Yellowstone Valley Woman Magazine

COMPLIMENTARY

BILLINGS’ MOST READ MAGAZINE | JULY/AUGUST 2020

Thank You

THE WOMEN WHO PUT COMMUNITY BEFORE SELF IN THE FACE OF COVID-19

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Community Corner Help us save lives this summer! Join our Vitalant blood drive!

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ON THE COVER Photography

by Daniel Sullivan

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MELANIE FABRIZIUS

DANIEL SULLIVAN

Design

Photography

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©2020 Media I Sixteen All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher.

Letter

FROM THE

Editor

JULIE KOERBER

I’M A KNITTER. And, I love the color orange. When you put those things together?

Bam. It’s magic.

Standing in the gap might mean making a donation to a social justice cause you believe in. Standing in the gap might mean further educating yourself. That gap starts at your kitchen table. The gap starts at coffee shops. The gap starts at the watercooler at the office.

So imagine my surprise when, about a year ago, I was scrolling through my social media feed and discovered a woman by the name of Gaye Glasspie, also known as GiGi — an amazing knitter and she only knits using the color orange. She is a ball of joy that makes me smile. She sings a little song when she finishes each project. She’s also black.

Be brave. Stand in the gap.

When the George Floyd story captured headlines, all the joy that GiGi shares daily seemed to be sucked out of her social media posts, and rightly so.

She didn’t sing. She didn’t talk a lot about knitting. But she, in her calm wisdom, spoke from the heart and her words stuck with me along with thousands upon thousands of others in the maker community just like me.

“This is not a moment in time,” she said in a Facebook video. “This is not a blip on the radar. You get to decide where you stand.”

She told us all to “Stand in the gap.”

Being committed to change is as easy as how you respond in simple, everyday interactions. Standing in the gap means not looking the other way when you see an injustice.

When someone is saying something that is not kind, don’t sit silent if you don’t agree. Stand in the gap. If you witness others trying to block the progress of others simply because of the color of their skin, stand in the gap.

Standing in the gap might mean speaking up and using your voice.

On page 10, Ed Kemmick sat down with Billings’ own Gwen Kircher to talk about her experiences with racism living in Billings as a black woman. Please read her words.

As you flip through the rest of the magazine, you’ll see we’ve tackled some weighty topics. We have a series of profiles on the women who stood on the front lines of our community’s COVID-19 response. I feel intense gratitude for their service and know we are safer thanks to their efforts.

On page 42, we delve into the community threat of mental illness and talk with three women who have made it their life’s work to bring about change in this arena. We thank them as well.

While the topics in this issue are serious, we hope that by the time you’ve flipped the last page, you feel inspired by the dynamic and powerful women who put service to the community before self. I know I am incredibly inspired, and thankful.

Enjoy this issue.

Julie

follow us @yvwmagazine 6

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We are here for you.

As Montana reopens for business and our communities adjust to new challenges, rest assured that St. Vincent Healthcare and our clinics are here to safely serve you and your family.

From virtual visits and walk-in care to making sure that our hospitals are safe for all patients who need life-saving emergency care, we are here for you.

Learn more and see how we are protecting your health at svh.org/safety

Please join

OF EMPOWERING

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Every Life Has A Story OCTOBER 1, 2020 | AT FAITH CHAPEL

LaVie is honored to have Tim Tebow join our 30-Year Anniversary celebration.

As a Christian athlete and a powerful advocate for life, Tim has an amazing, inspiring and triumphant life story that you won’t want to miss.

You can read Tim’s complete bio and purchase tickets by visiting:

https://www.itickets.com/ events/441928 JULY/AUGUST 2020

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JULY/AUGUST 2020 2020 On the Cover 12

THE HEROES WITHIN

The women who put community before self in the face of COVID-19

Features

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GWEN KIRCHER

A conversation on Race

30 DELIVERED WITH CARE

Sarah Moyer’s Project Lunch transforms to Project Love

36 GRACE UNDER FIRE

Melanie Schwarz helps lead business by example

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MENTAL HEALTH: THE SILENT & DEADLY

The women working to combat rising mental health issues

56 LET'S GET AWAY

62

12

Sage Lodge sets the scene for hospitality

THREATS

FLAVORS UNDER THE BIG SKY

Stella Fong's homegrown cookbook

70 CHART A COURSE FOR ADVENTURE New app highlights the city’s trails & bikeways

74 78 92

HEROISM UNDER FIRE

Harriet O’Day, World War I Nurse

TIMELESS DESIGN

Modern home provides a neutral canvas with pops of color

CREATING A SACRED SPACE

62

70

Giving the home office a revamp

IN EVERY ISSUE 34

KAREN GROSZ: Inspired to Thrive

50

FASHION: Little Beauty Secrets

66

TASTE OF THE VALLEY: All You Knead

72

THE HEART GALLERY: Now More Than Ever

76

THE FIVE: Five Things to Add to Your Summer Calendar

90

LOOK WHAT WE FOUND: Paint it with Plaster

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GWEN GWEN KIRCHER: KIRCHER: A Conversation on Race story and photography by ED KEMMICK

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GWEN KIRCHER, a native of Lexington, Kentucky, moved to Montana in 1977. She lived in Worden until 1996 and has been in Billings since then. In 1992, she was the subject of a New York Times article about what it was like to be one of a small number of African Americans in Montana’s largest city. Gwen worked for St. Vincent Healthcare and United Parcel Service before starting her own business, Angels on Broadway. She is also chair of the Montana chapter of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and a member of the board of the Boys and Girls Club of Yellowstone County.

In light of nationwide protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers in May, Yellowstone Valley Woman sat down with Gwen to talk about racial justice in Montana and the country at large. The interview has been edited for space considerations.

YELLOWSTONE VALLEY WOMAN: In that 1992 interview, you told the New York Times: “Where there is prejudice here, it’s based on ignorance, not hate. And that’s a whole lot easier to overcome.” Is that still true in Billings?

GWEN: I think it’s still true, overall, except when you look at the Native American population. I think there is some hatred there, and it may be because that is a minority group that’s here. In the inner city, the minority group that’s there are black people, and so they’re the ones that are hated. So, I think there is some hatred here for Native Americans. But I do think most of it is based on ignorance, even with them.

YVW: You also said in that 1992 interview that you’d experienced only one incident of overt racism in Montana. Have there been any other incidents since then?

GWEN: Oh, yeah. In fact, in the last three and a half years, I have probably had more instances of being called the N-word than I had between the ’60s up until then. It’s kind of amazing. It’s like all of a sudden people seem to think that they have this freedom now to be bigots, out loud, instead of keeping it undercover, which is where it’s been for quite a long time.

YVW: What’s changed in the past 28 years, in the country and in Billings?

GWEN:

Not much. To be honest, not much. We (the state chapter of the Civil Rights Commission) had done a border-town racism study. We gave the same recommendations that the other commissions give for inner-city people — that the police need to have more sensitivity training. They don’t understand the (Native American) culture and therefore they don’t relate to it in the right way.

A lot of laws were passed in the ’60s. However, they were just laws. You began thinking things were going to improve because we have these laws now, but it worked in the reverse, I think.

Because instead of actually following the laws and doing it the way it was intended, they just did something to satisfy the law. It never changed anybody’s attitude.

YVW: Because the laws were there, people could say, “What are you complaining about? Everything’s better now.”

GWEN: Right, right. That’s what people think. And people really think that, “Well, you’ve got equal rights now.” But that’s only on paper. We still don’t get paid equally. And the sentencing — you can see the numbers. It doesn’t matter what state it is. Here in Montana the difference between the Native incarceration to the white incarceration is more than double. There’s something wrong with that picture when (Native Americans are) only 6 percent in the community but you’ve got 20 percent in jail. How that does that work? That’s the exact same thing you see in the inner city.

YVW:

Are you more or less hopeful about the cause of racial justice than you were in 1992?

GWEN:

Since the incident with Mr. Floyd, I am much more hopeful. There are a couple of reasons for that. When the incident with Mr. Floyd happened, it instantly reminded me of in the ’60s, when whites saw how they were putting police dogs on children and hosing them with fire hoses — until white America actually saw that, they did not understand what was going on. When they saw that, then we had the Civil Rights Movement. Now, with this, the same thing happened. The other thing is the number of young people that are out there saying, “Stop this. This is not who we are. This is America.”

YVW:

Given that you are a woman, how much harder do you think it would be to be a young black man in Billings?

GWEN:

Well, if I was a man, I would not have had the opportunities that I’ve had. All my life, I’ve known that black women were more easily accepted than a black man. And that would be on a job or anything else.

YVW: A lot of people in Billings want to do the right thing. But what is the right thing to do?

GWEN: I was just on a panel last week, and that was one of the things I said, that I have no idea what the solution is or could be.

I have worked with (police) Chief (Rich) St. John on numerous issues in the past, and I know that he sincerely wants to find a solution to what the community sees as being the problem. But what is the solution? I have no idea. To me, the best thing to do is start a conversation. When a person tells you something that they’ve experienced, instead of demeaning them or belittling them for it, people should listen to what they’re saying and then say, “Well, that’s not right, let’s do something about it.” Most people of color know that if you make too much noise about it, you’ll be harassed, you’ll be followed, all kinds of things will start happening. So, most of the time, people talk among themselves.

The people of color know what goes on, but it’s amazing that white people don’t know. So that’s it. People need to talk. ✻

JULY/AUGUST 2020

11

heroes2 THE

WITH W ITH IN

THE WOMEN WHO PUT COMMUNITY BEFORE SELF IN THE FACE OF COVID-19

ON MARCH 13, the news came that our city had been prepping to hear for weeks. The first confirmed case of COVID-19 had sprouted in Billings. In a matter of hours, medical professionals citywide, unified by the goal of keeping the virus at bay, sprang into action. New testing modes were created. Protocols were developed. All the while, heroes rose to the surface. No one 12

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knew quite what to expect or how deeply this virus might strike, but there were people who rushed in to help nonetheless. This issue, our cover feature isn’t one woman’s story. It is the stories of a handful of women who stepped up to serve and keep our community safe in the face of stress, uncertainty and everevolving health information.

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THE THE PATHOGEN PATHOGEN POLICE POLICE THE INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALISTS HELP CHART A MEDICAL PLAN OF ATTACK written by JULIE KOERBER photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

LAST DECEMBER, Infection Preventionist Jordan Zepeda started to see the alerts on St. Vincent Healthcare’s medical news service about a viral pneumonia cropping up in China.

“It was on our radar, but when it hit the U.S., we had that heightened awareness,” Zepeda says. She and fellow Infection Preventionist Kathy Usuriello, R.N., did what they always do when a new virus hits: they worked overtime to study it.

“We had SARS back in 2002, so my thought was, ‘Oh, here’s another bug from China. We’ll keep an eye on it,’” Usuriello says.

As time went on, and more information came to light, she says, “There was a little bit of fear because it is a new organism that is pretty virulent.”

Across the street at the Billings Clinic, those trained in containing infectious diseases also had an eagle-eye focus.

the patient was in proper isolation.”

Nightingale and Iversen watched faces sink into fear when their colleagues discovered they had cared for COVID-19 positive person.

Over and over, Nightingale and Iversen shared the words, “You did the right thing. You wore the right things.” Iversen says, “I think we walked out of here at about 11 that night.” As she made her way home to crawl into bed, she says, three words came to mind: “Here we go.”

“The testing tent that we have out there, that went up practically overnight,” Zepeda says of St. Vincent Healthcare’s triage area designed to test large groups of people in an open-air capacity.

YOU HAVE THIS

“We stood up a daycare in 12 hours because we knew schools might close,” Iversen says of the Billings Clinic’s response. “We have to have healthcare workers here to take care of these patients. We were preparing for the worst and were pleased that we didn’t see the worst like other places, truly.” She and Nightingale also met with every department head to make sure everyone was on the same page.

“We knew early on that this was acting like a NEW VIRUS SHOW UP AND respiratory virus in a population that didn’t NO MATTER HOW MUCH have immunity, so we knew this was going WE READ, UNDERSTAND to spread quickly,” says Chris Nightingale, an AND PREPARE OURSELVES, R.N. and a 32-year Billings Clinic infection THERE IS NEW preventionist. She and Nancy Iversen, R.N., who serves as the clinic’s director of INFORMATION EVERY DAY. — Jordan Zepeda, patient safety and infection control, pored “We couldn’t have all the respiratory illness Infection Preventionist over the hospital’s “emerging pathogen patients coming through every entrance preparedness plans” and stayed in constant at Billings Clinic, not in a pandemic that is contact with Yellowstone County’s Unified respiratory spread,” Iversen says.

Health Command, a medical and technical team made up of people from RiverStone Health, Billings Clinic, Not knowing how COVID-19 might hit our city, Iversen, St. Vincent Healthcare and Yellowstone County Disaster and Nightingale, Zepeda and Usuriello won’t soon forget the 12-hourEmergency Services. plus days worked seven days a week for weeks on end, just to make sure our community of roughly 7,000 health care providers “Why we did so well in Montana was we had time to prepare,” had the latest information and safety protocols at the ready.

Nightingale says.

On a chilly evening in March, Friday the 13th to be exact, the first official COVID-19 case walked through the doors at the Billings Clinic.

“We were here at work. It was about 6 on a Friday evening and we got the call that we got a positive case,” Iversen says. “We did then what we normally do. We alerted people and tried to make sure

“You have this new virus show up and no matter how much we read, understand and prepare ourselves, there is new information every day,” Zepeda says. “What if we missed one little piece of information that changes an outcome?” She adds, “My phone never rang so much. We had sick patients that providers wanted to test. They had traveled somewhere. They had been in an airport. Could they have COVID? Well, maybe.”

JULY/AUGUST 2020

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“I will always remember the first patient,” Iversen says. “She came in after a few days of upper respiratory illness.

She was very weak and short of breath.

She came into same day care and within hours she had a breathing tube. She was in ICU on a breathing machine. We are grateful that we were here for her,” Iversen says. “It was just about at her two-week mark that she drove herself home. Every clinical team did it right.”

At the height of the outbreak, St. Vincent Healthcare had one person in the ICU. “We never saw a full ICU,” Zepeda says.

“We did see a lot of stress and fear.”

NANCY IVERSEN & CHRIS NIGHTINGALE

Nightingale says Billings is mirroring what others have seen around the nation. Eighty-percent of positive cases have been mild to moderate and didn’t require hospitalization. Four to 5 percent were severe enough to need the help of a breathing machine. At the height of the outbreak, Billings Clinic witnessed eight cases in the ICU, three of which resulted in death.

“It’s terrible,” Iversen says. “You read the charts and you talk to the staff. ‘How are they doing?’ You walk up on the unit and the doors are closed. These patients have been left alone. If it hadn’t been for nursing and people going in and caring for them? We weren’t allowing visitors and that’s terrible.” Nightingale adds that this is why visiting the ICU proved to be critical, taking a little extra time to talk to healthcare workers, answer questions and calm nerves.

On a so-called normal day, infection preventionists focus their energies on what Usuriello calls the “superhighways where organisms can get in.” They keep an eye on protocols involving things like central lines, surgical instruments, catheters and items that can spread infection. They look at the roster of patients, trying to see if anyone in the hospital needs special isolation.

KATHY USURIELLO & JORDAN ZEPEDA 14

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As Iversen says, life didn’t stop when COVID-19 hit. “We just have one more ball to juggle. It’s dynamic work with a goal of no infections.”

IT’S SMOLDERING RIGHT NOW. WE WILL HAVE WAVES. WE WILL HAVE MORE CASES. — Nancy Iversen, R.N.

Last fall, Zepeda and Usuriello headed up a mock drill which they now call a “blessing in disguise.” Mock measles patients showed up and providers went through the motions of response. “At the time,” Zepeda says, “there were some measles outbreaks around the country. We wanted to be able to handle that. It was a good thing we did because it helped us find a lot of the gaps that better prepared us for COVID.” In January, when news of the novel coronavirus was starting to heat up, Iversen traveled nearly 400 miles to Hamilton, Montana, to visit the Rocky Mountain Lab and attend a meeting with fellow infectious disease specialists. The lab is one of the nation’s 13 facilities equipped to handle the world’s most dangerous pathogens.

“It was pretty interesting. We met the lab director and one of the doctors, the Ph.D. scientist that is working on the COVID vaccine right now,” Iversen says. “They had just finished up the Ebola vaccine and they were very happy about that.” With roughly 450 lab employees, Iversen calls it one of Montana’s best-kept secrets. “Some of the publications about COVID are coming out of that lab right now.”

coronavirus, all four will be looking for the signs of a spike in positive cases.

“It’s smoldering right now,” Iversen says. “We will have waves.

We will have more cases.”

Meantime, Iversen hasn’t seen her 90-year-old mother since before the outbreak. She didn’t make the trek to Miles City to see her for Mother’s Day. “I don’t know when I am going to be able to see her because I am trying to keep her protected,” she says. She wants to keep her mother safe, of course, but she can’t risk infection herself.

WHY WE DID SO WELL IN MONTANA WAS WE HAD TIME TO PREPARE. — Chris Nightingale, R.N. and Infection Preventionist

For Usuriello, Iversen and Nightingale, COVID-19 wasn’t their first public health emergency. All three remember the early days of the AIDS virus, caring for patients before treatment was available. They all vividly remember the measles outbreak in the 1980s. They kept an eye on recent threats like West Nile, Anthrax and the resurgence of smallpox.

“We have really quarantined ourselves because we are a specialty resource and we cannot be sick.” She wears a mask at work daily and, as we talked, she thought about printing off reasons why wearing a mask is so important for a community’s health to distribute on the rare occasions she is in public.

Like her colleagues, she has been getting little sleep.

“When you have passion and purpose, it’s not work,” she says. “Yes, we get tired. There have been times it’s been exhausting. But, we always have each other’s backs.”

When it comes to the community, she says, it’s service over self. “We are not going to let someone be in a situation that is unfamiliar to them alone. Period. You just don’t do that to people.”✻

“I still think I have some PTSD from measles, from HIV-AIDS, and from H1N1,” Nightingale says. “While this is scary, for me this is different. There are viral things that cause outbreaks, they just do.”

It’s why come fall, as they wait for a possible second wave of the JULY/AUGUST 2020

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NEXT LEVEL LEVEL NEXT

NURSING NURSING TRAVELING NURSE TAKES HER CARE TO NEW YORK CITY

written by LAURA BAILEY photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

NURSE SARAH SHIELDS will never forget seeing one of her patients leave Queens Hospital in New York to the Beatles song, “Here Comes the Sun.” That’s the tradition there when someone beats COVID-19 and is discharged. All the staff on shift takes a break to cheer on the survivors as they leave.

As the little lady walked through the crowded lobby, she took her time to thank as many doctors and nurses as possible. The woman was the first of Sarah’s patients, and one of only a few patients, who recovered from COVID-19. As the song’s refrain, “It’s all right” played over the PA system, Sarah thought of the woman’s eyes.

Every day for 37 days, Sarah donned a full-body surgical gown, an N-95 mask, covered by a surgical mask, goggles and face shield.

On her head she wore a hair net. Only her eyes were visible to her patients. Likewise, her patients were typically wearing masks or medical equipment to help them breathe. Sarah’s speech was always muffled by her equipment, and her patients frequently couldn’t talk. Those who could spoke only broken English.

