Yellowstone Valley Woman Magazine by yellowstonevalleywoman

COMPLIMENTARY

BILLINGS’ MOST READ MAGAZINE | MAY/JUNE 2021

Nicole

GALLAGHER 22 KINER GIVES OTHERS A VOICE IN THE JUSTICE SYSTEM

ENERGIZE YOUR BODY

THERAPY HEALS AND COUNTERS PAIN

MEET THE SOIL DIVA JULIE GREBE GROWS GREEN THUMBS

WANT A RAISED BED GARDEN? WE HAVE A HOW-TO!

32 42 84

We care where you are.

Abbreviated Breast MRI: Improved screening methods for women with dense breasts. Abbreviated Breast MRI (AB-MRI) used along with mammography to detect more early stage breast cancers. This shortened exam typically takes 10-15 minutes to complete. AB-MRI is an exam for women with dense breast tissue, or women with high risk for breast cancer or a strong family history of breast cancer. To learn your risk, visit our High Risk Breast Clinic page at billingsclinic.com/HRBC AB- MRI is not covered by insurance.

For more information or to schedule an appointment, call 406-435-1300 or or visit billingsclinic.com/breastmri

Billings Clinic Hospital

Billings Clinic now offers a High-Risk Breast Clinic which provides world-class care to women with an elevated risk of developing breast cancer. You will be connected to a multidisciplinary team that specializes in breast care who will evaluate your breast cancer risk and partner with you to design a personalized risk-management plan.

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Community Corner Congratulations Class of 2021!

Victoria Brauer-Konitz 406.855.2856

Erica Burke 406.544.8033

Stella Cheryl Burows Ossello Burke 406.690.9955 406.698.7423

Maya Burton Tony Contreraz Suzie Countway Nancy Curtiss 406.591.0106 406.671.2282 406.671.1595 406.696.2434

Mary Dobrowsky Anita Dolan 406.606.0233 406.869.7639

Cindy Dunham 406.425.0182

Lance Egan 406.698.0008

Myles Egan 406.855.0008

Karen Frank 406.698.0152

Darwin George 406.794.4663

Catie Gragert 406.697.4321

Rhonda Grimm 406.661.7186

Toni Hale Robin Hanel 406.690.3181 406.860.6181

Tom Hanel 406.690.4448

Kris Hein 406.598.7169

Scott Hight 406.425.1101

Amy Kraenzel 406.591.2370

Sheila Larsen 406.672.1130

Susan B. Lovely 406.698.1601

Julie Magnus 406.672.1164

Kris Barthuly 406.855.1252

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James Movius Ginger Nelson 406.670.4711 406.697.4667

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Jeanne Peterson 406.661.3941

Korinne Rice 406.697.0678

Judy Shelhamer Carlene Taubert 406.850.3623 406.698.2205

Brett Taylor 406.671.0519

Brandon Treese 406.647.5007

Melissa Utley 406.861.7663

Jeff Watson 406.672.2515

406.860.1032

Mark Winslow 406.671.7305

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Dan Smith 406.860.4997

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Letter

FROM THE

Editor

AS I GET OLDER,

a potty break calls, he reminds me that a month ago, I would have been snuggled up in my bed without a care in the world at that awful hour of the morning instead of taking a dog outside.

I realize that I am doing something that I never wanted to do. Ever. I am getting to be set in my ways. I have my people in my life. I have my routines. I have a job that I have loved for the last 15 years. I have my hobbies. I have the friends whom I cherish. If one of these areas gets turned on its head for whatever reason, I don’t handle it well. Enter the two things in my life that are up-ending Ms. Predictable. One is growing and about to enter a new chapter in life. The other just entered the world and is proving to be two pounds of terror. Yes, I have a graduating senior and a new puppy. Both are rocking my world. This phase of life seemed to put a mirror up and I am not sure I love the person staring back at me. While I am over the moon excited for my daughter, who will be hitting the halls of Carroll College this fall, I am selfishly sad too. She’s been at my hip pretty much her whole life. When she was a toddler, I was a work-at-home mom. She went with me on photoshoots, interviews, even helped our photographers hold deflectors or carry equipment on cover shoots. She’s been my shadow and, in a lot of ways, I’ve been hers. I’ve spent weekends cheering her on in basketball and softball. I’ve been her biggest fan. Knowing come August she’ll be packing up all her things to cart with her to Helena makes me wonder what the heck I am going to do without her. Enter my two pounds of terror. Recently my daughter and I were running errands and out of the blue, I said, “Let’s go look at puppies.” What? Who said that? Why did I say that? Why did I keep driving toward the pet store? After seeing my daughter’s giddy face, it was all the fuel I needed. We ended up taking home Baxter, a Maltese/silky terror terrier mix, who pretty much rules the house now. He makes us laugh. He makes us scratch our head. He makes us put our shoes away. He’s pretty fun (and incredibly cute) but at 3 in the morning when

