Metallurgical Engineering Celebrates 100 Years

They’ve teamed up with Montana Studios, which offer “full service production capabilities, including production space, basecamp, professional crew, and tax credit services” from their beautiful uptown location, to make Butte an even more irresistible place to shoot. And not just narrative films, but documentaries, television programs, and more.

They do so in the knowledge that these productions mean more income, more jobs, and more recognition for the community.

And maybe, just maybe, the world’s next global superstar, the next Charlie Chaplin maybe, will get another big hand up here in Butte, Montana.

He or she could even get their start as an extra on 1923. Let’s just hope they can stay away from those exceptional “working girls” Chaplin was never able to forget, shall we?

II. Butte’s Uptown Renewal

If you’ve never seen Butte, and especially Butte’s historic uptown area, then you’re probably not prepared for the shock—but let me warn you, for your benefit and for the benefit of those around you, it’s pretty.

I’m telling you this so that, as you drive into town on the I-90, you don’t just run into the car in front of you or beside you. Because it’d be easy to forget to keep your eyes on the road, jaws agape, unable to tear your eyes away from Uptown—which sits, magisterial, at the crest of the hill overlooking the rest of the city.

I know that whenever I return to the city after some prolonged absence I’ve got to keep my peepers focused on the dotted line of the road lest I go careening into the Berkeley Pit like a Hot Wheels car into a bathtub.

Heck, even the Berkeley Pit is kind of pretty, if you ask me.

Of course, that’s a big part of why productions like 1923 choose to film in Butte—uptown Butte has a look like no other, frozen in time, you might say. A friend of mine says it reminds him of steel mill cities back east due to the red brick and regal Victorian houses. But then Bethlehem, PA or Bangor, ME don’t have a view of the Rockies, do they?

All of which is to say that if Uptown Butte gets any prettier, I won’t be able to stand it. I’ll be mooning up and down the streets, smooching everything.

It looks like I’ll be puckering up soon, thanks to the Uptown Butte Master Plan, a joint effort between the Urban Revitalization Agency (URA) of Butte–Silver Bow and DHM Design, with help from grants from the Montana Department of Commerce.

I spoke to Walker Christensen, a Principal with DHM Design, a firm that has done landscape, architecture, and design work for multiple National Parks including Glacier, cities such as Telluride and Calgary, National Monuments, and more. “I think Butte is one of the most amazing places in the West and in the country. Butte’s history and people have stories that need to be told. I have been impressed by the passion and energy that the residents have for Butte’s history and future,” he told me. This was, of course, the right answer.

Walker said that he recognizes that “the strength and draw of Uptown are these urban architectural elements in the rural Western backdrop. For the vitality and economic growth of Uptown these architectural elements must be preserved, promoted, restored, and occupied.”

The Uptown Butte Master Plan, Walker says, intends to honor what makes Butte’s Uptown so singular and beautiful while also aiming to “transform Uptown into a place that ensures a high quality of life, maintains its authentic character, and has diverse economic vitality.” It’ll do so only after being sure to “document and prioritize the great ideas that the community has been thinking about—people who work, live, play and learn in Uptown—and synthesize that into the plan.”

Many of those planned improvements are “supportive of improving the connection between Montana Tech and Uptown,” taking advantage of “nice existing sidewalks and key view corridor connections between the two landmarks” while adding “more pedestrian lighting, seasonal banners, flower pots, and painted bike lanes.” Christensen even notes the “potential for micromobility features such as scooter or ebike rentals.”

While their architectural plans are still subject to many variables, they’ve made some concept renderings to illustrate the possibilities of Uptown. They’re handsome, and they enhance, rather than change, the essential character that it is so important to preserve.

As far as I’m concerned, that settles it. They’d better put up a wall to enclose the interstate. Or else the folks pouring into Butte to see where 1923 was filmed won’t be able to peel their peepers away from the stunning, tastefully designed but still authentic, and most importantly, renewed, Uptown.

And then, inevitably, their eyes will alight on the always lovely Montana Tech, and the tastefully maintained walking corridor that runs between them. Again, this seems dangerous to me, because they really ought to be keeping their eyes on the road, and off of the startling beautiful city on a hill.

I questioned whether I should bring up my concerns with Christensen, but instead, I asked him another leading question.

“How has it been working with us Buttians?”

“I can’t express how great the people of Butte have been to work with!”

III. Butte is a Great Place to Do Business

Renovation is terrific, but it only gets you so far without the help of Butte’s businesses, and that’s where their innovation comes in.