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But the eyes can say what no language can, and every day Sarah’s eyes told her patients, “I’m here for you. I’ll be your advocate.”

Sarah is a travel nurse, who works at St. Vincent Healthcare. A nurse for five years now, she’s worked at various locations across the country, but has called Billings home for the last couple of years. In March, when the coronavirus hit hard in New York, she was given an opportunity to serve there. It was a risky assignment, but despite the odds, Sara decided to go.

“I knew that’s where I wanted to be,” she says.

Twenty-four hours later she was on a plane bound for New York City. Her duty assignment: Queens Hospital.

As a travel nurse, Sarah has worked in most all specialties, including oncology and palliative care. Sarah is no stranger to death and dying, but what lay ahead of her would shake her to her core.

“That first day, we opened the doors to mass chaos,” Sarah says.

“It was the definition of hit the ground running.”

Queens Hospital was beyond capacity and every patient in the building was infected with COVID-19. As Sarah described it, people could be heard yelling through their masks, alarms were going off constantly. Medical staff were running everywhere.

There was equipment, beds and patients stacked everywhere, many waiting in chairs for beds to open up.

“It was something you could never have prepared for,” she says.

“You take the trauma scenes from movies and crank it up a couple of notches.”

She was assigned a list of patients and went to work, but Sarah soon realized her work was more of a support role for end-of-life care – sudden end-oflife care. COVID-19 was taking the lives of her patients often within a few days of being admitted. It was like nothing Sarah had ever experienced.

sought reconciliation and begged forgiveness as Sarah held the phone to their ear. No matter how the conversations went, they were equally heartbreaking.

“When you hear the conversations between two people for the last time, you hear a lot of things that make you rethink your everyday actions,” Sarah says. “Not a lot of things are final, but death is.”

On her rough days, she would go home and decompress, or take a few minutes during her shift to work through her feelings.

The experiences at Queens Hospital pushed her to the very edge, but there was no time to think or process her emotions.

TO WATCH HER BEAT COVID WAS A REAL WIN. I PROVIDED HER WITH COMFORT AND SHE PROVIDED ME WITH MOTIVATION TO KEEP GOING. — Sarah Shields

“I saw more death and dying in 37 days than I have in my five years as a nurse combined – and family wasn’t present for anyone,” she says.

The loss of life was relentless, but providing the best possible care was Sarah’s focus. She was motivated by her patients and their stories, especially the woman Sarah treated who was her first patient to beat the virus.

“To watch her beat COVID was a real win,” Sarah says. “It came at a time when I needed it the most. I provided her with comfort and she provided me with motivation to keep going.”

As often as she could, Sarah helped her patients connect with their loved ones, even if she could only spare five minutes. The hardest times were when she overheard the last conversations her dying patients had with their loved ones. Some were tender, peaceful moments. Some were fraught with pain. Some patients

“I felt like an egg,” she says. “My shell was just getting thinner and thinner, and I knew if I cracked, I would have no time to pull it together.”

Thankfully, the strict quarantine following her time in New York gave her the time to decompress. When it was allowed, she went to the mountains where she was out of cell-phone service and unplugged from the news. There, she found restoration.

“I let myself rest physically, mentally and emotionally,” she says.

“I was able to go through the emotions and thoughts that I didn’t have the time to process while I was there.”

As she reflects on her experience at Queens Hospital, Sarah has a renewed appreciation for the nursing profession, and it’s changed the way she approaches her work.

“I learned that a shared language is not necessary,” she says. “I will never underestimate what a simple hand touch will do, and the power of communicating by nonverbal actions.” ✻ JULY/AUGUST 2020

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HEALTHCARE HERO

SAM KAUFMAN STAGING A COMMUNITY RESPONSE TO COVID-19 written by ED KEMMICK photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

IN NOT QUITE 25 YEARS, Sam Kaufman has been an intensivecare nurse, medical-flight dispatcher, EMT, paramedic, police officer, flight nurse and K-9 handler, sometimes holding three or four of those positions at the same time.

Along the way, she took part in emergency responses to Hurricane Katrina, a massive tornado in Joplin, Missouri, and an outbreak of the Ebola virus in Dallas. During her time in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, she also helped staff the Superbowl and the World Series.

Luckily for us, in 2015 she returned to Billings, where she grew up, and she’s now the director of emergency services at St. Vincent Healthcare, where she oversees about 80 people, including house supervisors, in trauma services, the emergency department and the flight program.

All that experience she gained far from home proved very useful when Billings, like communities across the world, suddenly had to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.

Sam was part of the St. Vincent team formed to decide how the hospital would respond.

escape of harmful particles.

That was in mid-March, and the testing site was set up and ready to go within three days. As far as she knows, it was the first of its kind in Montana.

“I am pretty positive that was the case, because we had a lot of other cities in contact with us, trying to figure out how to set it up,” she says.

EMS WAS MY HOBBY. I JUST HAD A HUGE DESIRE AND DRIVE. IT WAS NEVER LIKE WORK TO ME. IT WAS MY FUN.

Since Mid-March, she says, St. Vincent has slowly enlarged the operation, which is still being used for pre-surgical testing as well as symptomatic testing for COVID-19, and for trace testing as well, which helps to map the spread of the virus.

It’s been a hectic few months for Sam and her colleagues, but it’s nothing she’s not accustomed to. “It probably sounds sick,” Sam says, but she’s never had a real hobby.

“EMS was my hobby. I just had a huge desire and drive. It was never like work to me. It was my fun.”

— Sam Kaufman Sam already knew that exposure to sunlight was effective in lessening the longevity of a virus, and she says St. Vincent had previously done practice drills involving drive-through fluvaccine shots. She did research to see what was being done with testing in China, where the virus originated, as well Growing up in and around Billings, Sam says, her parents, Larry as in other countries that were in the thick of the pandemic. and Linda Smith, recognized early on she had energy to spare

She took her research to the command team, she says: “I told them I had an idea and they kind of let me run with it.”

The idea was to set up drive-through testing tents in a St. Vincent parking lot, where people could be tested without entering the hospital, where sunlight would be plentiful and where it would be easier to create negative air pressure, which helps prevent the 18

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and “tried to keep me busy in every after-school program they could.”

As a kid, there was swimming, basketball and volleyball. She was later involved in drama and band and she played softball through her sophomore year in high school before being sidelined by shoulder injuries. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do after

graduating from Skyview High School in 1995, but when her then-boyfriend enrolled at Montana Tech in Butte, she looked through the course catalog and settled on nursing.

had,” she says. “And they always seemed to love their jobs.”

After earning her nursing degree, she spent a year in the intensive-care unit at what is now Billings Clinic. Working there and rubbing elbows with EMTs and paramedics, she decided to expand her skill set.

While working full-time, she enrolled in a night class to become an EMT. She was soon working full-time as an EMT for American Medical Response in Billings and pulling night shifts as a dispatcher for the St. Vincent flight program. Somehow, she also squeezed in some paramedic training on the days she wasn’t working.

“I think it was the excitement of hearing their stories out in the field, and what they got to do to help people, the autonomy they

How many hours a week was she putting in, between working and training? “I can’t even tell you,” she says, half laughing and

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WHAT FILLS MY CUP IS KNOWING THAT THEY GET EVERYTHING THEY NEED, AND TO SEE THEM BE SUCCESSFUL. — Sam Kaufman

half sighing. “I did not get a lot of sleep.”

All that happened in less than three years. By that time, she decided to try working in a big city. She landed a job with American Medical Response in Dallas-Fort Worth, but because the job involved backup, as opposed to providing primary services, she soon took a new job as a paramedic in the city of Arlington, part of the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area.

In that role, she got to know the police chief in Dalworthington Gardens, a little city surrounded by Arlington, and the chief offered to send her to the police academy. After gaining that certification, she worked a few days a week for the police force while pulling a couple of 24-hour shifts a week as a paramedic.

And because she’s Sam, she eventually started her own nonprofit search-and-rescue organization, funded by local businesses and using her own K-9s. She served warrants, responded to fire calls, worked traffic patrol, conducted evidence and cadaver searches with her dogs and dealt with accidents of all kinds.

She obtained plenty of the big-city experience she’d gone to Dallas for — including incidents involving pipe bombs, an oil-rig explosion near Houston and a fertilizer plant explosion in West Texas that killed seven firefighters.

“Unfortunately, big bad things happen more frequently (in big cities), so you get more practice at them,” she says. “I’ve been through a lot of sad things, I guess you would say.”

The most intense work she ever did was in response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. She was a member of an elite Texas Emergency Medical Task Force, made up of hand-picked first responders charged with meeting the needs of the devastated area. It was an exhausting, exhilarating assignment that lasted three weeks.

“I learned so much from that entire thing,” Sam says. “It was a humbling experience, for sure.”

She learned more as an on-field paramedic at the Texas Rangers’ baseball stadium and the Dallas Cowboys’ football stadium, both 20

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in Arlington. Working the football games, she found there were no established on-field medical protocols, so she helped develop them, and then watched as they were adopted throughout the National Football League.

She’d planned to spend two years in Dallas and ended up there for 15 years. Eventually, though, she felt the tug of home. Both of her parents had bouts of cancer, and her brother had a growing family. She had always been career-driven, but in talking with so many people who were nearing the ends of their lives, she kept hearing the same message.

“Every single person told me, I wish I would have spent more time with my family. I wish I wouldn’t have been as involved in work and I wish I would have put my family first.”

So, she returned to Billings in 2015, working as the manager of trauma services at St. Vincent, the hospital where she was born and had worked at the start of her career. After two years in that position she became director of the emergency department, then director of emergency services.

Chad Cady works for Sam as flight nurse at St. Vincent, where he’s been since 1998. He says Sam is the first director he’s worked for who had “a previous history in the flight world. She truly understands the dynamics of the industry. … A lot of in-hospital folks, without pre-hospital experience, aren’t able to comprehend all the idiosyncracies that go into the transport world.”

It helps that she “has a great sense of humor, very witty and quick,” Chad says. She also listens and learns quickly, always ready to lead but also open to advice and direction, he says.

And though she sometimes misses being a flight nurse, Sam says her position “gets pretty wild, too, just in a different way. I’m doing those things but just on a higher level. I have to be there every day to support the people who do those things.

“What fills my cup is knowing that they get everything they need, and to see them be successful,” she says. ✻

DISEASE DISEASE DETECTIVES DETECTIVES NURSES SPECIALIZING IN CONTACT TRACING WORK TO DISCOVER COVID-19’S EVERY MOVE written by JULIE KOERBER photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

out. That was the first test we did on a person. It turned out that he didn’t have that but another viral illness.”

Not only did Tougas and Bailey test potential COVID-19 positive cases early on; more importantly, they were responsible for retracing every move of those who tested positive to try to stop the virus from spreading.

“The whole thing is being a detective,” Tougas says. “It’s not just COVID. It is every communicable disease that gets reported.”

KIM BAILEY AND HANNAH TOUGAS will never forget standing in a man’s garage protected from head to toe donning gloves, N95 face masks, gowns and goggles, with swabs in hand ready to perform a test for the first suspected case of COVID-19 in Yellowstone County. It was the first week of February.

“We brought him out to the garage because there were other family members in the home,” says Bailey, a registered nurse and the communicable disease program manager with RiverStone Health. Tougas, also a registered nurse in the program, is Bailey’s right hand in these investigations. “We couldn’t open the door,” she says, because they didn’t want to give any virus a chance to escape.

The man being tested had just come back from China and the duo was monitoring him, checking in daily and asking if he had any signs or symptoms of the virus.

“He developed symptoms,” Bailey says. “So, Hannah and I went

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They are given a name, birthdate, a contact number and where the person was tested. With those very basic details, the two get to work. Tougas says they would ask, “What is the story around this person? If they were picked up by an ambulance, was the ambulance crew wearing personal protective equipment?”

The pair looks at people the positive person had close contact with 48 hours before the person showed symptoms. Recall during that window of time, Tougas says, is usually pretty good.

It’s tracing a person’s steps back two weeks that can get tricky.

The investigation has to travel that far back in hopes of finding out how a person was exposed. Tougas says, “That gets a little more difficult.”

“Across the board, the people that have tested positive, they don’t want to have given this to anyone else,” Bailey says. “They are very open and honest about where they’ve been and the people they’ve been around.”

On this day, laid out on Bailey’ desk is a handful of charts full of circles and arrows, each one details a cluster of COVID infections they’ve investigated and the positive cases that resulted. One shows an outbreak tied to a birthday party, another details a

handful of cases at a local grocery store, and a third showcases the links of infection from a carpool.

one scenario that kept her up at night was the thought that a case could erupt into an outbreak at a nursing home or assisted-living facility.

“OK, let’s start to identify how these people are connected,” Bailey says. “Within this group, these people were not connected to this “If there is a positive case, you have to jump on it fast because in person, but this person was the common link,” she says pointing those facilities, it will spread like wildfire and those people will to the one case that didn’t test positive but die,” Bailey says, adding that in many of those seemed to be the bridge between two clusters facilities, the elderly need contact with others of infection. “Who tests positive? Who just to get fed and dressed. “That’s the scariest doesn’t? Who’s symptomatic? Who isn’t? The thing. I know those facilities are trying like whole thing is baffling. It is hard to wrap your crazy to protect their people.”

THEY WERE JUST mind around it.”

By mid-June, the COVID-19 death toll in LIVING THEIR For each investigation, there might be as few Yellowstone County stood at three. For Bailey LIFE AND DOING as two people to question who had contact and Tougas, each casualty was personal.

THINGS LIKE THEY with a COVID-positive person, or as many as Colleagues say when the news came, the pair NORMALLY WOULD 20. looked as though they were grieving the loss of a loved one.

AND THEN, THEY By 11 a.m., right before sitting down to talk FOUND OUT THEY about her job, Tougas had already taken 10 “It hit me really hard,” Tougas says. “It brings HAD THE VIRUS. calls tied to her investigative work. “It’s never tears to my eyes even now.” Bailey adds, “We — Hannah Tougas ending,” she says. had contact with these people, interactions with their family.”

Before the pandemic, Tougas and Bailey spent their days tracing outbreaks tied to “We talked to all of them on the phone,” sexually transmitted diseases. Recently, they Tougas says. “They were just living their life had a cluster of Hepatitis A cases. They chart and doing things like they normally would and food-borne illnesses and are the first line of then, they found out they had the virus.” defense in cases of whooping cough or the measles.

“In some people, it just has this cascade effect in their body and When a pandemic breaks out, they can’t just put everything aside their immune system just reacts causing their vital organs to fail,” to focus on the threat. They are required by law to follow up on Bailey says. “It’s just an overreaction of their immune system.” every kind of communicable disease or illness that poses a threat With the future unclear about a potential second wave of the to the community’s health. virus, Bailey and Tougas are using the time to continually tweak “In the beginning, it was mass chaos,” Bailey says. “There were a their next plan of attack. few weeks there when we were getting 20 cases a week.”

“We just re-evaluated our team of people to make sure that they They expanded their investigative team, pulling from all areas of are going to be ready if we start to have an uptick of cases,” Bailey RiverStone Health. At its height, they had a team of 14 people. says. “We have to keep people at the ready.” ✻ Bailey and Tougas have had a hand in investigating all 100plus cases in Yellowstone County, plus those cases that might have crossed into our community from nearby areas. That equated to more than 400 individual investigative calls. They said deep breaths and delegating kept them sane.

“We were triaging people on the phone, letting them know that they needed to stay home if they weren’t sick enough to normally go to their doctor,” Bailey says. “We didn’t want to overwhelm the hospitals. That was a big piece of it.”

While the job was stressful, Bailey says the

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TAKING IT TO THE STREETS TWO BILLINGS WOMEN USE THE POWER DURING THE PANDEMIC TO TAKE CARE OF THE HOMELESS written by LAURA BAILEY photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

WE ALL KNOW the drill. Wash your hands, stay at home, avoid public places and, if you go out, keep a distance of at least six feet and wear a mask. The advice from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has been all over the news and social media, along with information about the symptoms of COVID-19.

Now, imagine protecting yourself from the deadly virus without running water, soap or a sink, without a shelter to shelter in place, and no access to critical information.

This was the reality for about 400 homeless men, women and children in Billings. Many more individuals are experiencing housing instability and teeter on the verge of homelessness.

“They are humans,” says Patti Webster, the executive director of the Housing Authority of Billings. “They’re not very far away from any of us. They have names, families, histories and backgrounds not very different from yours or mine.”

On the best of days, the homeless are an extremely vulnerable population. During the pandemic, their exposure is magnified.

Across the nation, COVID-19 hit homeless populations hard with high infection and mortality rates. But not in Billings, thanks to a dedicated response from the Billings Continuum of Care (CoC), an alliance of government and nonprofit aid agencies whose

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mission is to make homelessness a rare, brief and one-time event.

Patti is the chair of the CoC. For the past four months, she has worked tirelessly alongside a cadre of compassionate community leaders including Erika Willis, past chair of the CoC and the executive director of Tumblweed, a nonprofit that serves homeless youth. Together, they’ve effectively stopped the worstcase scenario from happening in our community.

“I can’t tell you how proud I am to be a part of this group at this time,” Patti says. “What the CoC has done has been so successful.”

As soon as it looked like shelter in place and social distancing orders were coming, Patti called the CoC into action to assess the needs of those they served. Shelters like the Montana Rescue Mission and the Women’s and Family Shelter suddenly limited their capacity to allow for social distancing. Many agencies closed, and those that could remain open struggled to maintain a minimum of staff.

“All the services that the homeless were using on a daily basis went away overnight,” Patti says.

For the safety of clients and staff, Tumbleweed closed its dropin center and offices. Each year, Tumbleweed serves about 1,000 youths between ages 15 and 24 and when the center closed, they

STANDING L TO R: ASHLEY OLIEN, MEGAN BLOOM, KEE DUNNING, ERIKA WILLIS, ARIEL DRALLE, CANDIS COPE. KNEELING L TO R: GEORGIA CADY AND AFTON AHRENS

had about 60 to 70 active clients.

“We are, for some of them, all they have,” Erika says.

To search out the need, the Tumbleweed team amplified its street outreach efforts. They realized the homeless were among the few moving around Billings’ quiet streets. They needed food, water and reassurance. Erika and Patti’s teams delivered, handing out food boxes, water, snacks and necessities, including socks, undergarments and other clothing.

would huddle every day and ask, what do we need to do to meet the needs of people today?”

In every encounter on the streets, under bridges and in makeshift camps, their parting words were always a cheerful, “Love you!”

Almost immediately, Erika and her team recognized a need for food, and put a call out to Tumbleweed supporters for food donations. Truckloads of food were delivered, which they then boxed and distributed to anyone in need.

IT WAS AN OPPORTUNITY TO

Between the two women, they knew “It was an opportunity to connect with CONNECT WITH PEOPLE AND most of those they saw by name. With people and provide hope,” Erika says.

PROVIDE HOPE. those they didn’t know, they quickly “It was also a way to educate them on — Erika Willis developed a rapport. With each box of Covid and what they could do to stay food, the recipients’ faces would light safe.” up with a smile and their shoulders The food box project took off. Many of would ease with relief. With each the food boxes were delivered to homeless youth and adults living encounter, Patti and Erika spread reliable information about on the streets.