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I am not comfortable with change. Instead of being miffed at the disruption, I decided to embrace it. Change is good, right? Change makes you stretch into new corners of your life. Change helps you to grow in areas where you need a little growth. I decided this slow-moving hurricane of change is something I can weather. So many before me have. It’s not that big a deal. It’s life. Right? I should put my own fears and weaknesses aside and just embrace the change, knowing something beautiful could grow from it, just like the spring tulips starting to sprout in my neighborhood. So, I reflected a little, knowing that there’s got to be someone reading this who feels like they too are on a boat without a captain. So, I googled change. Here’s what the internet told me. Acknowledge the change. Accept it, don’t resist it. Learn from the experience, change can often be the best teacher. And, above all, realize you’re growing stronger as you move with it. Basically, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. The internet is pretty smart. So, if you are trying to stand tall as the winds of change beat you down, stand with me. We’ll get through it. We’ll learn from what we are experiencing and we’ll become a little wiser and hopefully a little more gracious when the next big event takes shape. And, if that bit of advice doesn’t help, just email me. I have some adorable puppy photos I can share.

Julie

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MAY/JUNE 2021 2021 On the Cover 22

THE DEFENDER

Nicole Gallagher-Kiner gives others a voice in the justice system

Features 10

BUILDING SECURITY & HOPE

YWCA Billings embarks on plan to build new $3M shelter for survivors of domestic violence

16 THE NEW FACE OF UNITED WAY OF YELLOWSTONE COUNTY

Kim Lewis is shining the light on community service

18 60 YEARS OF GIVING BACK

United Way of Yellowstone County makes its mark on the community

32 ENERGIZING THE BODY

Why some are turning to pulsed electromagnetic therapy to counter pain

36 NEW NEIGHBORS, NEW MARKETS Amish community takes root in Carbon County

42 SOIL DIVA

Julie Grebe is helping to grow green thumbs nationwide

48 THE COMPOST EVANGELISTS

Connie & Wayne Burleson take the art of growing to Africa

52 HONEY LOCUST FARM

How raising sheep & creating yarn can be a stepping stone to greater good

Put a fresh and budget-friendly twist on any bouquet

64 THE TASTE OF VIETNAM

Dish up some Beef Noodle Soup, Pho Bo

74 DELIVER A LITTLE LOVE

Gifts for moms & all the fabulous women in your life

76 MAKING A NAME IN MUSIC

The evolution of singer/songwriter Gilda House

80 AND IT WILL BE A BEAUTIFUL LIFE A chat with Billings author Craig Lancaster

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56 ARTIFICIALLY AUTHENTIC

84 GROWING & SOWING

Raised bed gardens becoming a popular way to enjoy fresh herbs & veggies

A CONTEMPORARY MONTANA BEAUTY Sleek & Sophisticated Living YVW MAGAZINE

IN EVERY ISSUE 30

KAREN GROSZ: The Red Ds

TASTE OF THE VALLEY: The Humble One

FASHION: Statement Making Sunglasses

LOOK WHAT WE FOUND: Light Up the Night

CORRECTIONs: In the March/April 2021 issue energy efficiency story featuring All Kinds of Blinds, it was Michael Gray in one of the photos and not Bobby Gray as was stated. The photo of Nicole Gallagher-Kiner in our March/April issue was taken by Alexis Bonogofsky. We apologize for both errors.