We’re not talking about refusing to serve scabs and blacklegs anymore. Rather, today’s Butte business owner has to contend with the modern world of clothing boutiques, specialty stores, fine dining, coffee shops, art galleries, and bookstores.

Innovation begins with the business owners who are keeping Butte fresh. As fresh, you might say, as an ice cream cone in a bucket of recycled ice.

Business owners like Medellee Antonioli, granddaughter of Jo Antonioli, who bought her grandmother’s beloved and decades-old bookstore, Books and Books, and moved it into a larger location on Broadway, right next to the Uptown Cafe. The building used to be a hotel, and then apartments, before lying vacant for nearly 30 years. With a little help from her father, friends, and a few community volunteers—but mostly by herself—she painstakingly cleaned the original ceiling, removed layers of flooring to restore a beautiful tile floor, and built her own floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. During most of that time, the store was open, and customers and the generally curious were free to wander in and see the progress. Now the slightly renamed Isle of Books and Books (and its Bozeman sister location Isle of Books) has recently been voted “Best Bookstore in Montana” by the readers of Distinctly Montana Magazine. It has also hosted events featuring authors Mark Sullivan, Jeffrey Welsch, and Butte’s own beloved broadcaster John Emeigh.

Or how about Headframe, a world-class distillery with a gorgeous tasting room on Montana Street? They’ve used the bar from an old establishment in Meaderville and set it up in their tasting room, along with authentic safety posters from the Anaconda Mining Corporation on loan from the World Museum of Mining. Visitors to the tasting room can’t help but remark on its sturdy beauty—and, if you should happen to have a wee nip of the Kelley Single Malt, this writer’s favorite of their whiskeys, you’ll probably like that too. The best part is their commitment to giving back via community nights and contributions to charity. Well, no, the best part is the Kelley Single Malt, but the doin truth, more to tempt them into wanting to stay when they graduate.

gooding is the second-best part.

Nor could we mention the World Museum of Mining without dwelling for a moment on what an amazing place it is to visit. Seeing the enormous engines and bison-leather belts, wandering through the period buildings, and even descending into the Orphan Girl mine herself are awe-inspiring and humbling. Oh, and they also just happened to be voted the “Best Historical Museum,” “Best Cultural Museum,” and, ahem, overall “Best Museum in Montana” in that same Distinctly Montana poll.

And please, please don’t forget Dig City Supply, your one-stop source for great apparel supporting Montana Tech, as well as a series of t-shirts honoring icons of Butte like the M&M, the Columbia Gardens carousel, Bonanza Freeze, and nearly all the magnets on this writer’s fridge.

I now realize my folly at having begun to mention uptown Butte businesses, because I want to mention them all, and they’re all extraordinary in different ways.

I couldn’t possibly leave out Wein’s Men’s Store, which has provided personalized customer service, as well as swell duds for discerning gents, for over 100 years. After all, to last a century is no small thing, as Pekin Noodle Parlor knows. Pekin is the oldest Chinese restaurant in the country; its continued ownership by the Tam family is a true story of perseverance. Or La Casa Toscana, which may not have been around for a century yet, but is probably on its way to one, having been highly recommended by Mark Wahlberg, who went to the place not once, but twice while filming in Montana? I couldn’t not mention them! But then, you have to think that, had Mark Wahlberg visited the Axe Bar, which is just what it sounds like—a bar where you throw axes as you drink—he would have loved that too, right? Setting aside Mark Wahlberg, it’d be a criminal disservice not to bring up Metals Sports Bar, which is also voted “Best in the State” by Distinctly Montana Magazine, or Oro Fino coffee, which has provided the caffeine necessary to type out this feverish paragraph.

And even then, there are two dozen more great, vibrant Uptown businesses that you should check out. And there are more opening all the time. More for students to go see and experience, and, The success of Uptown Butte’s renewal begins with their innovation. No amount of better footpaths and beautification would ever make a difference without some fabulous destinations along that path.

And excuse my bias, but I’ll add that Montana Tech is the coolest, most fabulous destination of all. Go Orediggers!

I may be guilty of talking about Butte as if it’s some Holy City, a place somehow animated from within by the spirit of persistence and sticktoitiveness. As if Butte is the American dream made manifest—not to get rich, although that doesn’t hurt either—but to reach into the earth, grab her riches, and use them to improve the world. You can thank Butte, by the way, for the copper that wired America for electricity.

But the truth is that Butte is just a place. A beautiful place, as rich in history as it is in ore, but a place nonetheless. If there’s always been something different about Butte, as I contended earlier, it’s the spirit of Butte’s people.