They were also delivered to more than 100 lowCOVID-19, including precautions people living on the streets income elderly people. Many were health-compromised and too could take. With genuine care and concern, they asked where fearful to go to the grocery store. For some needy families, it was each person was staying and what other needs they might have. the first time they had accepted a food box.

“I give huge credit to the Tumbleweed team,” Erika says. “We Another immediate need was a safe place for homeless people to JULY/AUGUST 2020

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WE OFFER UNCONDITIONAL POSITIVE REGARD AND A HIGH DEGREE OF RESPECT FOR ALL PEOPLE. OUR PRIMARY GOAL IS TO PRESERVE THEIR DIGNITY IN THIS CHALLENGING TIME. — Erika Willis

GEORGIA CADY DOING CASE MANAGEMENT WITH A YOUTH DURING STREET OUTREACH.

quarantine should they develop coronavirus symptoms. With the help of public health officials, Erika and Patti set up a quarantine and isolation site in the Montana Pavilion at MetraPark. There, in draped cubicles, people could await test results and, if infected, remain isolated.

“We had no idea what we were preparing for,” Erika says. “We had to prepare for the worst-case scenario.”

Though the quarantine and isolation site had much support, staffing it was a challenge, especially early on. When they needed help changing bedding and disinfecting the stalls, Erika and Patti pulled on rubber gloves and masks and got to work. Late one night as Patti was working, she overheard a phone conversation a homeless man had with his family.

“I’m afraid I am going to die alone,” he said.

The call brought Patti to tears.

homeless people shelter in place where they were and stay healthy where they were.”

Throughout the crisis, Patti and others on the team kept community and public health leaders informed with dozens of presentations and reports. Those meetings helped ensure that, through the CoC, emergency federal and state funding went to meet the most urgent needs.

The quarantine and isolation site at MetraPark has been disbanded and replaced by a mobile unit, managed by RiverStone Health. While restrictions have lifted across the state, the homeless in Billings are still highly vulnerable, and they still need support.

“We offer unconditional positive regard and a high degree of respect for all people,” Erika says. “Our primary goal is to preserve their dignity in this challenging time.”

“We’re over here all trying to figure out systems and logistics and here was this man – this human side of what we were doing,” Patti says. “I realized the impact of this and the mental anguish of it all.”

Even in the midst of one of the worst public health crises in history, work continued to find housing for those in need. The Housing Authority of Billings successfully housed 33 homeless people in the past four months and prepared assessments for 90 others to get into housing.

The man, who was very sick, did not test positive for Covid-19 and was released from the quarantine and isolation site. He was among about a dozen homeless individuals who made use of the site – far fewer than anyone expected.

“Every single one of us was serving the most vulnerable populations and the hardest hit by COVID,” Patti says. “We were just filling the gaps, and making what needed to happen, happen.” ✻

“We have not seen the outbreak that they have seen in other communities,” Patti says. “We were successful helping our

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national online publications.

“It’s been really interesting to be able to meet a lot of different people over the phone,” she says. “I’ve even had the opportunity to talk to a sports reporter I would normally never talk to.”

Sometimes that has meant a telephone call at 10 p.m. at home. Which is why Schneeman keeps her phones with her wherever she goes.

Schneeman has worked at RiverStone Health for 17 years as vice president of communications and public affairs and as its PIO. With that role has come extensive training in crisis and emergency risk communication through the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and regionally.

COMMUNICATING

THE CRISIS FOR BARBARA SCHNEEMAN, INFORMING ABOUT COVID-19 IS A 24/7 JOB written by SUE OLP photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

BARBARA SCHNEEMAN sits at the desk in her third-floor office at RiverStone Health, two cell phones, a land line, a desk-top computer and her laptop all within reach. When you are living at the epicenter of Yellowstone County’s response to COVID-19, communication is always on your mind.

Schneeman, public information officer (PIO) for the Yellowstone County COVID-19 Command, sometimes will have more than one phone ringing at the same time.

That training has given her a good foundation to oversee communication in a crisis. But nothing can fully prepare a person for the first worldwide pandemic in 100 years. One challenge, Schneeman says, is the speed at which information travels on social media and the number of people who assume everything they read is true. Trying to keep up with false or misleading statements can be timeconsuming.

The other thing training never mentioned is how politics can play a role in a medical crisis.

Even when it comes to something as seemingly innocuous as wearing a face mask.

“The guidance that we give from a public health standpoint is to keep people safe and healthy,” she says. “I didn’t realize that people would take in information differently based on political ideology.”

COVID-19 has been Schneeman’s sole focus for the past few months. Pretty much everything else has shifted to the back burner for her and the rest of the staff at RiverStone Health. It has taught her flexibility. Schneeman meets with her team every morning to do a wrap-up from the day before and make plans for the day ahead.

“Fifteen minutes after the meeting, it could change and then we redirect our time and attention to something else,” she says.

“I think, ‘OK, which one of these rang first?’” she says, laughing.

During the most intense weeks of the pandemic so far, Schneeman joined in multiple meetings throughout the day, often taking part in conference calls with other members of the Yellowstone County COVID-19 Command.

With the media scrambling to cover every aspect of the pandemic, Schneeman has talked with reporters from local, state and even

The group includes representatives of RiverStone, the two Billings hospitals, law enforcement agencies, emergency responders and

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city and county officials, among others.

Sitting in the conference room, six feet apart from other RiverStone staff members, she’d position her laptop in front of her, a mug of tea beside it, and work on the latest pressing issue.

At 6 or 7 p.m., Schneeman would go home, eat dinner, then again turn her attention to work.

“I’d try to get back to emails that didn’t get answered during the day or work on talking points or press releases or guidance materials,” Schneeman says. “There was a constant need for information.”

To unwind, she’d scroll through Facebook to check on friends, or email family living in other states, spend some time with her husband and two Bichon Frise pups. Then she’d fall into bed around 11 and drift off “because I was really worn out.”

Her work weeks didn’t end on Fridays. Weekends meant more meetings, more phone calls from reporters and attending to endless details of her job.

Schneeman is quick to say that many others in the public health sector dealt with similar pressures during that time. Keeping life in balance wasn’t easy.

“Kind of through it all you try to remain healthy, you try to eat right, to exercise and get enough sleep,” she says. “But the reality of how fast things were coming up and the need to respond, I didn’t do as good a job as I should have.”

She recounts how her husband, Dave Wanzenried, worried about the long hours and the stress she endured. There were times, Schneeman says, when she was home physically “but mentally I wasn’t. That’s hard on relationships.”

With the pressure eased slightly, the couple enjoyed an extended Memorial Day weekend, catching up and enjoying time with their two dogs, 3-year-old Dewey and Emmie, a puppy the couple acquired in March.

The pair stays pretty close to home. When Schneeman makes trips to the grocery store, she generally goes early in the day and always wears a mask. It lets her practice what she preaches.

Schneeman knows the toll the pandemic has taken, from those who have suffered from COVID-19 to families supporting those who have had it or, worse yet, died from it, to seeing lives disrupted financially or even emotionally.

HOW WE ALL INDIVIDUALLY BEHAVE WILL COLLECTIVELY MAKE A DIFFERENCE. — Barbara Schneeman

She and her husband postponed a family vacation to Hawaii at the end of March to celebrate her birthday. Instead, Wanzenried bought her a birthday pineapple to mark the day.

Her parents live in assisted living in Billings. When the day came in March that the state called for the lockdown of all similar facilities, she dropped everything to go see them. For Mother’s Day, Schneeman brought her mother, who is battling Alzheimer’s disease, baskets of flowers for her patio. Schneeman’s dad and mom stepped outside to see her, while she maintained the proper social distance.

“My mom kept moving toward me, and I kept moving away from her,” Schneeman says. “I had to say ‘Mom, I can’t touch you,’ and it was heartbreaking.”

Schneeman is grateful for the dedicated people she’s working alongside in this pandemic. Even though COVID-19 seems to be ebbing, at least in Montana, no one knows what will happen as the state continues to open up, and with cold weather and a possible second wave of the virus on the distant horizon.

She will continue to get the word out, to encourage the community to take steps in the absence of a vaccine to stay healthy and COVID-free.

“How we all individually behave will collectively make a difference,” Schneeman says.

It’s the message she hopes people will hear for the sake of everyone around them. ✻

JULY/AUGUST 2020

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care

DELIVERED WITH

SARAH MOYER’S PROJECT LUNCH TRANSFORMS TO PROJECT LOVE written by JULIE KOERBER photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

IN THE HEART of Sarah Moyer’s commercial kitchen, she’s busy writing what she calls a love note on one of her customer’s delivery orders. A salad made with the freshest of ingredients is arranged perfectly in a stainless-steel container.

She places the cloth napkin on top and beneath the colorful band that keeps the lid and everything inside in place, she tucks in the note that reads, “Enjoy your Chicken BLT Salad, ♥ Sarah.”

“I’m really big on presentation,” Sarah says, smiling. “Everything is in the details and the beauty of it.”

ah r a S

As she walks around the space she shares with Miss GiGi’s Sweets in the old Log Cabin Bakery building in downtown Billings, she shows off the heart of her business, Project Lunch. The mission of the business is to deliver healthy homemade lunches to a person’s workplace or home.

Lunch consists of either salads or wraps with locally sourced meats and produce and packaged in stainless steel containers to reduce waste. Sarah arranges to pick up the containers later.

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“As a child, my job was to make the salad,” she says, a chore that might have foreshadowed her latest enterprise. “I have pictures of me in my house in Portland standing on this stool in our yellow, avocado-green and orange kitchen.” She laughs as she adds, “I would assemble the salad in the bowl and I would tell my family that they needed to cut the salad because I arranged it how it was supposed to be served.”

After being in business two and a half years, Sarah was just starting to book large-scale events.

“We were set to multiply our business more than eight times what we did last year,” she says. And then, COVID-19 struck.

Before the pandemic, Project Lunch had at least one large event booked weekly. Daily, she’d deliver around 30 individual lunches.

But by mid-March, her calendar had been wiped clean of catering jobs — including a contract for a $10,000, two-day event — and she was wondering how she’d keep her business rolling. She had $750 in the bank and a $2,000 payroll due by week’s end.

“I thought, there is no way I am going to let my business die,” she says. “I have never paid myself, but I wasn’t going to be in a position where I couldn’t pay my employees. Something had to happen.”

On Sunday, March 15, Sarah was busy in the kitchen prepping corned beef for the weekly special. Her husband, Nathan, was nearby washing dishes.

When they learned that Gov. Steve Bullock had signed an order shutting down schools indefinitely, Sarah says, “I turned to my husband and I said, ‘Stop doing dishes. We are going to Costco.’ He asked why and I said, ‘We are going to get lunches going.

There are going to be kids who need food.’”

Having worked in the past for Head Start, in her mind she could see the faces of hungry children and distressed parents who might not have a source for lunch with schools closed.

Facebook page and announced that starting the next day, the first day of school closures, she’d be delivering lunches anywhere in Yellowstone County.

She never put pen to paper to see if the plan would work financially.

“I just had faith,” Sarah says. “I just knew we were going to feed children and I was going to keep my employees busy for as long as I could.”

She added an item on her website so people could order a lunch with just a first name, an address and the number of lunches the household needed. Before long, cash donations started coming in to help fuel the effort. For every $10 donated, three lunches were delivered to kids in need. A logo was created by one of Sarah’s friends, Jen Rahr of Deer Creek Design Studio. Project Love was born.

“When people don’t have a job, they don’t have gas or don’t have a vehicle,” Sarah begins, “they might need help. Their children might not be able to survive without breakfast or lunch.”

After putting out a social media blast, Sarah says, “That first day, we had 19 lunches. On the second day, we had more than 65, and on the third day, we had well over 100. Now, we consistently do 220 lunches a day anywhere in Yellowstone County.”

After stocking up on enough bread to make 1,000 sandwiches with all the fixings, she jumped on the “I’ll Help Billings”

The lunches are simple but packed with nutrition. Sarah is always JULY/AUGUST 2020

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“IT’S BEEN INCREDIBLE. IT MAKES ME FEEL HOPEFUL. — Sarah Moyer

looking for ways to add a smile inside each brown bag. Tuesday and Thursday, lunches get coloring sheets with their peanut butter and jelly or Nutella and banana sandwiches. Monday, the turkey and cheese sandwich gets a juice box added in. A cheese stick or frozen Go-gurt serves as a treat along with baby carrots, an apple, banana or clementine.

Packing the lunches looks like a buzzing assembly line. Fulltime employee Holli Klein will often have her 11-month-old son, Witten, on her hip or sitting nearby in his bouncy seat. As a former Head Start preschool teacher, she says, “It makes me cry knowing that these families and kids have food that is coming to them each day.” As Witten lets out a squeal as if to agree, Holli adds, “Anything we can do to help is a blessing to my heart.”

need to duplicate and grow it,” Sarah says. “We are a very small business, but we have very big dreams.”

As she talks a little bit about her family history, Sarah says food is a family love. Her great-grandfather owned and operated a semolina pasta factory in Sacramento, California. “His business actually went under during the Great Depression,” Sarah says, adding, “I knew we couldn’t go under.”

Instead, she reflects on how her enterprise morphed to serve a community need. “I could either curl up in my shell, go home and close up shop and try again later or I could say, we did what we could.” She says, without a shadow of a doubt, that Project Lunch will survive.

By the end of June, Project Love delivered its 13,000th lunch, thanks to cash and in-kind community donations plus a $5,000 grant. Sarah built a line of Project Love swag to raise funds and enlisted an army of 25 volunteers each week to help.

As for its sister enterprise, Project Love, Sarah says with a smile on her face and an ever-present sparkle in her eye, “We are going to keep it going for as long as people need it.” ✻

“We have volunteers to pick up everything and deliver it for us,” Sarah says. “It’s been incredible. It makes me feel hopeful.”

FOR MORE ON PROJECT LUNCH & PROJECT LOVE,

Sarah knows that one day, Project Love might take a back seat to her blossoming business. She can’t wait for the day her calendar starts to fill up with catered events. As she talks about her future, she’s on a mission to make Project Lunch into a Fortune 500 company, one that can serve communities far and wide.

“We are figuring out all the nuts and bolts – all the things we 32

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visit www.projectlunch.biz.

inspired2 thrive7 to

HOW GIVING, LEARNING & ACHIEVING CAN LAUNCH YOU OUT OF UNCERTAIN TIMES

THERE ARE SO MANY reasons women end up on the cover of this magazine. They build community. They serve a need.

Their story inspires us to be more, do more, live more. The women who grace the cover of this magazine have given me reason to smile, to cheer and to feel like this is the best possible place to live.

Having been on the cover, I can tell you it is quite a thrill — first to be considered cover worthy— that, for me anyway, is a moment you never forget. Then, seeing your face in the grocery store, or on waiting room coffee tables, well, that is both hilarious and humbling. During my time as a cover girl, friends and relatives loved to send me pictures of where they found my face, usually with a snarky comment or an “atta girl.”

written by KAREN GROSZ

I am telling you this because I have a feeling the women on the cover of this magazine never dreamt they would be there, and never in a million years imagined why they would be on the cover. For the next few months, they will feel like they are everywhere, that they are a hometown celebrity and that they are receiving recognition they were not looking for.

These women helped us, inspired us and cared for us when we needed them the most. I know that I was not even paying attention to all of the work they were doing, because they are servant leaders who did what they could, what they had to, when we needed them, quietly. They will, if you press them, tell you it was nothing, that it was their job, that they just did what they needed to do. But, I will tell you this, their work made a huge difference in our lives, and their bright smiling faces on the cover of this magazine is less than they deserve, but more than they sought.

IN EVERY ISSUE 34

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As I write this article, I do not know exactly what the world will look like when this magazine hits the racks. I do know this, that when we look to our left, and we look to our right, we see new heroes, new role models, new ways of doing business, of communicating, and of celebrating this ride we call life. Some of the changes we see were thrust upon us, some we created ourselves. Some we like. Some we do not.

But, when we dig in, when we look deep into our hearts, into the hearts of others, we will see this amazing human capacity to love, to help, to give, to learn, to change, to survive, and in the best of cases to thrive. I dedicate my life and my work to helping people, individuals or groups, to move forward.

To claim their Nexts, and this COVID-19 ride has given me a renewed energy to do just that. It has also given me a renewed appreciation of how we do all of these things with complete abandon when we do them for others, as the women on the cover did.

While going through shelter in place, I felt lost. Team building was out. My mom had just passed, and we couldn’t gather to celebrate her life. My coaching clients were spinning in their chairs. The nonprofits I support were hurting, closing and sinking under the weight of unprecedented client needs. For a few days, I sat on the couch with ice cream and a remote, hoping to find clarity. I didn’t find it there. I found it on my knees.

When I prayed not to lose my sanity, my business, my health, I heard, with a reverberating cacophony, that I could both survive and thrive. I dug in and found new ways of moving forward, and new clarity for surviving stress.

There were three things I leaned into, that you can lean into

7 Beauty & the Bea st

mily in tana’s 14tha.org

Chase ember Finals ntana. morial uring

Billings Studio Theatre presents “Disney’s Beauty and the Beast Junior,” January 10th-13th. Brainy and beautiful Belle yearns to escape her narrow and restricted life including her brute of a suitor, Gaston.

Belle gets adventurous and as a result becomes a captive in the Beast’s enchanted castle! Dancing flatware, menacing wolves and singing furniture fill the stage with thrills during this beloved fairy tale about very different people finding strength in one another as they learn how to love.b i l l i n g s s tu d i o t h e a t r e .c o m

FRinge FestivaL today, if theTheatre world ispresents not quite world you want it to be, if you are Venture itsthe Fringe Festival, January 18th-19th and be in the top 3 percent of people his age in a worldwide walking 25th-26th.The festival features four nights of shows featuring local not quite sure of tomorrow. They are simple, but they are powerful, challenge. He walked over 200 miles a month this spring, and it regional artists of allmoving types including andand I hope theyperforming will help you to keep forward.dance, standup inspired me to walk more than ever before. That’s the beautiful comedy, theater improv, one act plays, musicals, performance art, thing about achieving. It doesn’t matter how big or how small the You have a spark, a gift, a etalent, looking at the goal. When you move forward you inspire others to move forward spoken word/poetry, and puppetry.v n t u r eat hway e a t of r e .o rg world that no one else does, stReet and I promise you, there is someone as well. souL danCe praying for that light right now.

Find a way to Theater give theonbest of This high energy show comes to the Alberta Bair January yourself to as many people as possible.