Accidents Happen... PUBLISHER & EDITOR JULIE KOERBER julie@yellowstonevalleywoman.com COPY EDITOR ED KEMMICK SPECIAL SECTION EDITOR LAURA BAILEY ADVERTISING TERRY PERKINS: 406-860-3951 terry@yellowstonevalleywoman.com TRISH SCOZZARI: 406-690-9528 trish@yellowstonevalleywoman.com LYNN LANGELIERS: 406-671-2325 lynn@yellowstonevalleywoman.com

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C R E AT I V E D I R E C T O R MELANIE FABRIZIUS ads@yellowstonevalleywoman.com DISTRIBUTION NICOLE BURTELL CONTACT Yellowstone Valley Woman PO Box 23204 Billings, MT 59104 Phone: 406-254-1394 www.yellowstonevalleywoman.com

ON THE COVER Photography by Daniel Sullivan

Head to your nearest Wendy’s to get your hands on a Vanilla or Chocolate Frosty-ccino ASAP. MAY/JUNE 2021

BUILDING SECURITY & HOPE YWCA BILLINGS EMBARKS ON PLAN TO BUILD NEW $3M SHELTER FOR SURVIVORS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE written by LAURA BAILEY photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

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EXTERIOR PERSPECTIVE WYOMING AVE & 9TH ST. W.

DURING THE NEARLY 15 YEARS

that Erin Lambert has been working with survivors of domestic violence at YWCA Billings, she’s seen her share of success stories.

Erin, the chief operating officer at the YWCA, thinks of her often, especially now as the nonprofit embarks on a $3 million capital campaign to build a new, 66-unit shelter.

The new shelter, designed around a studio apartment model, Recently, in fact, a young woman reached out to her after receiving provides all the necessary amenities for independent assistance, but despite multiple interventions, Erin living, including a small kitchen and living area wasn’t sure she’d be successful. Barely 19, she as well as a private bathroom in each unit. A struggled with addiction and was without a fully stocked food pantry and free laundry healthy support network after spending will also be available to residents and most of her childhood in foster care. The YOU HAVE TO counseling offices will be located on-site woman was happy to report to Erin SHELTER OR HOUSE as well. The whole concept is based on that she’s clean, sober and in a safe, PEOPLE FIRST AND THEN today’s best practices for sheltering. committed relationship. She has also THEY HAVE STABILITY AND started a family and has a professional And in Erin’s estimation, the shelter THAT ALLOWS THEM TO career. would have been ideal for the woman WORK WITH US AND ACCESS whose life was cut tragically short by Her story is a win, but Erin is often more OUR SERVICES. her abuser. moved by the losses. — Erin Lambert “There are a lot of success stories, but you never leave behind the ones who never got out,” Erin says. One in particular was a woman who came to the YWCA for help on several occasions but struggled with communal living in the shelter. Time and again, she would try to leave, only to end up returning to her abusive partner. He murdered her just days after her last return.

“You have to shelter or house people first and then they have stability and that allows them to work with us and access our services,” Erin says.

OPERATING BEYOND CAPACITY In addition to shelter, the YWCA provides case management, counseling, job training, legal assistance and help finding

MAY/JUNE 2021

THE NEW SHELTER, DESIGNED AROUND A STUDIO APARTMENT MODEL,

provides all the necessary amenities for independent living,

INCLUDING A SMALL KITCHEN AND LIVING AREA AS WELL AS A PRIVATE BATHROOM IN EACH UNIT.

Saving and Changing Lives

We’re YWCA!

Imagine for a moment a woman making the most difficult decision of her life−she needs to get away from her abuser but has no safe place for her and her children to go. 25% Increase In Domestic Violence

Every Victim is a Potential Homicide

YWCA Services offer a Hand Up not a Hand Out

Domestic Violence is 2nd Top Cause of Homelessness

Domestic assaults rose 25 percent in the last year. YWCA’s safe shelter and other care helps women and children who need protection.

Tanya’a abuser hurt her so badly that she ended up in the hospital. YWCA helped her escape the violence and saved her life.

YWCA’s legal assistance, job training, and credit repair gets victims on track so they can find housing which is essential to their stability.