It’s a spirit that refuses to be kept down, to accept bad news as the final word, to give in. It’s the spirit of a people who dug into the ground and hauled off metals to pay for their lunch. It’s the spirit of a people who turned a superfund site into a tourist attraction. The spirit of a people who are determined to ensure that this isn’t just Butte, Montana, but Butte, America.

That same spirit, by the way, established Montana Technological University as one of the leading institutions of its kind in the country. Montana Tech has acquired its sterling reputation in part because it has always been willing, like the city which was its inspiration, to engage in both innovation and renewal.

As such, the two are inextricable and have been for more than a century. What’s good for Butte is good for Montana Tech, and vice versa.

With the near-guaranteed success of the Yellowstone spinoff 1923, the impending renewal of Butte (especially the Uptown area), and the continued innovation of Butte’s small, medium, and large business owners, Montana Tech stands to benefit more than ever from being part of one of Montana’s— perhaps even America’s—most tight-knit communities.

Innovation and renovation: they don’t have to involve corpse ice.

Sometimes they involve good investment, lovely architectural design, a little creative marketing, and the preservation of what makes a place special.

But if your plan does somehow involve reusing corpse ice or sticking it to the hated scabs, you get 15 Butte bonus points.

HIGHLANDS COLLEGE

PREPARING THE WORKFORCE OF TOMORROW

By Michelle Morley and Brooke Samson

POSITIONED AS the premier regional center for workforce development and preparing workforceready students, Highlands College is reinventing itself by providing entry-level, continuing education, and reskilling opportunities designed to meet industry demands.

As the 2-year college of Montana Technological University, Highlands College can be flexible and respond quickly to changing community and industry needs. The addition of noncredit and non-degree credentials allows Highlands College to simultaneously meet the needs of employers and learners through short-term, rapid training programs in high-demand areas. Across programs, Highlands College strives to provide transformative educational opportunities and experiences for learners of all ages in building the workforce of tomorrow.

Historically at Highlands College, workforce development has been synonymous with Certificate and Associate Degree programs. While that remains the case, Highlands College as led by Dean Karen VanDaveer sought out opportunities to grow. Those opportunities came through the development of partnerships, zero-credit and school-to-work programs, and the revamping of every for-credit program.

In the fall of 2021, Highlands College began updating existing for-credit curricula programs. Fall semester 2022 kicked off with a newly expanded Associate of Applied Science in Welding Technology. Students will now gain valuable experience in pipe and structural welding, and aluminum welding, in addition to the rich welding fabrication training they received in the 1-year Certificate of Applied Science program. Working with Montana Tech’s Business and Biology Departments, the 2-year Associate of Applied Science programs were revamped to align with the 4-year Bachelor of Applied Science degrees. Now students have the ability to utilize their AAS degrees as a stackable credential into a Bachelor of Applied Science in Business, or in the case of the Radiologic Technology Program, a Bachelor of Applied Science in Biology in a specific health track.

The addition of zero-credit programming as well as the revamp of the for-credit programs would not have been possible without strong industry and community partnerships. Over the past year, Highlands College has strengthened the Trades and Technology Industrial Advisory Board and has established partnerships within industry and the community that, in addition with grants, has provided $2.1 million in outside funding. Funding from Silver Bow County has allowed Highlands College to purchase equipment that will provide students with the ability to train on state-of-the-art equipment and gain valuable hands-on, real-world experience. Students in the Construction Technology program will learn project management in addition to construction skills, as they build modular homes that will be available for purchase in the local and surrounding communities. A partnership with Media Training Center and Accelerate MT has introduced Butte and the surrounding communities to film production through rapid training courses offered at Highlands College.

Whether it is updates to current curricular offerings, rapid training courses, or the development of new programs, Highlands College is staying on top of community and industry needs.

Whether it is updates to current curricular offerings, rapid training courses, or the development of new programs, Highlands College is staying on top of community and industry needs. A partnership with Sandfire Resources of America to develop a training program for future employees of the Black Butte Copper Mine in White Sulphur Springs has been established and an official request to plan a 2-year Associate of Applied Science degree in Mining Technology was presented to the Board of Regents during the May meeting in Havre. Addressing the demand for CDL drivers has led Highlands College to become a third-party CDL skills testing center, offering an additional scheduling option for individuals with their CDL permits who need to complete the CDL skills testing. In early 2023, Highlands hopes to begin offering 6-month rapid training in Welding and Machining in a hybrid format for veterans, active members of the National Guard, military Reservists, men and women preparing to leave service, and spouses as part of a partnership with Operation Next and the nonprofit NFAMI. Participants will take their theory coursework online while continuing to work and serve, and will travel to Highlands College one weekend a month for hands-on, applied training. Credentials obtained are nationally recognized and portable from either the National Institute of Metalworking Skills (NIMS) or the American Welding Society (AWS). Highlands College has also sought out innovation in the classroom. Funding from OCHE assisted in the purchase of simulators for Welding and Transfr virtual reality (VR) headsets that will allow students to practice skills without consuming an extensive amount of expensive material in many of the trades areas. Additionally, the headsets will be used in the high and junior high schools as part of the career exploration process, giving students the opportunity to experience the trades as part of their career exploration. An instructional designer has also been hired with outside funding to put the program coursework online, increasing Highlands College’s ability to provide flexible learning options to students.