Write a book, bake a cake, 19th and presents a new era in dance, while pushing the artistic When I look at the faces on this cover, I think of all of the work that runboundaries an errand,ofhold a hand. youStreet give you will grow, and willof they did for us. I imagine that they too found ways to give, to learn, street dance.AsSoul concerts consist of you a mix find only the best in the world. movement that will keep you at the edge of your seat. The music is to achieve. That’s how they earned this small honor, and why they combined with an electric mix ranging from hip-hop to classical. continue to inspire us. ✻ I am proudyou to laugh tell you now make killer It’s a show that will make and that keep Iaudiences of all ages sauerkraut, and I am sure those little probiotics helped us get entertained. through spring. When you learn, you show your brain that you are in control, that there are new things to discover, new ways of a ConCe Rt FoR the whoLe FamiLy KAREN GROSZ, writer looking at old problems, and that there is hope for tomorrow. Learn Billings Symphony presents its Family Concert on January 26th at the Growing up in the shadow of Mount Rushmore gave to play the guitar, to identify birds, or to make a mess with paint Karen Grosz an appreciation of high ideals. Living Alberta Bair Theater. Four time Grammy nominees, “Trout Fishing and a canvas. The more time you take to learn, the more time you in Alaska, for 25 years, gave her a frontier spirit, in America,” will perform along with the Billings Symphony. Trout and life in Montana finds her building community have to expand and to thrive. and laughing at life. She’s a self-described

1. GIVE.

2. LEARN.

Fishing in America is a musical duo which performs folk rock and children’s music. b i l l i n g s s y m p h o n y.c o m

3. ACHIEVE.

When you set a goal you naturally move towards that goal. When you achieve it you feel powerful, generous and alive.

My husband, who is on his feet all day as a carpenter, set a goal to

als ade

“multipotentialite” who has been a sales leader, studio owner and business coach. She is currently the owner of Canvas Creek Team Building and serves on the boards of 100 Strong, Boys and Girls Club, and is a RYLA Director.

Changes, ideas, wondering what to do now?

Discover your Next in these pages

What’s Next?

0

ri

AVAILABLE ON

amazon.com “I’m not stuck anymore. Thank you.” —Jessica

rd YELLOWSTONEVALLEYWOMAN.COM |

DECEMBER 2012/JANUARY 2013

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JULY/AUGUST 2020

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Grace UNDER FIRE

MELANIE SCHWARZ HELPS LEAD BUSINESS BY EXAMPLE written by JULIE KOERBER photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

AT THE HEIGHT of the COVID-19 pandemic, Melanie Schwarz would walk a few steps down the hall to her home office to hop onto a Zoom video conference call. Her cell phone was never far from her side, so she’d be ready to answer questions from anxious business owners.

“You are clipping along and all of a sudden it hits, and then it stays,” Schwarz says. Almost daily, she says, there has been some kind of side effect of COVID-19 that shows up in the work she does as director of business development for Big Sky Economic Development.

“Some businesses need to close. Some are trying to grow,” Schwarz says. “There is this wide expanse of possibilities right now.” Through it all, she’s used every bit of her professional past to help business owners survive another day.

“Those initial calls were a bit panicky,” she says.

in mind, I was a single mother of two small children. I just felt lucky to have a job and have survived this.”

The man was persistent. He eventually talked her into going in for an interview, and before she knew it, she was an advertising account executive for K-BEAR. Far from being intimidated by the brand-new position, she rewrote the book on how it was done. Instead of flying solo, she partnered with another junior salesperson who worked for KCTR.

“We were totally green but she had a lot of connections because she grew up in Billings,” Schwarz says. “No one had ever done this,” she says, adding that the radio station management didn’t completely approve of a sales team.

“They thought, I UNDERSTAND BEING A SMALL what if a business only wants to buy BUSINESS OWNER AND THE ANGST KCTR advertising? We never gave them OF LOSING SOMETHING THAT an option. We were really successful at YOU’VE WORKED FOR. it and it became a really good career.”

— Melanie Schwarz

Schwarz knows all about panicky. “This isn’t the first crisis I’ve ever had to deal with,” she says. The first one came in 1997.

“I was a stay-at-home mom,” Schwarz says, and then a divorce quickly had her searching the want ads. She landed a job as an administrative assistant at Valley Federal Credit Union and started to find balance.

The job became a launching pad.

“One of the radio guys was in one day and he said, ‘You should be in sales.’ I said to him, ‘I don’t even know what that means.’ Keep

Over the next few years, Schwarz would use her contacts to make the transition to working as an account manager for a Billings advertising agency. She spent three years there before going out on her own to create her own agency, Hayden Marketing.

“Agency life gave me a chance to look at the totality of a business’s marketing plan – websites, radio, TV, print. There was a lot of writing involved, which I love to do,” Schwarz says. “It was a bigger arena to do marketing in and I found it really fun.”

Eight years passed. Things were good. And then, the economic downturn of 2008 struck.

JULY/AUGUST 2020

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“I lost my business,” she says. “We had one client who was overwhelmingly our largest client. We lost them and we had to close the business because of it. I understand being a small business owner and the angst of losing something that you’ve worked for.”

Once again, though, the loss turned into opportunity. She began doing consulting work and ended up taking her experience to teach communications skills to inmates at the Montana Women’s Prison.

“I thought, ‘Why not?’ It opened a lot of interesting doors that I didn’t even know were there,” Schwarz says, and the job pushed her well beyond her comfort zone. She taught three days a week to women who were about to transition back into the community, helping them communicate in ways that would land them a job, find housing and realize success.

“I had a woman and she was kind of angry,” Schwarz says. “She would tell me, ‘You have no idea what it is like to use public transportation and try to get to work on time.’ I said, ‘You are absolutely right. I have no idea what that is like, so let’s do that together.’ So, I did it. It was like, oh, my gosh, this is hard and I have resources. I have a phone. I have a map. I have a way to look at the routes. She didn’t have any of that.”

“That prison experience changed me,” she says. “It was a pivotal moment for me because I realized that our community has a lot of diversity that many of us never see.”

After three years, the grant that funded the position dried up.

At about the same time, a friend called her to tell her about a position that opened up with Big Sky Economic Development, a public-private partnership. The timing was perfect.

“I’ve been here seven years,” she says as she looks around the office that sits on the second floor of the Granite Tower Building in downtown Billings. It’s her job to keep member investors of the organization informed and engaged in the community’s economic development.

Before COVID-19 hit, Schwarz was working on strategic partnerships to help with the development of Coulson Park. Earlier this year, she organized a health care summit to put private sector leaders in the same room as health care professionals to look for growth opportunities.

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“We have a world-class healthcare hub,” she says. “We have three institutions of higher education with MSU Billings, Rocky and City College. That combination is golden. It’s perfect for economic development.”

But on March 13, when Billings witnessed its

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first COVID-19 case, Schwarz and her colleagues at BSED knew it was only a matter of time before the governor put some safety restrictions in place.

“It was overwhelming at times just how much information was coming at us,” Schwarz says. “We were using our internal team to vet the information and we were finding out that a lot of it was inaccurate.”

The county, city, Chamber of Commerce and Big Sky Economic Development all rushed in to try to provide up-to-the-minute information.

“We were adding to the confusion of that space,” says Kelly McCandless, director of communications and workforce development for the Billings Chamber of Commerce.

As co-chairs of communication for the Yellowstone County Economic Response and Recovery Workgroup, McCandless and Schwarz joined forces to create a one-stop-shop for economic information. They recruited Kinetic Marketing and Creative and, Schwarz says, “In less than one week, we had a new communitywide website with COVID-19 resources.”

Schwarz and the rest of the BSED team worked to help businesses wade through the Small Business Administration loan process.

They answered questions about the federal Paycheck Protection

What business owners experienced during the pandemic...

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“She’s kind of like a chameleon,” Carpenter says of Schwarz.

“She’s always there supporting but never takes center stage.

She’s the silent voice.” Carpenter adds that Schwarz has helped her businesses many times over the years, connecting her with other resourceful business owners or sharing an idea or two.

— Kris Carpenter

“Melanie is so good at what she does and she is very good at taking something that seems big and unwieldy and can sit down and ask, how can we do that?” McCandless says. “She brings her full brain power to those situations and her experience and professionalism have been invaluable.”

IMPACT at a glance

One business owner that served with Schwarz on the economic recovery team was Kris Carpenter, who has owned Sanctuary Spa and Salon for 21 years and the Joy of Living for 10.

SHE'S ALWAYS THERE SUPPORTING BUT NEVER TAKES CENTER STAGE. SHE'S THE SILENT VOICE.

The collaboration between BSED, the Chamber, the Downtown Billings Association, the city of Billings and Yellowstone County came together at lightning speed. “It’s kind of unheard of,” Schwarz says. At its peak, the site witnessed up to 200 users per day.

BUSINESS

Program. They helped conduct injury impact surveys to see the coronavirus’ grip on the county’s economy. The organization also put together a business stabilization loan program to serve as a safety net for businesses at risk of closure. By June, BSED had helped 15 businesses stay afloat thanks to the program.

“Who was one of the first people that I saw in my store after reopening after COVID-19?” Carpenter asks. “Melanie Schwarz was there. She just really walks her talk.”

“I want to make sure we are championing businesses and helping them if we can,” Schwarz says. She adds that now businesses know that Big Sky Economic Development is a resource. It was one of the silver linings during this time of economic crisis and recovery.

“It is really rewarding to see that we have the skills, we have the collaborations, we have the resources. We built a nice foundation to be able to operate in a crisis,” Schwarz says.

Using her own history of dealing with crisis management, she says, “We are better off in Billings because we didn’t let our businesses fail.” ✻

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON COUNTY RESOURCES FOR ECONOMIC RECOVERY, visit yceconomicrecovery.org where you’ll find links to all of Gov. Steve Bullock’s directives as well as well-vetted information to resource websites.

58 42 89 %

OF BUSINESSES IN YELLOWSTONE COUNTY DESCRIBED COVID-19’S

IMPACT ON THEIR

BUSINESS AS EXTREMELY NEGATIVE

%

OF BUSINESSES REPORTED HAVING TO EITHER

LAY OFF OR FURLOUGH FURLOU gH EMPLOYEES

%

OF BUSINESSES REPORTED THEY WERE FAIRLY TO EXTREMELY CONFIDENT THEY’D

SURVIVE SUR vIvE THE

COVID-19 DOWNTURN

MENTAL HEALTH:

THE SILENT & DEADLY THREATS MEET THE WOMEN WORKING TO COMBAT RISING MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES IN BILLINGS written by SUE OLP photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

ALL OF US, from time to time, face moments of stress, anxiety and depression. Some of us face thoughts of suicide. The darkness moves in, many times unnoticed, and the stigma surrounding mental illness prevents some from seeking help to deal with it.

Thankfully, there are tireless advocates working to break down that stigma and to make sure help is available for those who need it.

Every three years, the Community Health Needs Assessment releases its outlook on health issues in Yellowstone County.

Earlier this year, the survey pinpointed why here in Yellowstone County mental health remains a major concern. The survey, which is a joint project of RiverStone Health, Billings Clinic and St. Vincent Healthcare, asks community leaders in a variety of sectors to rate the severity of 20 health issues.

Mental health ranked No. 1, followed by substance abuse.

Dr. John Felton, president and CEO of RiverStone Health, points to a couple of troubling trends. In the past 15 years, the number of people who feel like they suffer fair or poor mental health has increased from 6.9 percent to 20.2 percent. More than half of those who are low income reported they have experienced symptoms of chronic depression.

“The other one I think is startling is in 15 years, the number of 42

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people who have contemplated suicide at some point has gone from 8.1 percent to 21.3 percent,” Felton says.

Montana has ranked in the top five states for suicide for years.

For those working in prevention, the reason for the high ranking is clear. Montana has a high concentration of the three highestrisk groups for suicide: veterans, Native Americans and middleaged Caucasian men. It doesn’t help that Montana has high rates of alcohol consumption and firearm ownership.

To combat the trend, the state has been working to train a growing number of people in the medical field, using the national strategy known as Zero Suicide.

“That means universal screening and intervention for every single patient that walks in,” says says Karl Rosston, the state’s suicide prevention coordinator. “It’s almost the next vital sign.”

Similarly, RiverStone Health has made a point of offering patients who come in for a medical appointment the chance to see a counselor or social worker at that same visit, to get them immediate access to mental health care.

That’s important, says Fredricka Gilje, a retired nurse and researcher whose focus is on suicide prevention. She has met many people who, one way or another, have been touched by that final tragedy.

“What I’ve found, if I’m on an airplane and someone asks what I do, I tell them I volunteer in suicide prevention,” she says. “It’s incredible what I hear because everybody has a story.”

Because of the grip mental health issues have on our county, YVW decided to share resources and shine the spotlight on a handful of women in our community working to help spark change. Meet Julie Clark, Fredricka Gilje and Dee Holley.

MEET JULIE CLARK CREATING A FOUNDATION FOR AWARENESS AND THERAPY Growing up, Julie Clark dealt with depression, though at the time she couldn’t put a name to it.

“When I was a kid nobody really talked about it,” Clark says, sitting at a table in the waiting room of her Billings practice, Elysian Counseling and Trauma Care. “I struggled a lot in school and college and I didn’t know why.”

It wasn’t until Clark, 39, started meeting with a therapist that she began to uncover some unacknowledged trauma that triggered the depression.

That insight not only allowed Clark to work though her issues, but also set a course for her future.

HAVING THAT HUMAN CONNECTION IS THE BIGGEST HEALING COMPONENT OF ALL. — Julie Clark

“It was something so natural to me, to be able to sit down and talk it through, and I knew that was what I wanted to do,” she says.

Clark points to a quote by Sigmund Freud that she says sums up her journey: “For through your vulnerabilities come your greatest strengths.”

It’s something she often shares with her clients.

Clark, a licensed clinical social worker, earned a master’s degree in social work from the University of Southern California in 2012 and graduated two years later from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a master’s in health care leadership. She began working under the umbrella of Wild Roots Therapy in January 2019, where she meets with children, adults and families who are grappling with the long-term effects of trauma.

“A lot of trauma that I’m working with centers around abuse and neglect,” Clark says.

Those cases can range from children in foster care dealing with abandonment issues to children and adult victims of sexual abuse.

Clark also focuses on generational trauma. She uses different types of

Creating A Legacy Of Care ELYSIAN MENTAL HEALTH FOUNDATION

Before COVID-19 hit, Julie Clark and Michelle McPherson planned on hosting a charity ball to raise funds to help kick start Elysian Mental Health Foundation. Because of the uncertainties about hosting a large-scale event, they are now planning “The Night of Enlightenment” for 2021. The mission of the foundation is not only awareness and outreach but to help provide low- or no-cost mental health assistance for those most in need. For more, visit elysianmentalhealthfoundation.org

JULY/AUGUST 2020

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therapies with her clients, depending on the severity of the trauma. But, she says, it’s that one-on-one connection that is most important.

“I have seen a lot of success with kids and adults, just knowing they have a safe place to come and a safe person to talk to,” Clark says. “Having that human connection is the biggest healing component of all.”

In addition to her practice, Clark teaches advanced practicum for Walla Walla University at the Billings satellite campus. She is also on an advisory board at Lockwood Schools, focusing on mental health and behavioral issues.

Most recently, aware of the need for better access to mental health care services, Clark has begun moving in a new direction. She and business partner Michelle McPherson founded the nonprofit Elysian Mental Health Foundation to focus on mental health awareness, education and outreach, as well as providing financial assistance on a case-by-case basis.

The need for mental health services only continues to grow, Clark says, and she and McPherson want to be part of the solution.

“I want people to know there is help out there, and we’re trying to do the best we can for the community,” she says.

MEET FREDRICKA GILJE DEVOTED TO SUICIDE RESEARCH & PREVENTION For nearly 20 years, Fredricka Gilje researched suicide and ways to prevent it. She interviewed people who had contemplated that dark, final act, as well as family and friends who picked up the pieces afterward and medical professionals who worked to prevent it.

Breaking The Stigma

SUICIDE PREVENTION PROGRAMS & RESOURCES The Suicide Prevention Coalition of Yellowstone Valley has many resources and programs that address prevention and intervention with people who might be suicidal. That includes two suicide prevention conferences this year, slated for July 24 in Butte and Sept. 25 in Billings. It also sponsors an annual Out of the Darkness Suicide Prevention Community Walk, this year planned for Sept. 20 in Billings. For more information, visit SPCYV’s website, spcoalitionyv.org or the Montana chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s site, afsp.org/chapter/montana.

“The deepest experience of suffering is people who are suicidal,” says Gilje, who has lived in Billings since 2002. “Patients tell me it’s like being in the deepest, darkest hole. It defies words. Language is inadequate many times to describe that.”

Only slightly behind that is the devastation suffered by the ones left behind, she says. But those survivors, the ones who push through the pain and gain a passion for preventing other suicides, inspire her.

“That is the spirit that keeps me going,” Gilje says. “It’s incredible, and it touches so many, many people.”

Gilje, 73, grew up in Fairview, in northeastern Montana. As a young girl, she wanted to be a nurse and later fulfilled the desire by earning a bachelor’s degree in North Dakota in 1969. She then went on to get a master’s degree in psychiatric nursing/nursing education at Montana State University and a Ph.D. in nursing at the University of Colorado Health Science Center.

A Fulbright Scholarship took her to Norway from 1994 to 1995, which then opened doors in Sweden, Finland and eventually China over the next 10 years.

“In 2000, I became involved in a research study focused on patients’ experiences about what it was like to be suicidal,” Gilje says. “I

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engaged in a research collaboration that deeply enriched my perspectives and understandings about the experience of suicide and suicide prevention.”

She retired from research and writing for publications in 2018. But starting in 2005, she devoted her volunteer efforts toward suicide prevention, partly as a board member of the Montana chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Gilje recently retired from the board but still is on the chapter’s education committee and is actively involved in the Suicide Prevention Coalition of Yellowstone County, which works closely with RiverStone Health in Billings. In Montana, which has the second-highest rate of gun ownership behind Wyoming, one strategy is to work with sporting goods stores, shooting ranges, law enforcement and even pediatricians to make sure firearms in the home are secure.

“We want to prevent accidents and impulsive acts of suicide,” Gilje says, since firearms account for 62 percent of suicides in Montana.

Another aspect of her local work is Gatekeeper training, to teach people how to intervene when someone is contemplating suicide.

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Gilje likens it to CPR, knowing how to help a victim at a critical moment. Training helps participants practice interceding, and gets them past fears that might keep them from reaching out. For instance, one widely held myth is that asking someone if they’re suicidal will push them into the act. Not true, says Gilje.

“If you’ve seen warning signs, if you ask, it releases the anxiety because they begin to feel somebody is understanding what’s going on,” she says.

Sometimes, people are determined to end their lives and no amount of intervention will help, she acknowledges. But this work can perhaps save someone else not at that point.

“I’m grateful for how far we’ve come,” Gilje says.

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MEET DEE HOLLEY CREATING A SAFETY NET FOR FAMILIES FACING MENTAL ILLNESS In ancient Greece, a stigma was the mark stamped on people to designate their status as prisoners, says Dee Holley, one of the founders of the Billings affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).

These days, that term is most often linked to people grappling with illnesses of the brain.

“Stigma is the reason why most of us are alone and don’t talk about it,” says Holley, who teaches NAMI classes for family members of people affected by mental illness.

The brain is the “most complex, highly evolved structure in the known universe and it is solely responsible for our humanity,” she says.

When it is ill, everything about the person is affected – emotions, cognition, decision-making, relationships, physical health and even spirituality.

“When people experience these illnesses, what we would term ‘normal’ functions of personhood are damaged,” she says. “The results are unusual behaviors and thoughts and uncontrolled moods — things our society has come to see as inappropriate or dangerous or, at the very least, unacceptable.”

The resulting societal stigma and stereotyping “has created a modern-day leper,” Holley says.

Her knowledge of the topic is more than academic. Holley, 77, a retired pharmacist who is married to retired pathologist Dr. Paul Holley, dealt with it starting in the early 1990s when a family member was diagnosed as bipolar.