YWCA improves the well-being of women and children and keeps them from becoming homeless. Victims thrive and become self-sufficient!

With your support YWCA provides 9,000 nights of safe shelter and finds homes for 200 people each year. 2,000-plus lives can be saved through services provided to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.

Donate online to ywcabillings.org/donate or to YWCA Billings | 909 Wyoming Avenue, Billings, MT 59101 | 406-252-6303 12

YVW MAGAZINE

permanent housing, among other wrap-around support services. Roughly 300 to 350 survivors of domestic violence from Yellowstone and Big Horn counties are served by the YWCA each year. Built 20 years ago, the family-style shelter offers 14 bedrooms and a total of 22 beds. Women share the bedrooms with their children or other survivors. There’s a central kitchen and shared commons area and bathrooms. The current shelter is full every night of the year. “If a bed is vacated usually within 24 hours — and sometimes it’s an hour — it’s filled again,” Erin says. Since the pandemic began, domestic violence service providers across the nation have seen an increased need for services, and

YWCA Billings is no exception. It has witnessed a 25 percent increase in clients, placing a strain on the shelter. To manage overflow and provide for social distancing, dozens of survivors were sheltered in motels, which was far from ideal. Motels aren’t secure and clients often need immediate access to staff and programs on the YWCA campus, which is something they don’t have when they’re off-site, especially if they lack reliable transportation. It quickly became clear to Erin and Merry Lee Olson, YWCA’s executive director, that a new shelter wasn’t just a dream, it was a necessity. “We need to get this built as soon as possible,” says Merry Lee.

MAY/JUNE 2021

OFF TO A GOOD START

“It wasn’t what we asked for nor did we ever expect it,” Merry Lee says.

The YWCA is no stranger to major fundraising projects. Merry The donation to the YWCA was one of 116 donations Scott Lee and her team, including the YWCA board of made in July 2020 for a total of $1.7 billion. Merry directors, successfully raised $4.6 million for Lee isn’t exactly sure why the philanthropist a new 24-apartment transitional housing picked YWCA Billings, but she thinks facility. Located on the YWCA campus, that one reason could be that no other it was completed in 2018. Since then, ANOTHER INFLUENCING domestic violence program offers the it has helped many women and their same variety and quality of wrapFACTOR IN THE NEW SHELTER children gain access to services and around services to such a large PROJECT IS A RECENT get their lives back on track. geographical area.

$1 MILLION DONATION

Merry Lee hopes the success of the transitional housing project will be a springboard for the new shelter project.

FROM MACKENZIE SCOTT, A PHILANTHROPIST WHO WAS ONCE MARRIED TO AMAZON FOUNDER JEFF BEZOS.

“Nothing had ever been done on the YWCA campus like our housing project, but it got done, so we decided to go for it again,” Merry Lee says.

Another influencing factor in the new shelter project is a recent $1 million donation from MacKenzie Scott, a philanthropist who was once married to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The unsolicited donation came as a complete surprise.

Almost immediately it was decided that the $1 million donation would go to a new shelter, and plans were drawn up. An additional $200,000 in donations has come in since the campaign was quietly announced earlier this year, leaving a $1.8 million to be raised.

The new shelter will be located adjacent to the old shelter and the old shelter will continue to be used for families whose size exceeds the capacity of the individual units in the new shelter. Erin and Merry Lee agree that it will almost certainly be at capacity on the day it’s done.

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While it’s easy to focus the campaign on numbers and capacity, Erin and Merry Lee prefer to think of the individuals that can be served in the new shelter and how meaningful and healing a space of their own can be, if only for a few nights. “They will be able to focus on their journey and that will be huge,” Erin says. That journey is one of hope and freedom, and it’s likely to be made of many small steps rather than one great leap. YWCA Billings is committed to each survivor with individualized services that, together, make all the difference. “Saving and changing lives is our mission,” Merry Lee says, “and we really live that mission.”✻

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MAY/JUNE 2021

T he New Face of

UNITED WAY OF

YELLOWSTONE COUNTY KIM LEWIS IS SHINING THE LIGHT ON COMMUNITY SERVICE written by SUE OLP photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN 16

