WITH FIBER, YOU CAN COME HOME AGAIN

It’s a tale as old as the Tobacco Valley: young people, searching for career opportunities they can’t find in rural northwest Montana, trade in the comforts of home for the convenience of a larger city.

But the end to that story is changing. With fiber internet from InterBel, two Eureka residents have built careers they love from the community they call home.

The Best of Both Worlds

Tammy Pershall spent her childhood in Eureka, Montana, nestled between magnificent mountains and a seemingly endless expanse of Douglas firs. It was the kind of all-American childhood many only dream of, free to run wild under the watchful eyes of her neighbors.

“Eureka is a small community, and one big family,” Tammy said.

Then she married a military man and took up a government career, which led her to relocate around the world before settling in Helena, Montana. In the city, Tammy missed her family, as well as the vastness that only Eureka can offer. She dreamed of owning her own land: a place filled with cows, chickens, and an abundant vegetable garden.

“Living that far away, you don’t get to come home very often, maybe a couple times a year. It’s hard. You miss out on a lot,” Tammy said.

“Even for my kids. Every time we’d leave, it was always, ‘Can’t we just move back?’ They missed it too, even as young children.”

Shortly after her husband retired from the military, Tammy’s career presented an opportunity to work entirely from home. Tammy could suddenly work from anywhere in the world–but there was only one place she wanted to be.

“I’ve lived all over the world, and there is no other place I’d rather be than Eureka,” Tammy said. “It’s my home. It always has been.”

But Tammy’s job required her to communicate with people in all corners of the state, at all times of day. It required a high-speed, reliable internet connection that would have been unheard of in the Eureka of her youth. She had all but abandoned the hope of coming home when she discovered that InterBel had begun delivering fiber to communities across northwestern Montana.

“When I found out that high-speed, fiber optic internet was available, I was in,” Tammy said. “I was able to keep my job, make the move, still do what I love to do, and be where I want to be.”

In June 2020, after 20 years away, Tammy and her family were finally able to come home. She was able to build the farm of her dreams, on a property shared with her in-laws and her children (and yes, a few chickens), while continuing the career she’d come to love.

“Before, we only made it home once every six months if we were lucky. Now I get to see my family as often as I’d like,” Tammy said. “When I take my breaks, I can walk around, I can feed the animals, I can soak up the sun if I feel like it. To have that and be able to still do the job that I love, it’s the best of both worlds. It’s a dream come true.”

A Forever Home

Crystal Hill spent her childhood summers 20 miles southeast of Eureka in Trego, Montana, where her dad lived and worked on a quarter horse farm. Even into adulthood, Crystal dreamed of those childhood summers spent playing with horses and roaming the wilderness of the Tobacco Valley.

“When we first started visiting Eureka, my husband and I came for Thanksgiving. The next year, we came for Thanksgiving and stayed until after Christmas. The year after that, we stayed until after New Year’s,” Crystal said. “Eventually, it just felt like Eureka needed to be our forever home.”

Now, as Venue Coordinator and Innkeeper at RiverStone Family Lodge, Crystal has devoted her life to giving guests the same sense of home she found in her first summers in Eureka.

“I’m grateful to come back to this place that I remember so fondly as a child, because it feels like coming home,” Crystal said. “I love providing a space where people can come, feel welcome, have a really good time without any worries, and feel like we’ve really treated them like family,”

Between events and overnight guests, the Lodge welcomes more than 1,000 visitors a year, many of whom stay for a week or more at a time. Crystal and her team work hard to provide these guests all the comforts of home, including access to high-speed internet. With three separate networks from InterBel–one for guests, one for the Lodge’s main office, and one for events–RiverStone does not have to throttle users’ bandwidth.

“Most people come here for the view, but we are able to provide them with so much more,” Crystal said. “We can provide a better guest experience for everyone that comes through our doors because of interBel.”

While their paths back to Eureka may have looked a bit different, Tammy and Crystal’s stories teach us the same lesson: that with the right technology, you truly can have it all–all from the rural community that you call home.