Recounting that time, she talks about the pain of seeing a loved one battle deep depression, experience psychosis, endure numerous inpatient psychiatric treatments and despair at ever getting their life back.

It was a time when few resources were readily available and the challenges felt overwhelming.

“I couldn’t Google symptoms to get information or find out where psychiatrists are in Billings,” Holley recalls. “I had to look in the phone book.”

NATIONAL ALLIANCE ON MENTAL ILLNESS (NAMI)

When she and her husband finally did connect with a local psychiatrist, they asked if he knew of any support groups in town.

FOR MORE ON NAMI Billings and the classes it offers, visit namibillings.org or call the office Monday-Friday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 2562001. The nonprofit normally offers classes and support groups at its office at 3333 Second Ave. N. but with the COVIC-19 pandemic, groups have shifted temporarily to an online format.

Fortunately, the couple heard about NAMI, and in 1994 they attended the group’s national convention. It allowed them to talk with people from around the country who shared similar experiences.

“He said, ‘there aren’t any,’” Holley says. “We felt like we were on Mars and had nobody to talk to.”

The proper medicine is crucial to treat mental illness, “but they best medication is hope,” says Holley.

That led the Holleys, together with six others in Billings, to start a local affiliate in 1995. Dee Holley was the unpaid executive director of the nonprofit for eight years before the group managed to raise enough money – not easy to do – to hire two part-time employees who work in the group’s downtown office.

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WHY DOES MONTANA HAVE SUCH A HIGH RATE OF SUICIDE? IT'S NOT ONE FACTOR, BUT RATHER MULTIPLE FACTORS ALL OCCURRING AT THE SAME TIME. IT IS A CULTURAL ISSUE.

VITAMIN D DEFICIENCY Correlated with increased risk of depression.

Lack of

BEHAVIORAL HEALTH SERVICES Lack of psychiatrists and integrated behavioral health into primary care.

SOCIOECONOMIC 1/5 Montana kids live more than 100% below the federal poverty level.

SOCIAL

ISOLATION

Montana has 6.7 people per square mile.

The national average is 88.7.

High concentration of

VETERANS, AMERICAN INDIANS, AND MIDDLE AGE WHITE MEN.

STIGMA We see depression as a weakness, that we are a burden. And if you think you are a burden, how likely are you to ask for help?

Alcohol

AS A COPING STRATEGY Alcohol in the blood at the time of death is 2x the national average.

ACCESS TO

LETHAL MEANS

Nearly 65% of suicides are by firearm and nearly 90% of all firearm deaths in Montana are suicides.

Altitude

Metabolic stress caused by longterm oxygen deprivation. Worldwide, about 2,500 feet, you see a spike in suicides. The average suicide in Montana occurs at 3,500 feet.

S OU RC E : MO N TA N A DE PA RTME N T O F HEALTH AND HUMAN SERV ICES, SUICIDE IN MONTANA REP ORT

Thanks to Holley’s efforts, today the Billings affiliate of NAMI has grown to offer a variety of courses for people affected by the illnesses and their families. All of them are free and taught by trained volunteers. During an interview, Holley pulled out a thick binder she uses to teach the “Family to Family” class, a self-care course for family members.

“It’s all evidence-based and that’s important,” she says. “If you’re going to do something well you need to research it and ensure it’s top quality.”

Ruth loves her worry-free independence.

Call today for a tour of our community.

Equally important are the support groups that let people come together in a safe place and talk.

“We’re grateful for it,” Holley says. “It’s a godsend, for people to be able to open up, share about their journey and be accepted.” ✻

SUE OLP, writer Sue Olp worked for many years as a reporter at the Billings Gazette, covering everything from health care to education, county government, religion and tribal issues, not to mention annual spelling bees, downtown festivals and lots of human-interest stories. Now retired, she is a freelance writer, serves as a first-reader for Deep Magic, an online fantasy magazine, and enjoys gardening, reading and spending time with her family, including her three grandchildren.

2351 Solomon Avenue, Billings | 406-652-4886 | westparksenior.com

JULY/AUGUST 2020

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That Lovin’ Feeling Why Cliovana can help you if you’ve lost it.

Q & A with Dr. Julie Reil of Shiloh Medical Clinic Q: Why is sexual wellness something women should be thinking about?

A: It’s a very important, yet often overlooked, part of our lives that is a big part of intimate relationships and self-esteem. About 60% of women say they are unsatisfied in the bedroom. They view it as a chore, and only about 33% actually get that afterglow. Thankfully, new technology has come along to help women reignite their sex drive and keep the spark alive.

Q: What are some of the biggest barriers to sexual health?

A: Physical changes such as decreasing desire, dryness and lackluster sensation are some of the most common barriers women complain of medically.

These physical changes can happen naturally with menopause and aging, but also with overstimulation of the delicate nerve tissue from prolonged sitting and vigorous pelvic floor exercises like extended bike riding and horseback riding.

Chemotherapy and radiation treatments also interfere with blood flow and nerve function which significantly affect sexual function.

Q: What is giving your patients hope?

A: Real patients are getting back intimacy that they thought was gone

forever. The opportunity to restore sexual function without the risk of taking hormones is a breakthrough and the opportunity to improve sexual satisfaction at any age is a blessing for women. One patient story that inspired me as a physician to become a Cliovana provider is of a woman who battled and miraculously survived Stage III breast cancer, chemotherapy, radiation and a full hysterectomy. For 10 years she grieved the nearly complete loss of her sexual drive. Lack of desire, dryness and discomfort made intimacy nearly impossible, until Cliovana. With Cliovana, her full sensation was restored as was lubrication and comfort, bringing her and her husband a second miracle, the return of their spark, connection and mutually satisfying intimacy.

Q: What is Cliovana and how does it work?

A: Cliovana is a new technology that uses acoustic sound waves to regenerate nerve tissue and blood vessels needed for sensation and blood flow during intimacy. Using four treatments over two weeks, Cliovana uses gentle cupping to bring the blood vessels and vascularity to the surface. It also uses soundwave to stimulate blood flow and innervation.

One treatment takes about 10 minutes.

Q: What is the patient experience like?

A: The entire procedure is gentle and done externally so it is not uncomfortable or painful. There’s no internal probing or heating. Patients describe the procedure as quick, painless and easy.

Q: How long does it take until it starts working?

A: Within two weeks the treatment starts working. By the third or fourth treatment, patients report improvements and the

average final result is three months after the final treatment. The results are longlasting for years.

Q: How is Cliovana different from other treatments?

A: Cliovana is the ONLY treatment directly targeting the nerves and blood supply to the female sexual anatomy to improve lubrication, sensation and satisfaction for the woman.

Q: What else do we need to know about the treatment?

A: Improved sexual health leads to overall health and wellbeing. We know that it can lower blood pressure, improve immune responses, lead to better sleep, less stress and reduced depression. It just floods the brain with good-feeling hormones.

Certain medications — female contraceptives, blood pressure-lowering medications and antidepressants — blunt the female response. Cliovana has been shown to help improve desire in women who take these medications.

Women who do not have enough lubrication, those in the perimenopausal and menopausal stages experience intimacy that is painful. Cliovana helps vaginal dryness without needing hormone replacement medication.

Patients who have had breast cancer and those who have a family risk of hormonedriven cancer cannot use hormones to improve vaginal dryness, but now have Cliovana, a safe and effective solution.

Cliovana is indicated for women from 22 years of age up to 75 years plus.

Any woman who wishes to improve her sexual pleasure is a candidate for Cliovana.

Your orgasm potential is unlimited Unlike men, women have no lag time between orgasms and can experience longer and multiple climaxes under the right circumstances.

Cliovana increases the long-term, physiological responsiveness of clitoral tissue, a key contributor to sexual satisfaction. This leads to an increase in every woman’s potential for great sex, every time.

Is your sexual satisfaction as good as it could be?

Truly satisfying sex is important to a woman’s overall physical and emotional wellbeing at any age.

Everything you want Everything you want None of what you don’t None of what you don’t No numbing cream

Effects that last • Results are immediate and intensify over 3 months.

No burning

• This heightened state lasts for a year or more and can be sustained with a single, annual revitalization session.

• Just 4 sessions at less than 10 minutes each, over the course of If this brochure is in your doctor’s office, they’re a trusted, 2 weeks

certified Cliovana practitioner. Ask them whether Cliovana

No probes

No freezing

No needles

No surgery

is right you.

• Zero downtime: youfor can do anything as soon as your appointmentwww.cliovana.com is done

• 100% non-invasive: no probes, needles, freezing, burning, or Cliovana™ is not intended to diagnose, treat, surgery cure, or prevent any disease. Cliovana™ is a registered trademark of Cliovana Ltd.

• EASY, FAST AND PAINLESS

406-252-0022 1655 Shiloh Rd Suite E, Billings, MT www.shilohmedicalclinic.com

LITTLE

BEAUTY

SECRETS WHAT THE EXPERTS CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT (AND WHY YOU MIGHT NOT BE ABLE TO EITHER)

written by VICKI-LYNN TERPSTRA photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

HOW MANY BOTTLES DO you have in your drawer or medicine cabinet that could be labeled “beauty product fail”? With so many serums, lotions, treatments and therapies out there claiming to be the best, sometimes you just need a good recommendation from the people who know what might actually produce results. What do the experts use? What is that one product in our favorite beauty hot spot that is flying off the shelves for good reason? We decided to ask those “in the know.”

MUST HAVE MAKEUP RITUALS SPA SANDY SCHAFER, OWNER

“This amazing lip treatment is a colorless balm that moisturizes my lips to optimal condition. I use this all day before I add my lip color over top. I absolutely love the certified organic peppermint, vanilla and ginger aroma/flavor. Aveda lipstick’s sources come from Brazil and they use only plant-derived ingredients so you could actually eat your lipstick and it would not hurt your body with harmful Ingredients!” Aveda Nourishment Lip Treatment, $26 at Rituals Spa.

FASHION 50

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POWERHOUSE FOR SKIN

BILLINGS CLINIC FACIAL PLASTIC SURGERY & MEDICAL SPA MARIAH HUSETH, RN, MSN “Priori Brightening Serum is a total powerhouse treatment and one of our go-to items to help reduce dark spots and inflammation. It is supercharged with clean ingredients and antioxidants that help increase skin cell turnover and protect your face from free radicals in the environment. Its adaptive technology helps hydrate skin during the day and boost skin repair at night. If you’re looking for a product that will scientifically improve your skin’s individual needs, this is one! It just makes beautiful scientific sense!” Priori Q+SOD fx220 Brightening Serum, $129 at Billings Clinic Facial Plastic Surgery & Medical Spa.

Introducing Restylane Refyne A filler designed to help support your natural expression whether you're smiling, frowning, or puckering.

Restylane Refyne is a specifically formulated hyaluronic acid dermal filler that helps correct the lines that run from the sides of your nose toward the corners of your mouth and the lines that run from the corners of your mouth toward the chin. In clinical studies 97% of people were satisfied with their treatment results and would do the treatment again.

To make an appointment call 406.657.4653 or visit billingsclinic.com/facialplastics to learn more information.

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REWIND TIME

MONTANA MEDICAL AESTHETICS CHAR AYRE, RN “In my 13 years of treating with BBL (broad band light therapy), I still get excited to see the results each and every time. Forever Young BBL is a comprehensive anti-aging treatment that reins in Mother Nature. It is not just a beauty treatment, it’s a preventative therapy.

Your skin is your biggest organ and it is never too early to keep it healthy. Our Forever Young BBL is unique in that it encompasses destruction of red capillaries with improvement in redness. It diminishes brown sun spots and enhances collagen to prevent skin laxity. It’s cost effective with limited to no downtime and it’s safe!

What more could you ask for?” Forever Young BBL, $395 a session at Montana Medical Aesthetics.

PICTURE PICTURE PPEERRFFEEC CTT

SS BLL T LLE ETTR PBYBYIBOC U E OUU G GO O PWW EI IR FOOEUUC TTHH TT T BBL LE TS YOU G O M UU PP!!

MAAKKEEMAKEUP! WITHOUT

Forever Young BBL | 3 Years post 7 treatments ForeverCourtesy Young of BBL | 3Dermatology Years post&7Aesthetics treatments Swan Courtesy of Swan Dermatology & Aesthetics

Imagine taking a photo a decade Imagine taking a photo Imagine photothan from now andtaking lookingabetter a decade from now and youado today. With Young decade fromForever now and looking be er than you BBL you canbe er experience skin looking than you do today. With Forever that’s visibly younger looking, doYoung today.

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experience skin that’s experience skin that’s visibly younger looking, visibly younger year a er year!looking, year a er year!

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Learn more at: www.BBLbySciton.com ©2018 Sciton, Inc. All rights reserved. Sciton is a registered trademark and Forever Young BBL is a trademark of Sciton, Inc. YVW MAGAZINE Learn more at: www.BBLbySciton.com ©2018 Sciton, Inc. All rights reserved. Sciton is a registered trademark and Forever Young BBL is a trademark of Sciton, Inc.

OOH LA LA LASHES SANCTUARY SPA & SALON TIFFANY FUCHS, AESTHETICIAN

“It’s a wonderful product for women who don’t have the time or means to keep up with lash extensions but desire the gorgeous full lashes. Lash serums are a great alternative to lash extensions to help woman achieve fuller, longer, healthy lashes.” Borboleta Lash Serum, $65 at Sanctuary Spa & Salon.

Now more than ever...

Give us an hour... we’ll take of the rest.

care

LUSH LOCKS

AQUA STUDIO & SALON KATHY HEDGES, OWNER/ STYLIST “It is my holy grail for hair oil.

It never leaves the hair heavy or greasy looking, plus it smells amazing. I absolutely love this oil because every type of hair can use it. You adjust the amount and application to your hair’s length and density. I use on wet hair and again during the styling of the hair.” Custom Create Colour Lustre Oil, $20 at Aqua Studio & Salon.

406.655.1701 • 1504 24th St W • SanctuarySpaAndSalon.com JULY/AUGUST 2020

53

NOURISHMENT FOR NAILS MERAKI SALON ANNIE HALE, STYLIST

“CND products have the best Iotions to keep dryness away and protect your skin in harsh weather like Montana. They help your cuticle health and keep your nails from being brittle. They also help your shellac manicures by keep moisture locked in so your shellac gel polish stays hydrated. The more moisture you have, the longer your polish adheres to your nail bed.” CND Almond Hydrating Lotion, $18 at Meraki Salon.

VICKI-LYNN TERPSTRA, writer

2812 2nd Ave N | Billings, MT 59101 | somethingchicclothing.com

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With nearly a decade long career in retail, VickiLynn has cultivated a true passion for fashion.

She’s always got her finger on the pulse of evolving trends within the industry.

Even though her day job involves event planning and social media for the largest insurance agency in the Northwest, she uses her style and industry know-how to help keep women in the Yellowstone Valley looking their best.

e m u l o e r o t s Re ™ PROCEDURE L L I F I T U A E B E WITH TH

hat is it?

WBeautiFill ™

Non-surgical Liposuction & Fat Transfer Treatment

Benefits...

- Safe and fast treatment - A remarkable level of fat cell viability, over 90% - Reduced side effects of liposuction such as bleeding, swelling, and risk of hematoma and bruising - Minimized post-procedure pain

Procedure...

An in-office procedure performed under local anesthetic, using laser energy to gently loosen fat from problem areas such as the abdomen, hips, flanks, and thighs.

The harvested fat cells are then injected into areas where volume has been lost, including many facial areas and certain areas of the body such as the buttocks.

B O O K Y O U R A P P O I N T M E N T O N L I N E AT

MYVITALITYMEDICALWELLNESS.COM L O C AT E D I N S I D E

FULLER FAMILY MEDICINE | 4045 AVE B | BILLINGS, MT

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SAGE LODGE SETS THE SCENE FOR HOSPITALITY written by STELLA FONG photography by LYNN DONALDSON

AT SAGE LODGE, I felt safe, swaddled and spoiled. It has been many weeks since I journeyed to Pray with friends Susan Carlson, Sandy Kunkel and Debbie Sundberg for a girls’ getaway. Much has happened since that time, but in those 20 hours, I clearly recall what happened when kinship and hospitality united, and that memory has carried me through these latest times.

In Montana fashion, when the weather can be unpredictable, clouds gathered as Sandy drove us into Paradise Valley. Flecks of snow dropped from the sky when just days before we were outside wearing T-shirts warmed under the Big Sky. Through veiled fog and patches of snow flurries, the Absaroka Range loomed to our left while the Yellowstone River meandered alongside. After making the left turn off Highway 89, the GPS encouraged us to drive down East River Road, but instead, we turned left up towards the Paradise Valley Fire Station and made a quick right, putting us on a road that led to the rustic woodsided, metal-roofed cabin chateau.

The moment we stepped inside the lobby, we knew we had left our cares behind. Emigrant Peak stood in majestic welcome framed in the broad expanse of windows. Elegant comfy couches and game tables huddled in front of the massive sandstone fireplace,

beckoning us to stay awhile.

The Sage Lodge is a “high-end experience in a down-to-earth environment,” says Paul Robertson, director of sales and programming. “People need an environment in their lives — especially when they live in an urban setting — that is immeasurable, restorative.”

Our restoration began as we slipped into the 2,783-square-foot Firehole Ranch House to get ready for our afternoon activity. The chic modern-cowboy-decorated house with views to the pond immediately captured our attention. The main room with a full kitchen, dining area, living room, double-sided gas fireplace and private patio split into four separate guest rooms. With six king beds, two queen pull out sofas, four full bathrooms — two with slipper tubs — 16 people can live in luxury. For kids, there’s an open loft above the kitchen for play and sleeping bag slumber. We talked about returning with friends and family.

Fly fishing guide Sam Johnson waited for us in the equipment room. Here, with toys such as fly rods, paddleboards, snowshoes and mountain bikes, some available for a rental fee, guests can actively explore.

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After sliding into waders and boots rented offsite from Anglers West, we convened in front of the pond to begin our casting lesson. We were handed Sage rods with no flies attached to prevent us from hooking each other.

Johnson instructed Susan while Robertson gave tips to Debbie and Sandy. In making sure the line stretched out in both the forward and backward cast, Johnson used the example of answering the phone. In picking up the phone, the line propelled from front to back. When saying “hello” the pause allowed for the line to shoot straight out in the back. Then when the phone was set down, the line extended forward.

“You are building energy when you pick up that rod,” Johnson says. “Get the line up and let the rod do the work.”

Eventually, Johnson readied us for fishing by tying a size 14 leech pattern fly onto our leaders. Within minutes, loud hooting and hollering echoed over the pond. Susan had hooked a fish.

All casting stopped to watch as she pulled in a fish the size of her finger. The excitement was amplified by Sandy’s hookup of a 15-inch rainbow trout and Susan’s catch of another petite fish.

With arms tired and spirits high, we arrived back at the Ranch House where Leah Neville, food and beverage supervisor, positioned at the kitchen counter, created Montana-themed cocktails. With ice and bottles of mezcal, vodka and bitters, Neville shook and stirred concoctions named Montana 58

YVW MAGAZINE

Mezcalero, Summer in Montana and Montana Mule.