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WHEN KIM LEWIS,

president and CEO of United Way of Yellowstone County, began her tenure on July 1, she did so smack in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. New to Billings, her first challenge was figuring out how to connect with corporate and agency partners, as well as people in the community, when most avenues of social interaction were shut down. Normally, she’d attend chamber of commerce events or take part in a fundraiser and introduce herself while in line at a silent auction. Instead, she relied on Zoom, joined a women’s network, introduced herself to local civic organizations and even “had a couple of coffees with humans” when it made sense to do so. Lewis has never shied away from a challenge. “I don’t wait for life to come to me,” she says. “I want to go find it.” Lewis has spent the majority of her career working in the nonprofit sector, first in fundraising and marketing and then transitioning to leadership roles. When her husband, the Rev. Patrick Lewis, was appointed pastor of Billings First United Methodist Church, she applied for the United Way post. The nonprofit organization aids individual clients in crisis and helps manage three coalitions designed to target specific populations. Those include Substance Abuse Connect, which focuses both on prevention and treatment; Continuum of Care, which deals with the issue of homelessness; and Best Beginnings, which is all about school readiness and success. Money the United Way raises through its annual workplace campaign helps to fund the work. The three coalitions bring together more than 200 agencies, organizations and individuals to do the work of improving people’s lives. “We have a lot of moving parts,” Lewis says, adding that probably one of the biggest successes in the past year has been establish a low-barrier shelter for homeless people.

individuals, corporations and organizations who want to lend a hand in the community. An online database lets people peruse volunteer opportunities. “Right now, it’s not as robust as normal because of Covid,” Lewis says. “We’re only offering remote and virtual opportunities primarily because that’s what other agencies are offering. Normally there’s quite a variety of things.” United Way is also known for its annual Day of Caring, which matches 800 to 1,200 volunteers released for the day by their employers with a variety of different projects throughout the county. In all of its many forms, the opportunity to empower people to help others is at the heart of what United Way does, Lewis says. “I love working with committees or just concerned citizens who want to step up and work together to make something happen and have that outcome be super positive,” she says. “It’s teamwork and it’s pure community. At the end of the day that’s what United Way does best.” ✻

“It’s awesome that so many people came together to collectively want to solve the problem and see their efforts come to fruition,” she says. “And the reality was it wasn’t easy for United Way and it wasn’t easy for a lot of the players. There was some hard work.”

TO FIND OUT HOW YOU CAN VOLUNTEER FOR UNITED WAY

The other component United Way of Yellowstone County focuses on is volunteerism. The Volunteer Center is a clearinghouse for

uwyellowstone.galaxydigital.com

— visit —

MAY/JUNE 2021

60 YEARS of Giving Back

UNITED WAY OF YELLOWSTONE COUNTY MAKES ITS MARK ON THE COMMUNITY written by SUE OLP photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN 18

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I REALLY BELIEVE WE NEED TO CARE ABOUT OUR COMMUNITY AND THE PEOPLE IN IT, CONNECT AND DO WHAT WE CAN. — Mary Underriner

RONI BAKER was raised with the idea that helping people is the right thing to do. So was Mary Underriner. It’s no surprise, then, that the two Billings women have spent years donating their time and talents to United Way of Yellowstone County. These days, Underriner helps advise those who lead the Continuum of Care initiative, a group that hopes to make homelessness in Billings brief, rare and non-recurring. Baker is chairwoman of the United Way Volunteer Center Advisory Board. This year both women are helping United Way of Yellowstone County, which has evolved over the decades, celebrate 60 years of serving the community. Over those 60 years, one estimate puts United Way’s impact on the county at more than $47 million. Thousands of volunteers have helped in a myriad of ways over the years as well. “We can all do something to make where we live a better place,” Underriner says. “And I think the United Way works throughout the county to build coalitions to bring the best results.” Underriner’s parents, George and Patty Selover, supported the community organization long before it was known by its present moniker. Patty initially was treasurer of the Billings Community Chest, and then George got involved in the early 1960s in what was then called United Neighbors of Greater Billings. George, who owned Selover Buick Inc., sat on the organization’s board of directors, chaired various committees and regularly donated money to the United Way. In 1997, Selover Buick won the award for the highest giving per capita campaign. It made an impact on Underriner.