When Highlands College talks about building the workforce of tomorrow, we mean it. Dual enrollment in area high schools has expanded and now includes courses in the Trades as well as General Education courses. The demand for CDL drivers and CNAs has led to the development of two dual enrollment schoolto-work programs addressing community and industry needs and providing high school students with training and certification in skilled, high-demand areas. Butte–Silver Bow County, Accelerate MT, and the OCHE Futures-at-Work grant provided the funding for both programs including scholarships for high school students. In early spring, Highlands College will have the privilege of hosting middle school students from the community as part of the Jobs Don’t Have Gender non-traditional workforce grant. The program will introduce students to areas that they generally don’t consider, such as female students entering the Trades or male students becoming CNAs or Radiologic Technicians.

As the world and the demand for skilled workers changes, Highlands College continues to demonstrate it is up for the challenge. Whether it is the exploration and development of noncredit, non-degree, short-course rapid trainings or new Certificate and Associate Degree programs, Highlands College intends to meet the training needs of industry, the community, and learners.

RUNNING TO WIN, AND TO INSPIRE

BECCA RICHTMAN’S UNDERDOG JOURNEY

By Megan Strickland

It’s an underdog story for the ages: a relatively obscure runner joins the inaugural cross country team at Montana Tech and becomes a 4-time national champion, 10-time All American, and the Women’s Track Athlete of the Year.

As with most epic sagas, Becca Richtman’s ascension to become a legendary Oredigger athlete was a long, grueling grind. “It doesn’t happen overnight,” Richtman said. “It took five years, running 70ish miles a week, up to 85 miles towards the end.”

The Elburn, Illinois native said she’s always loved running and competed in high school, but her collegiate career got off to a rocky start at Winona State in Minnesota.

“I’ve always wanted to be great, but I didn’t even make the travel team,” Richtman remembered.

She did, however, appreciate the coaching of Zach Kughn at Winona. When Coach Kughn was chosen to lead Montana Tech’s new cross country team in 2020, Richtman was the only one of Kughn’s runners to join him in the jump to Montana Tech. She was lured not only by his excellent coaching, but also by anecdotes that running at higher elevation can be beneficial for training. “It was the best decision I’ve ever made,” Richtman said.

In Montana, she found the benefits of training at elevation to be true, and she grew as a runner with Kughn and the team’s support. “There’s 100 different ways to run 6 miles,” Richtman said.

It is the attention to the little details that Kughn really assisted with. He helped Richtman hone her nutrition, hydration, sleep, and training schedule.

In her training, Richtman’s run in an N-95 mask to prevent exposure to wildfire smoke. She’s had her fingers poked countless times while on the treadmill as her coach used blood samples to help inform training decisions. She’s run in sweats with the heat cranked up and a humidifier going full blast to mimic the conditions of competition in southern climes. She’s committed to sleeping 10–12 hours a night. She’s missed hangouts with friends and put in hours of training on holidays.

“If you want to be successful you have to run and follow the schedule, and sometimes people don’t realize that means that you run even on Christmas. I really valued waking up at 7 a.m. on Sunday to go run, ” Richtman notes.

Coach Kughn said Richtman’s passion is part of what makes her a great athlete.

“She also has had a career that wasn’t perfect—I think that’s important. As successful as she was at the end, she had her ups and downs, things both within and outside of her control.”

—Coach Zach Kughn

“You have to love running,” Kughn said. “I have not found over the years that I can make someone love running. If they don’t love it, they find the door. If they do, I can certainly help stoke the fire and try to keep it lit at times, but Becca would be nothing without an intense internal passion for the sport.”

However, it’s work ethic that’s driven her to be a national champion.

“What I hope is never missed is her dedication and the sheer amount of work she has put in,” Kughn said. “Talent is a tricky thing to understand in our sport; she is certainly talented, but again, she would be nothing without the thousands of miles she’s put in and the off-the-track sacrifices she has made.”

These are not the sacrifices most college students make.