As we toasted, the Steve Miller Band’s “Hooked on a Feeling” coincidentally played in the background, adding to the magic of the moment.

Debbie, Sandy and I decided to venture outside where an axe-throwing target had been set up. As Sam Johnson supervised, I picked up a steel axe with a 14-inch handle and aimed it at the wooden target set about 15 feet away. My first throw came up short, hitting the ground with a thud. Knowing I had to put in a little more strength, the second throw ricocheted off the target. My third attempt stuck. Sandy got two of the three throws on the board whereas Debbie missed on the first one, but had success on the second and third.

By now, hunger had set in. We made our way to the Fireside Room, the casual dining option at the lodge. The long open room, fronted by a doublesided fireplace and backed by a pizza oven with an open kitchen, lured us in. While a long wooden bar formed the backbone of this space, windows along one wall brought the vast landscape indoors.

“This is where we show appreciation for our guests, around the table,” Paul Robertson says. “We owe it

JULY/AUGUST 2020

59

WHERE IS THE

Sage Lodge?

This ThisMontana Montanaluxury luxuryresort, resort,just just35 35minutes minutesnorth northofof Yellowstone YellowstoneNational NationalPark, Park,isisnestled nestledininthe theheart heartofofthe the Paradise ParadiseValley Valleyoff offUS-89 US-89south southofofLivingston.

Livingston.It’s It’sjust justaatwo two hour hourtrip tripfrom fromBillings.

Billings.For Formore, more,visit visitsagelodge.com sagelodge.com

totoour ourguests. guests.We Wewant wanttheir theirexperience experiencetotobe bememorable.” memorable.”

Chef ChefDaniel DanielCox, Cox,who whohad hadjust justjoined joinedSage SageLodge Lodgeasasthe theexecutive executive chef, chef,says, says,“We “Welike liketotosurprise surpriseand anddelight. delight.I Ido dolove lovetotogive givethe the guests guestssomething somethingextra, extra,totogo gothe theextra extramile.” mile.”

On Onthis thisnight, night,the the“Beef “BeefCarpaccio” Carpaccio”with withburnt burntscallion scallionaioli, aioli,crispy crispy capers capersand andlemon lemonoil oildelighted delightedus. us.Debbie Debbieleft leftthe thetable tablewith withthe the biggest rst experience biggestimpression, impression,for forthis thiswas washer herfifirst experienceeating eatingraw raw beef beefadorned adornedwith withaaraw rawegg, egg,and andsavoring savoringtrout troutcaught caughtby bythe the Confederated ConfederatedSalish Salishand andKootenai KootenaiTribes Tribesofofthe theFlathead FlatheadIndian Indian Reservation Reservation inin the the“Grilled “Grilled Flathead Flathead Lake Lake Trout.”

Trout.”The The native native people peopleharvest harvestthe thelake laketrout trouttotoconserve conservethe theindigenous indigenousbull bull trout troutand andcutthroat cutthroattrout troutpreyed preyedupon uponby bythis thisnonnative nonnativespecies. species.

While WhileSusan Susanopted optedfor forthe the“Sage “SageLodge LodgeBurger” Burger”with withcheddar cheddar cheese, cheese,bacon, bacon,garlic garlicaioli, aioli,lettuce lettuceand andtomato, tomato,Sandy Sandyand andI Ishared shared the theevening’s evening’sspecial specialofof“Shepherd’s “Shepherd’sPie” Pie”made madewith withbison bisonsourced sourced from fromCastle CastleRock RockMeats MeatsofofDenver Denverand and“Colorado “ColoradoElk ElkBolognese” Bolognese” served servedwith withthick-cut thick-cutnoodles, noodles,tomato tomatosauce, sauce,carrots carrotsand andGrana Grana Padano Padanocheese. cheese.We Weended endedthe themeal mealwith withthe the“Local “LocalBasque BasqueCake,” Cake,” made madewith withbaked bakedalmond almondpastry pastrycream creamand andshort shortdough doughcrust, crust, and andthe the“Flourless “FlourlessChocolate ChocolateTorte.”

Torte.”

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After Aftercollecting collectingsnacks snacksfrom fromthe thetreat treatstation stationininthe themain mainlobby, lobby, we replace flflickering, ickering, wemeandered meanderedback backtotothe thehouse. house.With Withthe thefifireplace we weshared sharedmemories memoriesofofthe theday, day,and andthoughts thoughtsofoffuture futurevisits visits where wherewe wecould couldenjoy enjoythe thespa, spa,dine dineatatThe TheGrill GrillatatSage SageLodge, Lodge,oror experience experienceaawine-inspired wine-inspiredmeal mealdelivered deliveredby byllamas. llamas.

After Afteraanight nightofofrestful restfulslumber, slumber,we weawoke awoketotoaasnow-carpeted snow-carpeted landscape landscapeunder underbrilliant brilliantblue blueskies skieswith withthe thefull fullmoon mooncurtseying curtseying behind behindthe themountains. mountains.This Thiswas wasthe thepicture-perfect picture-perfectinvitation invitationfor for us ustotoreturn returntotothe theSage SageLodge Lodgewhere whereonce onceagain againwe wewould wouldbe be safe, safe,swaddled swaddledand andspoiled. spoiled.✻✻

STELLA STELLAFONG, FONG,writer writer

Stella Stelladivides dividesher hertime timebetween betweenBillings Billingsand andSeattle Seattle and andisisthe theauthor authorofoftwo twoBillings-centric Billings-centricbooks, books, Historic HistoricRestaurants RestaurantsofofBillings Billingsand andBillings BillingsFood.

Food.

Her Herwritings writingshave haveappeared appearedininBig BigSky SkyJournal, Journal, Western WesternArt Artand andArchitecture, Architecture,the theWashington WashingtonPost Post asaswell wellasasonline onlineatatlastbestplates.com. lastbestplates.com.

AT ATTHE THESAGE SAGE ENJOY A FEW OF THEIR CLASSIC COCKTAILS

MONTANA MONTANAMEZCALERO MEZCALERO SERVES SERVES1 1

2 ounces dry vermouth ½ ounce creme de mezcal ¼ ounce amaro di angostura liqueur

¼ ounce lemon juice dash lime bitters

DIRECTIONS DIRECTIONS Fill Fillglass glasswith withice iceand andset setaside. aside.Pour Pouringredients ingredientsinto intoa acocktail cocktailshaker shakerwith withice. ice.

Shakewell welland andpour pourthrough througha astrainer strainerinto intoa aglass. glass.

Shake

SUMMER SUMMERIN INMONTANA MONTANA SERVES SERVES1 1

Smoked salt 1.5 ounces tequila or Tito’s Handmade Vodka ½ ounce chili-infused agave

½ ounce Grand Marnier 1 dash smoked chili bitters 1 ounce lime juice

DIRECTIONS DIRECTIONS Rim Rima aglass glasswith withsalt saltand andset setaside. aside.Pour Pourremaining remainingingredients ingredientsinto intoa acocktail cocktail shakerwith withice. ice.Shake Shakewell welland andpour pourthrough througha astrainer strainerinto intoa aglass. glass. shaker

MONTANA MONTANAMULE MULE SERVES SERVES1 1

½ ounce honey simple syrup infused Cock ’n Bull ginger beer with Meyer lemon peel Dried lavender sprig and fresh Montana honeycomb (optional) ½ ounce fresh lemon juice 2 dashes Scrappy's lavender bitters FOR FORHONEY HONEYSIMPLE SIMPLESYRUP SYRUP Combine Combine3 3parts partshoney honeyand andone onepart parthot hotwater waterwith withMeyer Meyerlemon lemonpeel. peel.

Equalparts partslemon lemonand andorange orangerind rindcan canbebesubstituted substitutedif ifMeyer Meyerlemon lemonisisunavailable. unavailable.

Equal Stirand andallow allowtotorest restuntil untilcool. cool.

Stir

DIRECTIONS DIRECTIONS Fill Fillglass glassororcopper coppermug mugwith withice. ice.

Add Addhoney honeysyrup, syrup,lemon lemonjuice, juice, lavenderbitters bittersand andginger gingerbeer. beer.Stir.

Stir.Garnish Garnishwith withdried driedlavender lavenderand andhoneycomb. honeycomb. lavender JULY/AUGUST 2020

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FF

O O V V A A RR SS LL under under

THE THE BIG BIG SKY SKY STELLA STELLAFONG FONGCOMBINES COMBINESHER HERLOVE LOVEOF OFSTORYTELLING STORYTELLINGAND AND FOODIN INAAHOMEGROWN HOMEGROWNCOOKBOOK COOKBOOK FOOD

Editor Editor’’�sNote Note:: Normally, Normally,when whenyou youopen openthe thepages pagesofofYellowstone Yellowstone

Valley Valley Woman, Woman, you you see see Stella Stella Fong’s Fong’s

name name as as one one ofof our our many many talented talented contributors. contributors. In In addition addition toto hosting hosting aa radio radio program program on on Yellowstone Yellowstone Public Public Radio Radio and and contributing contributing toto our our magazine, magazine,this thispast pastJune, June,she sheunveiled unveiledaa new newcookbook cookbookthat thatshines shinesthe thespotlight spotlight on air. We on food food with with aa Montana Montana flflair.

We decided ip the decidedtotoflflip thescript scriptand andask askher heraa few fewquestions questionsabout abouther herlatest latestproject. project.

Q. Q. WHY WHY DID DID YOU YOU WANT WANT TO TO WRITE “FLAVORS “FLAVORS UNDER UNDER WRITE THE BIG BIG SKY: SKY: RECIPES RECIPES AND AND THE STORIESFROM FROMYELLOWSTONE YELLOWSTONE STORIES PUBLICRADIO RADIOAND ANDBEYOND”?

BEYOND”?

PUBLIC A. This This book book honors honors the the 20 20 years years A. IIhave havelived livedhere herein inMontana.

Montana.ItItisisaa representation representationofofthe thefood foodIInow nowcook cook after afterunearthing unearthingthe thebounty bountyavailable available here. here.In In“Flavors “FlavorsUnder Underthe theBig BigSky,” Sky,” IItake avors interlacing takeMontana Montanabasics basicsand andcreate createaaworld worldofofflflavors interlacing inspirations inspirationsfrom frommy mypast. past.

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Mostly Mostly the the book book expresses expresses the the gratefulness gratefulness toto those those cooks, cooks, chefs, chefs,restaurateurs, restaurateurs,entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs,growers growersand andproducers producerswho who makeour ourBig BigSky Skyfoodscape foodscapemore more make delicious.IInever neverdreamed dreamedofofbeing being delicious. able toto write write and and talk talk about about food food able with people people who who are are passionate passionate with aboutit.it.IItreasure treasuremy myexperiences experiences about huntingfor formorels morelswith withan anexpert, expert, hunting learning about about aa greenhouse greenhouse that that learning grows lettuce lettuce for for us us year-round, year-round, grows andwatching watchingaachef chefwhip whipup upaadish. dish. and Hosting aa radio radio show show was was never never Hosting on the the list list ofof things things II wanted wanted on pursue, but but four four years years ago, ago, toto pursue, Yellowstone Public Public Radio Radio gave gave Yellowstone me the the opportunity opportunity toto share share the the me voicesofofthose thosewho whobring bringfood foodtoto voices us. My My show, show,“Flavors “Flavors Under Under the the us.

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Facebook. ssnfongbigsky@gmail.com

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FLAVORS FLAVORS

under

THE THE BIG BIG SKY SKY

JUST A TASTE OF STELLA’S NEW COOKBOOK

grilled corn with cilantro lime butter There is nothing better than fresh corn on the cob, and when grilled and embellished with butter and decorated with lime, spice, cheese and herbs, I can only smile from my stomach to my soul. The grilling and the adornments elevate ordinary corn, which is already delectable, onto another level of deliciousness.

SERVES 8

DIRECTIONS

2 T. plus 2 T. melted butter, divided 1/2 t. minced lime zest, divided 1/4 t. paprika 1/4 t. cayenne 1/2 t. salt 8 ears corn, shucked, halved salt, to taste fresh ground pepper, to taste 1/3 c. sour cream 1/4 c. chopped cilantro 1/4 c. sliced green onions 1/3 c. cotija cheese

Heat grill to medium high. In a small bowl, mix together 2 tablespoons butter, lime zest, paprika, cayenne and salt. Keep warm to keep butter melted. Set aside. Brush corn with remaining butter. Season with salt and black pepper, to taste. Place corn on grill and cover. Cook for 10 to 12 minutes, turning halfway through until corn is tender and slightly charred. Place corn on a platter, brush with butter lime mixture and drizzle with sour cream. Garnish with cilantro, green onions and cheese. Serve with lime wedges on the side. Enjoy immediately.

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bison sirloin steaks with coffee cocoa rub Steaks are synonymous with summer, with bison steaks epitomizing the season in our land under the Big Sky. This rub has really earthy flavors, and when it’s pressed onto bison or beef and grilled, savory caramel characteristics emerge. The bison steak is best served medium rare, as it is leaner than beef and can be tough if overcooked.

The steak, sliced thinly, is excellent for sandwiches the next day with caramelized onions or rhubarb chutney.

MAKES 2 TO 4 SERVINGS

4 1-pound sirloin bison steaks, about half an inch thick 1/3 c. Coffee Cocoa Seasoning Rub 2 T. extra virgin olive oil or melted butter DIRECTIONS About 20 minutes before grilling, remove the steaks from the refrigerator and allow them to sit, covered, at room temperature.

In a bowl, add seasoning rub and set aside. Heat the grill to high.

Brush steaks on both sides with oil and sprinkle rub generously on both sides. Place the steaks on the grill and cook until golden brown and slightly charred, 4 to 5 minutes. Turn the steaks over and continue to grill about 3 to 4 minutes for medium rare (or an internal temperature of 135°F), 5 to 7 minutes for medium (140°F) or 8 to 10 minutes for medium well (150°F). Transfer the steaks to a platter or cutting board, tent loosely with foil and let rest for 5 minutes before slicing. Slice and serve.

coffee cocoa seasoning rub Coffee and cocoa mixed with garlic and chilis immediately conjure up strength and robustness. When rubbed onto a steak— bison, beef or elk—and then grilled, the fat from the meat melds beautifully with the flavors from the seasoning. Make a batch of this rub for gifting friends to make their lives more flavorful!

MAKES ABOUT 1/3 CUP

2 T. finely ground coffee beans 1 T. dark brown sugar 1 T. salt 2 t. ground unsweetened cocoa powder 1 t. garlic powder 1 t. chipotle chili powder 1/2 t. fresh ground black pepper DIRECTIONS In a bowl, combine the ingredients for the seasoning rub and set aside. Keep in an airtight container at room temperature for 6 months.

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nead6 K ALL YOU

WITH A NEED (KNEAD?) to keep busy during the stay-athome order, people took out their bread makers, reached for old family recipes, turned to Pinterest and rekindled a love of baking — bread baking in particular. You could see the evidence when you looked at the grocery store shelves

picked bare of flour and yeast. Wheat Montana had to written by KAY ERICKSON

temporarily shut down its whole wheat flour line, just to meet the demand for its white flour.

I, for one, have been thrilled with the “rise” in bread baking.

It’s been something I have enjoyed since I got my food processor many, many years ago.

When our daughter was an infant, I would have her on the kitchen counter, secured in her infant seat, as I explained

TA ST E OF THE VALL EY

each of my steps while I made her the breadsticks that she would later gum and drool on.

No bread machine, no food processor? No problem. The No Knead Bread recipe is easy and only requires a large mixing bowl and a large (3 or 4 qt) non-stick, oven safe pot with lid.

Just that simple!

The smell of baking bread is so intoxicating, and biting into a slice, still slightly warm, slathered with butter and jam, is so divine that I hope the interest never dies down.

Enjoy! ✻

KAY ERICKSON, writer Kay has spent her professional career in public relations and broadcast news, currently at Yellowstone Public Radio. Her journalism degree is from Northern Illinois University. Her passions include her family, sports and food. Her mom and an aunt taught her the finer points of cooking and instilled a love of good food and family mealtime.

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Years later, bread machines would spark another rise in baking. They still occupy a place in many kitchens. Fellow YVW food writer Stella Fong posted a query on social media asking if bakers still used them. The response was, without a doubt, “yes.” One commenter who answered in the affirmative even provided her recipe for Garden Herb Bread, which she uses for her homemade bread stuffing.

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no knead bread

garden herb bread

3 c. all-purpose flour 1 t. dry yeast 1 t. salt 1¾ c. water Cooking spray

1¼ c. water 2 T. butter 3 c. white bread flour 2 T. dry milk 2 T. sugar 1½ t. salt 2 t. chives 2 t. marjoram 2 t. thyme 1 t. basil 1½ t. fast rise yeast or 2 tsp active dry yeast

Vegetable oil DIRECTIONS ❯❯ Using a wooden spoon, mix together the 3 cups of flour, teaspoon of yeast and teaspoon of salt in a large mixing bowl. Add the water and mix well until all the flour is blended. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap that has been sprayed with cooking spray. Then cover with a kitchen towel and let the dough proof at room temperature until it has doubled in size, about 2 to 3 hours, depending on the warmth in the kitchen. ❯❯ When it has doubled in size, use the spoon to mix it down, and scrape into a large nonstick, oven safe pot (3 to 4 qt) that has been oiled with about a teaspoon of vegetable oil. Cover the pot with plastic wrap that has been sprayed with cooking spray and let it rise again until its double in size, about 2 to 3 hours. ❯❯ Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. ❯❯ Remove the plastic wrap, put a lid on the pot and place in the 425 degree oven. Bake with the lid on for 30 minutes, remove the lid and bake for another 30 minutes. ❯❯ Remove and let it cool in the pot for about an hour and remove the bread.

DIRECTIONS Using the instructions from your bread machine, combine ingredients accordingly.

NOTE Use dried herbs that are flaked and not ground. If using fresh herbs, double the amount. Use any combination of herbs according to your taste.

FOR ROSEMARY BREAD Use half as much marjoram, and thyme and replace the chives and basil with fresh chopped rosemary. The recipe can be made with white, rapid or delay bake cycles.

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breadsticks MAKES 48

1 pkg dry yeast 1/3 c. warm water (105 to 115 degrees) 1 T. sugar 7 c. white flour, preferably bread, or unbleached or a mixture of both ½ stick unsalted butter at room temperature, cut into 4 pieces 2 t. salt 2 c. ice water DIRECTIONS ❯❯ Stir the yeast and sugar into the warm water in a 1-quart measuring cup and let stand for 5 to 10 minutes. Using the dough blade to process the flour, butter and salt for 20 seconds. Add the ice water to the yeast mixture. ❯❯ With the machine running, pour the liquid through the feed tube in a steady stream as fast as the flour mixture absorbs it (about 35 seconds). Continue processing until dough starts to clean the inside of the work-bowl, then let machine run for 80 seconds to knead the dough. ❯❯ Shape dough into a smooth ball. Place in a large, greased bowl and turn dough ball several times to coat all sides. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap sprayed with cooking spray and let it rise until it has doubled in size, about 1 to 1½ hours. ❯❯ After the first rising, punch down the dough and divide into 4 equal parts. Shape each part into a cylinder 12 inches long.