“I grew up with parents who gave back to the community, and I realized how much they gained from those kinds of activities,” she says. When Mary and her husband, Bill, moved to Billings in 1984, they also committed their time and money to United Way, serving in a variety of roles and helping with different initiatives. In 2014 they even began offering an annual holiday car giveaway through their business, Underriner Motors. “We found it a wonderful way to get to know people and also build relationships,” Underriner says. “And every time we did anything for the organization, we gained so much more than the time we spent.” Baker’s involvement goes back to the late 1990s. In 1997, United Way became a partner in the newly launched America’s Promise Alliance that focused on improving the lives of young people. A local program began in Billings in 1998, which was a natural draw for Baker, a longtime Montana State University extension agent who works with 4-H. She soon joined the Volunteer Center Advisory Council, and for the past several years has been its leader. Volunteering comes naturally to Baker. “I grew up with the concept,” she says. “I really believe we need to care about our community and the people in it, connect and do what we can.” It’s something she and her husband, Mike, who live in Park City, have made a priority in their family life. When daughter Andee and son Adam were younger, the family volunteered with Relay for Life, cleaned a neighbor’s yard and took meals to families when a member was hospitalized. MAY/JUNE 2021

IT’S A GREAT GROUP OF DIVERSE PEOPLE WHO HAVE A PASSION FOR THEIR COMMUNITY. — Roni Baker

In 2010, the Bakers were nominated by United Way of Yellowstone County to take part in a national program honoring volunteers at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, for integrating service to others in their lives. And now, Baker’s daughter Andee, a student at Montana State University, volunteers with Special Olympics as well as with Eagle Mount’s adaptive horsemanship program. “It’s all about how we can give back,” Baker says. She enjoys her work with the advisory council, which focuses on projects like the annual Day of Caring, collection drives, helping businesses connect with volunteer opportunities, providing volunteers for disaster drills and mentoring nonprofit volunteer coordinators.

“I think it helps people in their new roles,” she says. Underriner, in addition to her leadership roles with United Way, has enjoyed joining in events like the annual Day of Caring, in which areas businesses release employees for part of a day to participate in dozens of service projects around the county. “I love Day of Caring because everybody goes out and they have fun with their coworkers whether they’re painting someone’s house or doing shoveling or whatever,” she says. “It’s just a fun community day of helping other people.” Underriner’s focus these days is more on Continuum of Care through her role on its advisory board. The collaborative group made up of both private and non-profit partners is working to help those who live on the streets by alleviating homelessness.

“It’s a great group of diverse people who have a passion for their community,” she says.

“I am totally in awe of what those people do to deal with the most vulnerable in the community,” she says.

Baker has helped manage volunteers for countywide disaster exercises. She has also helped with the United Way’s volunteer youth corps with the annual Day of Caring.

As she sees the many ways that United Way of Yellowstone County continues to make a difference in the lives of people, Underriner is impressed with all that has been accomplished up to this point.

She is glad to help mentor volunteer coordinators at other area nonprofits through the Volunteer Administrators Network, guiding them in everything from writing job descriptions to screening potential employees and developing training protocols.

“I think the United Way’s 60th anniversary is indeed a celebration,” she says. “Its impact on Billings and Yellowstone County is immeasurable.” ✻

United Way’s virtual 60th Birthday Blowout is May 11-13. Festivities include a Car Raffle, Diaper Collection Drive (in partnership with Family Promise), 60-Minute Volunteer Opportunities, and an Online Auction. Thanks to the generosity of Underriner Motors, a 24-month lease of a brand new 2021 Hyundai Elantra could be yours! TO BUY TICKETS: Mail a check to United Way of Yellowstone County, 2173 Overland Ave, Billings, MT 59102 or stop by Underriner Motors. www.uwyellowstone.org/60bdayblowout Tickets are $25 each or 3 for $60.

