010 race season as defending champion in some seriously tough middle-distance races: The Wulfman CDK 14K (56:29); the Don’t Fence Me In 12K (48:08); the Anaconda St. Patrick’s Day 3-mile (in 14:07) the Butte Veterans Day 5-mile (28:12); and the Governor’s Cup 10K (32:53).

2. He’s the two-time defending champ in the Wulfman CDK 14K, and wants the three-peat this June. Last year, he ran out of his comfort zone to start the race, then let the afterburners kick in for the win. “It’s difficult but the course lends itself to what I like to run,” he says. The course this year runs in reverse, from Homestake Pass to Pipestone Pass all on the Continental Divide Trail, and Jodoin has a good chance to beat that course record.

3. In January, the Muddy Buzzard, an online running blogger, ranked Jodoin second-best among all Montana male runners, behind Jimmy Grant and ahead of third-placer Alan King. Maybe what’s more impressive is who Jodoin “beat out” in the Buzzard’s subjective ranking: guys like Helena native Kiefer Hahn (who won the 2009 30K Don’t Fence Me In run in 2:09:41, and the Missoula Marathon in a blistering 2:33:17) and Mike Wolfe (fourth in the American River 50-Mile in 6:03:13).

4. Already this spring, despite a hamstring injury slowing him down, Jodoin has shown tremendous speed bursts in the mile. In one of the first Helena Vigilante Runners Club workouts of the year, Jodoin demolished his own records at Spring Meadow Lake by running four repeats on the 0.85-mile course in 4:33, 4:25, 4:20 and 4:16. It’s here, in his fourth season with Vigilante, that he builds the camaraderie—and competitiveness—to keep pushing beyond his boundaries. “I can’t face the wrath of Pat Judge if I refuse,” Jodoin jokes.

5. His height (6-foot-4) doesn’t fit the typical build of a top-end trail racer, but with his agility, stride length and endurance, he’s a formidable opponent. Plyometrics and strength work, combined with high-intensity, low-mileage workouts help him improve. “My training philosophy is, if you can call it that, I want to do what kids do,” he says. “If they’re having fun doing it, the success will come.”

6. While the Race to the Top didn’t happen last year, Jodoin is still the king of the hill when it comes to beating mountain bikers— and all other runners—up the 2006 Trail to the top of Mount Ascension. In 2008, the second year of the race pitting runners against mountain bikers, Jodoin smoked all others with an 8:19.

story by john doran photo by eliza wiley

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7. “I don’t like to be left behind,” says Jodoin, an attorney with the city of Helena. Luckily for him, that doesn’t happen very often, and doesn’t look to any time soon. [!]

capital city dining

[my office]

Charles Lovell

U.S. District Court Senior Judge

By Eve Byron

U

U.S. District Court Senior Judge Charles Lovell’s office—formally known as his “chambers”—is lined with items that help frame his thoughts as he makes decisions that often change people’s lives.

Judge Charles Lovell’s office is decorated with personal gifts and mementos.

Photo by Eliza Wiley.

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At the far end of his chambers stand shelves lined with law books. On the top sits a small statue of Lady Liberty and the scales of justice, next to a clock hanging on the wall. Independence.

Balance. Time.

Although laws are written in black and white, in the real world true justice is filled with shades of gray. How long of a sentence will punish a young meth-

amphetamine addict and protect the public, yet allow for the possibility of rehabilitation? What evidence should a jury view in a child pornography case?

How does one balance a person’s right to privacy with the public’s right to know?

It’s inside Lovell’s inner sanctum that he ponders these and other profound questions.

As he ponders lawyers’ arguments, the judge’s eyes can focus on a vivid portrait of a Native American man proudly wearing a bison head dress. Under it hangs a small Bev Doolittle painting of bear prints leading into and out of the forest, a gift from his law clerks. On the west wall hang scenic watercolors of Great Falls, where the judge previously practiced law. The paintings remind him of the past as he considers people’s fates.

Behind him to his right stands the American flag, almost hiding the framed copy of his appointment for life as a federal court judge, signed by President Ronald Reagan on April 4, 1985. A congratulatory letter from Chief Justice Warren Burger is there, too. On his left is a window that looks out over the Helena Valley toward the Sleeping Giant. It provides a long view and a broad view.

Scattered among the art and memorabilia are the items that mean the most to Lovell—photographs of his children and grandchildren, a favorite boat, a 6-by-7 bull elk he bagged and a magazine cover shot of him holding a 15-pound northern pike. Two potted plants known as “serpent’s tongues” used to belong to his father who passed away in 1963.

These remind him of how good life can be, lived within the laws of the nation.

East Helena Valley NRA Rodeo In County Rodeo, July 8. NRA Rodeo, July 9-11.

Contacts: Mike & Kathy Buckley 458-8124 or Bill Larson 422-8856

Swim-Bike-Run for Fun: Third Annual Kids Fun Triathlon June 5. Contact: Carolyn Keller 442-4986

East Helena Rodeo Parade, July 10

East Helena Swimming Pool, June 10-August 29. Call 227-6443 or 227-5321

Farmers Market, July 13-September 21, 4-6:30 p.m. in City Hall Parking Lot. Contacts: Brent Sarchet 438-0027 or Wayne O’Brien 449-7446

Kay’s Kids Summer Recreation Program at Kennedy Park, June 21-August 12.

Contact: Debrah McLarnon 447-8077

Helena Street Rodders Car Show May 29. Contact: Mark Byers 461-9439

Memorial Day Parade, May 31, 11 a.m.

Contact: Ed Boucher 227-8087

explore

East Helena

[laughs chance gulch] Honey, Seriously?!

Is this the biggest fork we have?

EEYOW! $%#*&!

This grill is so hot i'm going to end up burning my--

There! Are you happy? I now have no hair on the back of my fingers!

LAUGHS CHANCE GULCH

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In that case, TURN AROUND AND SEE iF iT’ll WORK ON YOUR BACK TOO.

BY DENNY LESTER