Cut each cylinder with a sharp knife into 12 1-inch pieces. One at a time roll each piece between your hands and then roll it out on a lightly floured work surface into an even stick about 1/3 inch in diameter. ❯❯ Grease 2 baking sheets and sprinkle them with cornmeal. ❯❯ Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. ❯❯ Place the sticks on the baking sheets, cover them and let them rise in a warm place for 15 minutes. ❯❯ Brush them with a glaze of beaten egg and salt, and sprinkle them with coarse salt or poppy or sesame seeds. ❯❯ Bake the sticks for 30 minutes. Then increase the temperature to 350 degrees and bake until nicely browned, about 5 minutes more.

NOTE When I made these for my daughter, I did not brush them with the glaze but instead left them plain.

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WHEN QUALITY MATTERS...

ORGANIC & NATURAL

SUSHI

FRESH CUT

PHARMACY

QUALITY MEAT & SEAFOOD

STARBUCKS

Choose your favorite hometown grocer

At Albertsons we go above and beyond to provide quality products and services you can’t find anywhere else in Billings. We have organic and natural fruits and vegetables, quality meat and seafood, and we even have a full-service pharmacy and Starbucks.

So come see us today, and get the quality you deserve.

6 locations to serve you better!

02_2020 Yellowstone_Valley_Womens_Mag.indd 1

2/6/20 4:41 PM

CHART A C URSE

Adventure for

NEW APP HIGHLIGHTS THE CITY’S TRAILS & BIKEWAYS written by JULIE KOERBER photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

IT WAS A SUNNY Saturday in June. Nothing but blue skies and a few fluffy clouds overhead. While I had a list of places my family and I typically like to explore when nice weather hits, today I wanted to traverse some new territory. With a few swipes and clicks on my phone, I found my target. The Shiloh Conservation Area.

The 70-acre city park, located near one of Billings’ newest shopping hot spots, has close to two miles of interconnected and paved trails that wind and bend around manmade ponds stocked with trout and largemouth bass. There’s a pavilion to shield yourself from the sun as you take in the view, and now and then you might spot one of the great blue herons that call this recreational area “home.”

Finding the area was a breeze thanks to the brand-new Heritage Trails app launched in early spring by the city of Billings.

“We’ve had our printed bikeway and trails map for about 15 years,” says Elyse Monat, the city’s active transportation planner. “We were thinking, what can we do to make it more interactive and useful for our community?”

After brainstorming and then developing the app for about eight months, the city launched it last April, just in time for residents to get out and explore with nicer weather.

“One cool thing, for some of the routes you can choose the fastest route, the scenic route or the best workout,” Monat says. “You can decide how you want to get there based on the purpose of your trip.” And, once you’re done with your trip, Monat adds, “You can also track your calories burned, trips traveled, and you can share all of that on social media.”

While the hope is that residents use it instead of an app like Google Maps, the real mission is to get residents to slip on their running shoes, grab their bike or get ready to push their way around town on their scooters.

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MONICA PLECKER, SCOTT WALKER & ELYSE MONAT COLLABORATED TO CREATE THE NEW APP

“We want to try to get people using active transportation,” Monat says. “It helps get people healthier. It can reduce air pollution and congestion on our roadways. It can also create a sense of community with great trails and bikeways.”

As the app was in the development stage, Monat worked with other city department heads to make sure no destination was left out of the mix. As she was inputting each spot on the virtual map, she realized there are quite a few hidden gems within our city limits.

“I think there are a lot more bikeways and trails than people think,” Monat says. “This could be a great way to find some of those hidden gems. If someone was sitting at home wanting to get out and about and still social distance, they could hit ‘find suggestions’ and bike to a park that they have never been to, check that out and see what it is like there.”

app to find the nearest bike rack. Thanks to a Montana Tourism Grant, Billings added close to 40 racks to make it even easier to pedal and park around town.

WE HOPE THE APP MAKES IT MORE ACCESSIBLE FOR WOMEN TO FIND DIFFERENT AND SAFE PLACES TO BIKE, PLACES WHERE THEY FEEL COMFORTABLE. HOPEFULLY, WE CAN GET MORE WOMEN OUT BIKING. — Elyse Monat

If you’re headed downtown, Monat says be sure to click on the

She hopes the app is a tool that women especially will use as they strive to pursue a more active lifestyle.

“From our last bikeway and trail master plan update published in 2017, 52 percent of Billings residents were women but only 32 percent of those biking were women,” Monat says. “It was another reason to create this app. We hope the app makes it more accessible for women to find different and safe places to bike, places where they feel comfortable. Hopefully, we can get more women out biking.” ✻

DOWNLOAD THE APP, by using either the Google Play or iPhone App Store and search Billings Heritage Trails app.

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Evan

Kenney

Sarah

NOW MORE THAN EVER written by JULIE KOERBER photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

For the past three years, you’ve read the stories of children like Helen, a 16-year-old bookworm with a bright smile and shy demeanor. You learned about 13-year old Jon, who had been in foster care long before he entered kindergarten.

These two teens are just a couple of the many adoption success stories tied to the Heart Gallery, an awareness campaign designed to shine the spotlight and bring you the faces and stories of some of Montana’s adoptable kids.

T HE H EA RT GA LLERY

COVID-19 STALLS FOSTER/ADOPTION AWARENESS EFFORTS

In the same way that so many Montanans changed how they lived and worked, social workers had to find creative ways to advocate for children.

In March of this year, our efforts went silent. Social workers understandably were unable to connect us to adoptable children due to fears surrounding the spread of COVID-19.

When the virus moved in, 3,493 children statewide continued to remain in care, looking for a forever family.

“Safety of children is always a priority and placements are still happening as needed for children,” says Jon Ebelt, the public information officer for the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services.

“Montana has used virtual, electronic and phone calls to maintain communication with children and families during this unprecedented time,” Ebelt says. Some families, looking to take the steps to become foster and adoptive homes, used Zoom, an online video conferencing platform, to continue their mandatory training in order to become a licensed foster or adoptive family.

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According to Ebelt, in early June the state had fewer cases of children in care than they’d had in three years, thanks to strategic prevention efforts. Even so, there seems to be a continual shortage of families willing to step forward to open their homes and hearts.

“During challenging times, it makes us even more aware of the need for children to have permanent, consistent connections in their lives,” Ebelt says. In addition to having or wanting to grow parenting skills, Ebelt adds, all you need is “the time and energy to invest in a child and their family’s life.”

BECOMING A FOSTER/ADOPTIVE FAMILY • Anyone who is at least 18 years old and in good physical and mental health.

• You can be single, or a couple who has lived together for at least two years.

• Have the income to support a household without relying on foster care reimbursement.

• Complete 18 hours of mandatory training.

• Undergo a criminal background check and home visit to ensure a safe environment.

FINDING A FOREVER FAMILY

SOME OF THE CHILDREN STILL WAITING

Evan: This

basketball-loving boy is on his way to junior high. While he’s living in a foster home and is loved by the family, they haven’t agreed to adoption or permanent

guardianship. Described as a mild-mannered and helpful child, Evan has recently taken a liking to horseback riding.

Kenney:

Known for his lively sense of humor, this soon-to-be high schooler is one tough kid. Born with cerebral palsy, he was set for an intensive surgery on his right leg this summer but it was postponed because of COVID-19 restrictions. He currently lives in a group home and wants to live with a family more than anything.

Sarah:

Described as a sensitive and kindhearted girl, Sarah loves everything with a feminine flair. She loves wearing makeup and spending time with friends. While she’s currently in a foster home, she wants nothing more than a family of her own to love her. ✻

TO LEARN MORE

about foster care,

visit dphhs.mt.gov/CFSD/Fosterparent or call 1-866-9-FOSTER to request information from a resource family specialist. There is also a wealth of information on the web including sites like adoptuskids.org.

CAN’T FOSTER? YOU CAN STILL HELP! If you can’t foster a child, there are other ways you can help. Donate one of these things and brighten a child’s day! Call 406-657-3120 to find out more.

• Gift cards for birthday or holiday gifts • Gift cards for haircuts • Gift cards for activities like bowling, roller

Safe STAY

WE DELIVER!

skating, or movies • Thinking of you cards to lift a child’s spirit

Quality Incontinence Supplies

delivered to your door every month!

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D WNE LLY O LOCA D E T A OPER AND

710 Black Hawk, Unit F2, Billings OUR HEART GALLERY FEATURE IS MADE POSSIBLE BY WENDY’S AND THE DAVE THOMAS FOUNDATION FOR ADOPTION.

www.discreetsolutionsinc.com JULY/AUGUST 2020

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HARRIET O’DAY, WORLD WAR I NURSE written by VIRGINIA BRYAN photography courtesy WESTERN HERITAGE CENTER

Editor’s Note:

Over the past century-plus, many women in the Yellowstone Valley have broken tradition, refusing to let society dictate their path in life. They’ve been comics, political activists, rough-and-tumble history makers and community champions.

Earlier this year, under the leadership of Community Historian Lauren Hunley, the Western Heritage Center began honoring 10 of these women with its exhibit “Saints & Sinners: Women Breaking Tradition.” The exhibit runs through 2020. Look for one of these noteworthy women in each issue through 2020.

When Billings Polytechnic Institute (now Rocky Mountain College) announced the hiring of Harriet O’Day as the school’s head nurse in charge of health and sanitation, it wanted to comply with the latest health and safety protocols. A decade earlier, the Spanish flu pandemic killed millions as it swept across the globe.

Polytechnic knew its student body traveled far and wide during school breaks. It wasn’t taking any chances.

One of O’Day’s first tasks was to screen Polytechnic students for contagious illness. I envision Nurse O’Day as a cool, no-nonsense woman, dressed in traditional white, who told students, “Say, ‘ah,’” as she swabbed throats and took careful notes. Those students, probably grumbling at the prospect of a mandatory health check, had no idea who they were dealing with. O’Day had been a nurse in Europe during World War I, when the Spanish flu was raging.

She helped care for wounded soldiers in what we’d now call a “MASH” unit.

A 1908 Billings High School graduate, O’Day trained as a nurse at St. Joseph’s Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota. She enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps at age 27 and was one of 86 Montana nurses who volunteered for overseas duty.

Those pre-WWI days were filled with great unrest and upheaval.

Montanans had just elected Jeannette Rankin, the first woman to

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serve in the U.S. House of Representatives. I wonder if O’Day voted in the historic 1916 election, the first in which Montana women cast ballots. Later, Congresswoman Rankin cast a controversial vote against the United States’ entry into WWI. Critics said her anti-war vote would delay national women’s suffrage and prove that women were unfit for public service. Two weeks after Harriet enlisted, the United States’ entry into WWI became official on Dec. 7, 1917.

O’Day served stateside before being assigned to Evacuation Hospital #4 (EH4) and dispatched overseas with an early contingent of American nurses. She moved with EH4 alongside American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) through Europe, each time establishing a war-zone medical site near the front lines. Under extreme, dangerous conditions, EH4 evaluated, treated and stabilized wounded soldiers brought directly from the battlefield.

October 1918 is considered the deadliest month in United States history, due to the combined deaths sustained in WWI and domestic deaths from the Spanish flu. By November, O’Day and EH4 were in northern France near Verdun, a highly prized strategic location close to the Belgian border. France and Germany had fought over Verdun’s control for several months. Theirs was a bloody, bitter fight characterized as a “human cauldron.” Over 1 million French and German soldiers died near Verdun before the Americans arrived.

EH4 set up at Fromereville les Vallons, about four kilometers from Verdun. Then, the AEF, commanded by U.S. Gen. John J. “Black Jack” Pershing, initiated an all-out assault to retake Verdun.

Early on Nov. 3, 1918, German soldiers commenced shelling the EH4 site. Amid the unexpected and sudden chaos of the attack, EH4’s head nurse was knocked unconscious, but she recovered sufficiently to order her nurses to evacuate the wounded. It

isn’t hard to imagine the terror O’Day and other nurses felt as they dodged shrapnel, tasted acrid smoke and smelled death while delivering first aid, carrying their patients to safety and shielding soldiers’ vulnerable bodies from falling debris. The four-hour onslaught must have felt like forever.

Army Nurse Sigrid M. Jorgensen, who served with O’Day and EH4, recalls Nov. 3 as a cold, rainy day. Her account says hospital tents were pitched on ground covered in mud so deep it impaired movement. EH4 nurses abandoned their iconic white uniforms for sweaters and long underwear under trench coats, rubber boots and rain hats. Jorgensen said they felt “fortunate to have so few casualties.” In her own words, preserved in the National Archives, she said she believed every EH4 nurse serving that day would return to the front if asked.

Maybe Germany knew the end was nigh when it blasted EH4. Eight days later, on Nov. 11, 1918, it surrendered. O’Day wrote to her mother after Armistice Day, lamenting the death of a soldier named Hobensack, whom she described as a “prince of a fellow from Montana.” He died from abdominal wounds received during the horrific last days of fighting at Verdun.

As the Germans retreated, back home in Montana, Jeannette Rankin lost her 1918 re-election bid. Despite serving just one term, Rankin introduced legislation to add the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guaranteed a woman’s right to vote. Some say President Woodrow Wilson came round to support the 19th Amendment as a way to recognize the valiant contribution of WWI nurses.

Harriet O’Day’s outstanding service and courage did not go unnoticed. Gen. Pershing awarded her an Individual Citation of Merit for “heroism under fire when Evacuation Hospital #4 was shelled by enemy artillery.” It was the highest citation the Army could bestow upon a woman.

O’Day was 37 and single when she accepted the Polytechnic position. She married WWI veteran Jens C. Nielson 10 years later.

They were married 40 years. O’Day, who died at 86, is buried in the Laurel City Cemetery.

In 2018, Billings veteran Edward Saunders convinced the Yellowstone County Commission that it was time to honor the forgotten legacy of Harriet O’Day and 23 other women WWI veterans with connections to Yellowstone County. Their names now appear on a bronze plaque erected on the Yellowstone County Courthouse lawn in downtown Billings. ✻

VIRGINIA BRYAN, writer Virginia Bryan is a freelance writer and Director of ArtWalk Downtown Billings. She has written extensively about our region's artists,culture, history and women.

Women Breaking Tradition

Open Tuesday - Saturday 10am - 5pm 2822 Montana Ave. Billings, MT www.ywhc.org JULY/AUGUST 2020

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the

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FIVE THINGS YOU NEED TO ADD TO YOUR SUMMER CALENDAR written written by

by CALLIE CALLIE KECK, KECK, WWW.BILLINGS365.COM WWW.BILLINGS365.COM

LIGHT UP THE NIGHT! Join Join the the Yellowstone Yellowstone County County

Relay Relay for for Life Life for for its its Socially Socially Safe Safe Street Street Edition.

Edition. July July 10 10 from from 66 to to 11 11 p.m., p.m., luminaria luminaria celebrating celebrating the the lives lives touched touched by by cancer cancer will will line line 24th 24th Street Street West West from from Grand Grand Ave. Ave. to to Monad Monad Rd. Rd. Deck Deck your your car car out out in in purple purple to to show show support support and and drive drive the the route! route!

3

LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

It’s It’s time time for for the the 35th 35th Annual Annual Big Big Sky Sky State State Games, Games, an an Olympic-style Olympic-style amateur amateur sports sports festival festival for for Montanans Montanans of of all all ages ages and and abilities. abilities. The The opening opening ceremony ceremony will will take take center center stage stage at at Wendy’s Wendy’s Field Field at at Daylis Daylis Stadium Stadium on on July July 17 17 with with competition competition set set for for the the entire entire weekend. weekend.

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4

2

GRAB A PINT. The The 10th 10th annual annual Montana Montana Brews Brews

& &BBQ BBQwill willtake takeover overthe thelakeside lakesidearea areaat atMetraPark MetraPark Saturday, Saturday, July July 18.

18. You’ll You’ll be be able able to to savor savor barbecue barbecue while while sipping sipping fresh fresh beers beers — — featuring featuring only only keg keg beers beers from from Montana.

Montana. If If you you go, go, be be sure sure to to look look for for limited-batch limited-batch brews brews created created just just for for the the occasion. occasion.

SERIOUS FUN! MontanaFair MontanaFair

won’t won’t be be quite quite the the experience experience you’ve you’ve witnessed witnessed in in years years past past but but it it is is still still on on and and planners planners have have broken broken down down the the fair fair into into three three parts: parts: agriculture, agriculture, food food and and beverage, beverage, and and entertainment. entertainment. Keep Keep an an eye eye out out for for more more details details and and information information on on ticket ticket sales. sales.

5

ARTS, CRAFTS & COLLECTIBLES.

Due Due to to COVID-19, COVID-19, the the Moss Moss Mansion’s 32nd Annual Mansion’s 32nd Annual SpringFest SpringFest was was bumped bumped to to become become aa summer summer affair. affair. On On Aug. Aug. 22 22 on on the the mansion’s mansion’s grounds, grounds, check check out out juried juried arts arts and and crafts, crafts, antiques, antiques, collectibles, collectibles, plus plus food food and and specialty specialty booths. booths. It’s It’s aa family family affair affair with with activities activities for for the the kids, kids, and and live live music music as as well. well.

Be Be sure sure to to check check billings365.com billings365.com for forthe the full full event event calendar calendar along along with with possible possible changes changes to to events events due due to to COVID-19.

COVID-19.

While you’re you’re there, there, sign sign up up for fortheir theirweekly weekly e-newsletter e-newsletterto to stay stay in in touch touch with with all all that’s that’s happening happening in in town. town. ✻ While ✻

Adventure in every dam direction.

Map out your adventure at

VisitGreatFallsMontana.org/things-to-do

T design IMELESS

IT’S BLACK AND WHITE for Lori Manning. It’s her preferred style.

The new home she and husband, radio personality Charlie Fox, built in Castlewood subdivision lays claim to this classic combo of timeless design.

“I’m a black and white person — and gray,” says Lori. “I wanted a modern home with clean lines that was elegant, yet comfortable — a home that could be enjoyed by Charlie and me, as well as our kids and grandkids.”

Nestled beneath the Rims, the couple’s 6,200-square-foot twolevel home breathes style and sophistication. They lived almost two decades in their last home before deciding to build one more conducive to a big family.

“We have 19 grandkids!” exclaims Lori, an energetic dynamo who’s an independent consultant with Rodan & Fields.

This unique six-bedroom home built by Eaton & Yost Construction Co. fits into the landscape, with contemporary prairie architecture.

“It has great lines for Montana with the low-profile nature of the roof and deep overhang eaves,” says James Kordonowy, principal designer at A&E Design.

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MODERN HOME PROVIDES A NEUTRAL CANVAS WITH POPS OF COLOR written by TRISH ERBE SCOZZARI photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

He says Lori’s “fashion-forward sensibilities” and “crisp and metropolitan style” inspired the design process. The exterior of the home is surrounded by a meticulous landscape. The vibrant flowers nestled around the home pop against the layered concrete

by Universal Concrete & Design. Black panel stone that takes on the look of granite creates a visual punch. The striking stone work by Harper Masonry accentuates the artistic front entry.

One of two columns inside the home gives subtle separation to the great room while showcasing this urban look of black stone. Warm hickory flooring from Carpet One and neutral gray walls further the stylish flair. Lori’s stunning and striking décor begins and ends with black and white, fluffed with gray, splashed with pops of fuchsia and purple.