“The best athletes in our sport simply aren’t able to live like other college students,” Kughn said. “There’s no place for what a stereotypical college student is doing on Friday/Saturday nights in an elite endurance athlete’s training program. It took her some time to figure that out, but she gave it up without looking back, and her career really took off.”

In fall 2020, the results of all of her hard work started to show when Richtman went undefeated for the first four meets. That April, in the NAIA National Cross Country Championships, she took third place in the 5k out of a field of 366 women. She remembers it as one of her best races. “It was a really great showing of fitness,” Richtman said.

She then went on to place first in the 5,000 meter at the Frontier Conference Championship later in the month. One month later, the NAIA Championships were held in Gulf Shores, Alabama, and Richtman took first in the 3,000 meter steeplechase.

“I won in the last 50 meters,” Richtman said of the race. She also finished out the year placing ninth in the 5,000 meter.

Heading into summer 2021, Richtman continued her assent to local fame. She won the Montana Mile (and was on television for that), and broke 17 minutes in the 5,000 meter.

As the season got underway in the fall, Richtman faced a brand new hurdle on the track: expectation. “There were so many expectations for me to win cross country Nationals,” Richtman said.

The weight of those expectations burdened Richtman, and she and Kughn had to rework some of their training methods. Richtman wanted to focus on being a good leader for the team, instead of running for a gold medal.

“He was fine with whatever my effort was that day,” Richtman said of Kughn’s coaching.

That season she found newfound confidence and drive by running super strategically. She placed second at the Frontier Conference Cross Country Championships, and fourth in the NAIA Cross Country Championships.

In March Richtman faced another grueling schedule of racing at the NAIA Indoor Track and Field Championships: six races in 3 days, totaling 19 kilometers, with 30 minutes between races.

A triple crown was within sight as Richtman clenched both the mile and the 3,000 meter race titles. However, in the 5,000 meter race she finished second by 0.3 seconds, a disappointing loss that was softened by being named MVP. With a month left in her final season, Richtman continued to excel, bringing home first in the 5,000 meter, first in the 10,000 meter, and second in the 800 meter at the Frontier Conference Championships, before heading to the NAIA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Gulf Shores.

“We had a hard month of training,” Richtman said.

There were thunderstorms that delayed races, an annoyance to coaches and athletes who carefully time meals, hydration, and preparation practices for designated wait times. But it didn’t matter. “The prelim for the steeplechase went well, and I went into the 10K and destroyed it,” Richtman said.

Kughn gave Richtman a final bit of coaching and she was able to leave it all on the field for her final races. She approached the final line, tears in her eyes, parents cheering in the stands, proud to have given it her all. She placed first in the 10,000 meter, second in the 5,000 meter, and second in the 3,000 steeplechase.

“I earned MVP for Outdoor, which was completely unexpected,” Richtman said.

She also was named Women’s Track Athlete of the Year by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.

“It’s been a lot of hard work,” Richtman said. “It’s building block by building block.”

Richtman continues to grow as a runner and as a professional. She graduated with her Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences degree in May, and is looking at continuing running as a professional. “A lot of women who run don’t peak until their 30s,” Richtman said. full of healthy ingredients where people can grab a quick meal after gathering for events that promote runners’ kinship. Prize monies for women’s track athletes aren’t incredibly lucrative, but luckily Richtman found a new gig as a track coach at Montana Tech to start her post-graduate journey. Richtman knows she likely could have found a job coaching at another school, maybe one more prestigious, but her unshakable belief in Kughn’s coaching methods convinced her to stay.

“Becca has remained very loyal to me over the years, which has been extremely humbling for me,” Kughn said. “I’m incredibly grateful for her for that. She’s helped advance my career by remaining loyal, and she’s also put Montana Tech on the map seemingly overnight. That loyalty is very useful in coaching as well. Athlete buy-in is a two-way street. She will believe in her athletes. She will be extremely hard on them, but she will believe in them, and good athletes will respond well to that.”

Kughn also thinks Richtman’s very outgoing, contagious attitude will be an asset. “She has a way of roping people into something just from talking with them briefly,” Kughn said.

At the end of the day, it’s Richtman’s story of perseverance and dedication that Kughn thinks will shine the brightest to potential recruits.

“She also has had a career that wasn’t perfect—I think that’s important,” Kughn said. “As successful as she was at the end, she had her ups and downs, things both within and outside of her control. That will help her relate to athletes as well as give them inspiration. Also, that passion will carry through. It might be even more important for a coach to have than an athlete, but she has it. If you love to run, you will love being around her, and I think she’ll draw in the type of athletes we are looking for.”