Richly colored throw pillows in the living area show off charcoal neutral sofas and soft leather chairs from Davidson Home Furnishings & Designs. “Cleverly hidden under the sofa table, geometric-patterned leather cube ottomans provide extra seating for entertaining,” says Davidson Designer Kara Gainan-Dahlberg.

Vibrant fuchsia poppies painted by Billings Artist Chance Robinson grace several of the walls of the home. A robust white poppy in the JULY/AUGUST 2020

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倀攀爀昀攀挀琀氀礀

䈀攀愀甀琀椀昀甀氀

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ITY AL • QU 54 G 19 IN E ILD INC BU • S

CONSTRUCTION

C O M P A N Y

656-7117 | 2510 Grand Ave | Billings | eatonandyost.com 80

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WHAT BETTER WAY TO INTRODUCE THE HOME THAN WITH A PERSONAL STATEMENT REPRESENTING ITS OWNERS,.

— Lauri Patterson Owner One Source Lighting

front foyer blossoms with gusto.

Oversized Pella windows cover the front of the house exposing this painting to passers-by.

“We put lights in to focus on the artwork,” says home builder Sheldon Eaton, “so when I drive by and see they’re not turned on, I call.” Laughing, Lori nods in agreement, “Sheldon texts me and tells me to turn the lights on!”

“Lighting is a key element,” Sheldon says.

The foyer light sings with bling. “What better way to introduce the home than with a personal statement representing its owners,” says Lauri Patterson, owner of One Source Lighting.

“This triple chrome pendant with crystal refracts the light and adds sparkle right when you walk in the door. Anyone who knows Lori knows she loves glam,” says Lauri. “A crystal ice chandelier hangs in her home office that sparks creativity.”

A glass chandelier cascades in a waterfall spiral pattern “continuing the glam” in the stairway. At the base of the stairs, however, “Charlie’s Place” is music to the ears.

“This man room is awesome,” Sheldon says. Huge blocks of rock form the window well. A big screen television looms above the massive linear fireplace. Coziness bounces off the walls. A full bar quenches a man’s thirst.

“It’s a well-stocked bar,” Charlie says with a grin. Glossy ceramic tile backsplash in light cream and dark hues give it character.

The backsplash carries over behind the wine bar. It’s also wellstocked.

DESIGN TO INSPIRE

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“I can do everything I need to do here,” says Charlie, referring to his morning radio show for Mojo 92.5. A separate office hosting a studio-quality mike and a computer has allowed this cancer survivor to broadcast from home during the coronavirus outbreak.

Charlie’s Place is spacious, but there’s plenty of room down the hall past an enormous plum poppy painting and the downstairs laundry room. Lori opens the door to a perfectly decorated bedroom with two queen beds.

“It’s especially nice when our daughter and three grandkids come from Chicago,” she says. “We went with the two queens as I’m too old to make the top bunk.”

“We can sleep a lot of people here,” adds Charlie. A second bedroom and bath downstairs and beautiful guest suites upstairs provide extra sleeping accommodations.

The master suite sits on the main level affording the couple their privacy. “We kept it simple in here,” points out Lori. A ninefoot tray ceiling enhances a black and gray tulip painting over the bed. A gray sofa and area rug along with a fabric-wrapped chandelier further softens the serene atmosphere.

The en suite soothes body and soul with luxurious amenities like a soaker tub. The heated tile floor and white and gray tiled walk-in shower adds to the spa feel. A motorized blind closes out the world with the push of a button.

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LORI LIKES TO KEEP THINGS CLEAN AND SIMPLE AND SHE WANTS IT NICE AND BRIGHT. WE KEPT TO THE TWO COLORS OF WHITE AND GRAY. IT’S PRETTY TIMELESS. — Jodi Hutchinson Sales Consultant for Kitchens Plus

“I’m obsessed with these remote-controlled blinds,” remarks Lori. They’re definitely warranted, given how much glass is in

the home. Pella custom glass doors in the great room leading onto the covered patio measure about 10 feet wide by 16 feet tall.

LORI & CHARLIE

The view of the Rims through these colossal doors meets the greatest of expectations. A fire pit designed by Sheldon “fits the house” and there’s plenty of seating for the entire family. Three heaters above the patio doors keep everyone toasty. “We spend a lot of time out here,” Lori and Charlie chime in unison.

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It’s just a quick dash into the kitchen. A plethora of white painted maple cabinets with small lighted glass doors on the upper cabinets brighten the perimeter of this large-scale space. The center island hosts

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— Greg Meyers and Ken Hagel, Owners

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Get Honest, Experienced Help Buying or Selling Your Home.

“Lori likes to keep things clean and simple and she wants it nice and bright,” says Jodi Hutchinson, sales consultant for Kitchens Plus. “We kept to the two colors of white and gray. It’s pretty timeless.”

The kitchen ties in stunningly with the open dining and living area. Romancing the white kitchen cabinetry, bold largeformat marble tile floats above a linear fireplace on the far wall of the great room.

A one-piece concrete hearth runs the length of this dramatic wall.

Exquisite detailing, exquisite craftsmanship and the combination of timeless design appeal to the hearts, souls and minds of the family enjoying this wondrous home.

Both Lori and Charlie agree they wouldn’t change one thing. ✻

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art

A FINE PIECE OF BILLINGS’ LONG-TIME HOME BUILDER SHELDON EATON ON LORI AND CHARLIE’S NEW HOME Building this magnificent home was Sheldon’s “first full-on project” with his son Dusty Eaton, principal architect at A&E Design. His goal in building this extraordinary home, he says, was “to create a home for my clients that is not only functional but is harmonious with the way they live day-to-day is most important. One of my pleasures in life is art and I feel this is an extension of that creativity. A great piece of art should move you and excite you and even bring you comfort. That is what I hope we’re able to achieve in creating their new home.

“I love to get out-of-the-box and create new and fresh ideas. The details can make such statements that get people talking. It adds to the excitement of the whole project, a little like that fine piece of art.”

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Paint it with

PLASTER AN INSTANT AND INEXPENSIVE LAMP REFRESH

LO OK W HAT WE FO UND

written by RACHEL JENNINGS photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

RUSTIC, RUSTIC,POTTERY-INSPIRED POTTERY-INSPIREDLAMPS LAMPSare areall allthe therage rageright rightnow. now.

What WhatififI Itold toldyou youthat thatyou youcould coulduse usean anold oldlamp lampand andget getthe the same samelook lookfor forjust justaafew fewbucks? bucks?We Weall allknow knowthat thatnew newlamps lampscan can be bequite quitespendy. spendy.Why Whynot noteither eitheruse usean anolder olderlamp lampthat thatneeds needs some somelove, love,or ortake takeaatrip tripand andpick pickone oneup upatataasecond-hand second-handstore store for foraafew fewdollars? dollars?We Weare aregoing goingtotobe beusing usingplaster plasterofofParis, Paris,which which isisreally reallyquite quitefun funtotowork workwith withand andhas hasminimal minimalcleanup. cleanup.

WHAT WHATYOU YOUWILL WILLNEED NEED

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Windex.Mask Maskoff offthe thethroat throatofofthe thelamp lampand andthe thecord. cord.

Next, Next,using usinghigh-grit high-gritsandpaper, sandpaper,scuff scuffthe thelamp. lamp.My Mylamp lampisis ceramic nish, so ceramicand andhas hasaaglossy glossyfifinish, soI Iused usedthe thesandpaper sandpapertoto get getrid ridofofthe thelamp’s lamp’sglossy glossyspots. spots.IfIfyou youare areusing usingaalamp lampthat that isismore morematte matteinintexture, texture,don’t don’tskip skipthis thisstep. step.It’s It’scrucial crucialand and helps helpsthe theplaster plasteradhere adheretotothe thelamp’s lamp’ssurface. surface.

ititreaches reachesthe theconsistency consistencyofoffrosting, frosting,this thisisisthe thetime timewhen when you youcan caneasily easilypersonalize personalizeyour yourlamp. lamp.Carve Carveyour yourinitials. initials.Use Use the ower. Let ow! theimprint imprintofofaaleaf leafor orflflower.

Letyour yourcreative creativejuices juicesflflow!

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Once Onceyour yourmixture mixtureisisthe theright rightconsistency, consistency,start startbrushing brushing the theplaster plasteron onyour yourlamp. lamp.“Paint” “Paint”your yourlamp lampuntil untilit's it'sfully fully covered. covered.You Youwill willnotice noticethe theplaster plasterslowly slowlygetting gettingthicker thickerand and thicker. thicker.I Itook tookan anold oldbutter butterknife knifeand andsmoothed smoothedititall allout outuntil until I Igot gotthe thelook lookthat thatI Idesired. desired.The Theplaster plasterofofParis Parishas hasaagood good working workingwindow, window,but butititwill willstill stillharden hardenrather ratherquickly. quickly.When When

IN EVERY ISSUE 90

Paper towels Paintbrush Old butter knife Paint

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Once nished, let Onceyou’re you’refifinished, letthe theplaster plasterdry dryfully, fully,about about24 24hours. hours.

IfIfyou youdon't don'tlike likethe thetexture textureon onyour yourlamp, lamp,just justsand sanddown downany any high highpoints pointsand andadd addaalittle littlemore moreplaster plasterbefore beforebeginning beginningthe the drying dryingprocess processagain. again.

RACHEL RACHELJENNINGS, JENNINGS,writer writer Rachel Rachelisisa aself selfdescribed described"Junker," "Junker,"who whonot notonly only loves lovesallallthings thingsold, old,but butLOVES LOVESthe thechallenge challengeofof trying tryingtotomake makesomething somethingnew newout outofofeach eachfifind. nd.

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Power

YOUR IS OUR PASSION.

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Creating Creating aa

Sacred space for for Thought Thought and and Creativity Creativity GIVING GIVINGTHE THE HOME HOME OFFICE OFFICEAAREVAMP REVAMP written writtenbybySTELLA STELLAFONG FONG

AA SACRED SACRED SPACE SPACE inspires inspires thought thought and and creativity. creativity. In In our ourhome, home,the theplace placetotoponder, ponder,dream dreamand andaccomplish accomplishisis the ce. Whether thehome homeoffi office.

Whetherwe weare arewriting writingour ournext nextnovel, novel, generating generating aa contract contract ororpaying paying bills, bills,this this room room should should allow ciency and allowfor foreffi efficiency andproductivity productivitywhile whilegiving givinglight lighttoto refl ection. reflection.

During ces provided During the the COVID-19 COVID-19 pandemic, pandemic, our our offi offices provided an anescape. escape.While Whileworking workingatathome, home,this thiswas wasthe theplace placewe we walked walkedtotoininour ourpajamas pajamasininthe themornings morningsinstead insteadofofgetting getting dressed dressedand andstarting startingup upthe thecar. car.This Thiswas wasalso alsowhere wherewe we went wenttotoseparate separatefrom fromour ourfamily, family,totocollect collectand andregroup. regroup.

FOCUS FOCUSON ONFUNCTION FUNCTION Designer DesignerJeremiah JeremiahYoung YoungofofKibler Kiblerand andKirch Kirchfocuses focuseson on functionality functionalitywhen whenembarking embarkingon onaaproject. project.The Thestandard standard furnishings ce are furnishingsininaastudy/home study/homeoffi office areaadesk deskand andaachair, chair, but butthere thereare areother otherthings thingstotoconsider considerwhen whentransforming transformingitit into intoaasacred sacredspace. space.

“We rst. What nes?

“Weaddress addressthe thearchitecture architecturefifirst.

Whatare arethe theconfi confines?

Then, Then, what what are are the the needs needs ofof the the client?” client?” he he says. says. He He considers considersthe thepractical practicalnecessities necessitiesinitially initiallybecause becausehe heisis confi dent that confident that“we “wewill willalways alwayscreate createsomething somethingbeautiful” beautiful” ininthe theend. end.

Young ce asasaavery Youngacknowledges acknowledgesaastudy/home study/homeoffi office verypersonal personal space. space.In Inone oneofofhis hislatest latestprojects, projects,the theowner’s owner’spottery pottery collection collectionbegan beganthe theconversation conversationon onthe thedesign. design.Young’s Young’s challenge challengewas wasputting puttingtogether together“a“aplace placeofofreverence,” reverence,”and and solving solvingthe thequestion, question,“How “Howare arewe wegoing goingtotodisplay displayher her treasured treasuredcollection?” collection?”

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“The “Thewhole wholeidea ideaofofthat thatspace spaceisisaaplace placethat thatgives givesher herenergy, energy, bringsher herdelight, delight,makes makesher herhappy,” happy,”Young Youngsays. says.ItItisisaaplace placethat that brings shecan canclaim claimas asher herown, own,somewhere somewhereshe shecan can“close “closeoff offand andshut shut she theworld worldout.” out.” the

Work Work Hard.

Hard. Carry Carry On. On.

Withaaclient clientwho whoisisan anadventure adventuretraveler, traveler,Young Youngdesigned designedaa With placethat thatexpressed expressedelegance eleganceand andfemininity femininitycamouflaged camouflagedwith with place wildundertones. undertones.Chairs Chairscovered coveredininleopard leopardprint printand andaapinboard pinboard wild patterned with with wildflowers wildflowers subtly subtly whisper whisper the the spirit spirit ofof the the patterned untamed,and andthe thecolors colorsofoforange orangeand andblue blueshow showconfidently confidently untamed, theroom. room.“With “Withthat thatshock shockofofcolor, color,ititisisimpossible impossiblenot nottoto ininthe behappy,” happy,”Young Youngsaid. said.The Thecolors colorsofofocean oceanand andspice spiceare arelifted lifted be bywhite whitebookcases bookcasesand andanchored anchoredby byaarich richwalnut walnutdesktop desktopand and by floors. floors.

COLORS COLORSFOR FORPRODUCTIVITY PRODUCTIVITY&&CALM CALM IfIfyou youask askPam PamKuntz, Kuntz,co-owner co-ownerofofthe thePaint PaintCenter CenterininBillings, Billings, white, gray gray and and blue blue reign reign as as the the popular popular colors colors for for home home white, officewalls. walls.“White “Whitegives givesyou youserenity serenitywhile whiledarker darkershades shadesare are office associatedwith withintelligence,” intelligence,”Kuntz Kuntzsays. says.“Light “Lightcolors colorsinspire inspire associated creativityand and green green promotes promotes productivity productivityand and calm.” calm.”For Foran an creativity office,Kuntz Kuntz recommends recommends light light and and soft soft colors colors — —“shades “shades ofof office, whitewith withsoft softgray graytotocream creamundertones,” undertones,”as aswell wellas as“earth “earthtones, tones, white rocktones.” tones.” rock “Putaacolor colorininthere therethat thatmakes makesyou youhappy, happy,such suchas asblue-green,” blue-green,” “Put

2228 2228Grand GrandAvenue Avenue••Billings, Billings,MT MT••406.565.9540 406.565.9540 davidsonhomefurnishings.com davidsonhomefurnishings.com JULY/AUGUST JULY/AUGUST2020 2020

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create an inspiring home office

she says. “A home office should make you feel like you want to go there.”

DECLUTTER TO REMOVE DISTRACTION Kristy Berckmoes, designer and owner of Beyond the Box, advocates decluttering.

“Keeping things behind closed doors,” such as a filing cabinet or a closet, puts everything in its place, Kristy says. Shelves can add visual interest and provide organizational ease. As a result, Kristy says, “There will be a more open floor plan. Most people need room to think.”

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In one of Berckmoes’ home-office remodels, a corner desk with filing cabinets situated between two sets of windows under floating shelves serves as the place where the owner can carry on the ranching business she inherited from her mother. The laminate desktop and shelves mimicking steel, black cabinetry and dark barn wood floors suggest a ranch-industrial theme. Flanked by two windows, natural light floods into the room and affords views of their land.

PUT A COLOR IN THERE THAT MAKES YOU HAPPY... A HOME OFFICE SHOULD MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE YOU WANT TO GO THERE. — Pam Kuntz

MAKE THE SPACE YOUR OWN Tiff Blades, a designer at Davidson Home Furnishings and Design, says, “A space with great natural light is ideal, as well as overhead and task lighting for late nights.

Typically, home offices are smaller in square footage, so high ceilings are perfect to create the feeling of spaciousness.”

CREATING SOLUTIONS FOR YOUR SPACE

With colors, Blades says, “I like to specify softer cool colors such as greens and blues, which are calming and thoughtful colors.”

More essential, “An important aspect of any office is the personal touches that are vital to our well-being. Surround yourself with pictures of your family, friends, whatever is important to you.”

Blades also emphasizes, “Clean, not clutter.

The biggest ‘fail’ is to put mix and match office furniture which may function in a space but clearly lacks the esthetic. A chaotic workspace equals non-productive work.” When you need a break, Blades recommends additional furniture such as “a great reading chair and ottoman for those times you need to get out from behind the desk and breathe.”

The home office can be the space where productivity, thought and creativity reign.

Remove the clutter, bring in personal treasures, light and color along with touches of comfort, and options of privacy, and in the end, there’s the sacred place for working and dreaming. ✻

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CREATING THAT SACRED SPACE Tips at-a-Glance

❏ FUNCTION

First and foremost, a desk and a chair are the basics of an office.

❏ DECLUTTER

Clutter can create a distraction. Kristy Berckmoes of Beyond the Box says, “Keep things behind closed doors. Everything has to have its own area.”

❏ A PERSONAL TOUCH

Those personal touches are vital to our wellbeing, so surround yourself with photos or items that are important to you and make your heart happy.

❏ LIGHT

❏ COLOR

While neutral colors such as white, black or gray can form the backdrop of an office, Pam Kuntz of the Paint Center says you should use a color that makes the space a place where you want to be.

❏ COMFORT

“It is important to have comfort, which allows the mind to work freely when distractions are eliminated,” says Jeremiah Young.

“Also, add custom components such as tailor-made seating.”

❏ PRIVACY

“To create that perfect sacred space. You need to have the ability to close it off and shut the world out,” Jeremiah Young says.

The rule is, the more natural light the better. Jeremiah Young recommends layers of light that could be raised or dimmed with task lighting, natural light and a broad overall light.

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1731 LONE PINE DR

Robin and Tom are the absolute best realtors in town! They were professional, honest, committed, and always had our best interest in mind. They made selling/buying a home, which could be a very stressful situation,

fun and easy. We absolutely love our new house and can’t thank Robin and Tom enough for all their hard

work in this process. We highly recommend

Team Hanel!

— Matt and Sam Huck

TOM HANEL ROBIN HANEL 406-860-6181 406-690-4448 Robin@RobinHanel.com Tom@TomHanel.com www.berkshirehathawayhs.com

BUY A BAG GIVE A BOWL

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BIG R WEST 2600 Gabel Road (406) 652-9118

BIG R HEIGHTS 1908 Main Street (406) 384-0099

BIG R EAST 216 N. 14th Street (406) 252-0503 BIG R

BIG R SHERIDAN BIG R LEWISTOWN SERVICE CENTER 2049 Sugarland Dr. 825 NE Main Street 301 N. 14th Street (406) 896-1814 (307) 674-6471 (406) 350-4422

Let the Freyenhagen Team turn your home dreams into a reality.

“From the first meeting to the final touchup, we will be there every step of the way to guide you through your home remodel with expertise and care.”

406-65 2 -6 1 70 | B I LLI NG S , M ONTANA

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