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the

NICOLE GALLAGHER-KINER MAKES A CAREER GIVING OTHERS A VOICE IN THE JUSTICE SYSTEM written by JULIE KOERBER photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

Editor's Note:

Earlier this year, Yellowstone Valley Woman partnered with ABC-6 and FOX-4 to honor some of the remarkable women in our community who graciously roll up their sleeves, many times unasked, to make the lives of others a little easier. After all the entries for the Remarkable Women Contest were in, Nicole Gallagher-Kiner rose to the top and was named our 2021 Remarkable Woman. In addition to the honor, she received $1,000 to donate to a charity of her choice. She chose the homeless outreach effort known as Off the Streets.

WHEN MARTIN DONEY,

wearing wrist and ankle shackles, shuffled into Yellowstone County District Court to face Judge Jessica Fehr, observers may have seen a tattooed criminal offender in jail whites waiting to be sentenced on felony criminal endangerment charges. Nicole Gallagher-Kiner saw a wounded man with a slew of mental health issues. Doney’s father served time, and his mother is now in prison. He’s spent a good chunk of his own life behind bars as well. “He really struggles with mental health issues,” Nicole told the judge. “There are layers of trauma and layers of mental health issues.” As his court-appointed public defender, Nicole argued successfully for the court to make sure Doney had access to mental health treatment as he serves out his 15-year sentence with the Department of Corrections. “If you can’t maintain sobriety and can’t maintain your mental health, you’ll be back before me. We are going to keep doing this dance,” Judge Fehr told the man. Minutes before his sentencing, Nicole met with Doney in a private jury room next to the courtroom. She briefed him on the

criminal proceedings but, more than that, she checked in on him. “Have you spoken to your mom lately?” she asked. As the man nodded and shared details about their recent phone call, Nicole smiled and said, “That’s good.” When she reflects on her work, she says, “I think I can see need in people because I understand grief and trauma.” She adds, “My mom and I were on our own from the time I was 4. We really had to be strong for each other.” In Glasgow during the summer of 1983, Nicole’s mother, Barbara, and her dad, Michael, joined their close friends, Patt and Donny Robertson, for what was supposed to be relaxing excursion, setting sail at Fort Benton for a jaunt down the Missouri River. “When you go on a sail boating trip in Montana, you have to check with Montana Power because power lines run over the river in places. You give them your route and they OK it,” Nicole explains. “The man looked at the wrong route and said they were fine. My dad and Donny were fixing the motor when their mast touched a power line. They both were severely electrocuted, thrown overboard and drowned.” Donny Robertson’s body was found fairly quickly, Nicole says, but it took more than a month to find her father. With tears welling in her eyes, she says, “I still remember my mom coming back to my cousin’s house, trying to explain to a 4-year-old what happened to her father.” As she grew older, she says, her strength and her voice grew as well. “I was really short and skinny in grade school and I got bullied a lot,” Nicole says. “As a kid growing up, it’s tough and when you have had to have a voice and be a fighter.” MAY/JUNE 2021

She kept coming back to one choice, becoming an attorney, and not just any kind of attorney — a criminal defense attorney. As her mom, Barbara, reflects on that time, she remembers the beauty that rose from the hardship. “She’s always been very giving, very loving,” Barbara says about her daughter. She then shared a story from when Nicole was around 6 years old. It was Labor Day weekend and she and Nicole were watching the Labor Day Muscular Dystrophy Telethon. “I had called in and donated money to the MDA,” Barbara says. “Little did I know, Nicole called in right after me and donated all her money. She had saved up maybe $50.” They had a family friend who suffered from a rare muscular disorder and Nicole wanted to help. “She donated it all.”

I WANTED TO BE ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO STEPPED UP AND DIDN'T JUST LET THOSE PEOPLE CONTINUE DOWN THEIR PATH OF TRAUMA.

“I think I always wanted a platform that allowed me to advocate in a way that was more than just doing volunteer work,” she says. YVW MAGAZINE

“I wanted to be one of those people who stepped up and didn’t just let those people continue down their path of trauma,” she says.

Nicole was accepted to a small private law school outside San Diego, California. She finished ahead of schedule in two-and-a-half years and then passed the California bar exam — considered the toughest in the nation — on the first try. In less than a year, she’d pass Montana’s bar exam as well, creating a path to one day be able to return home.

— Nicole Gallagher-Kiner

In time, Nicole went off to college at Montana State University, where she cheered for the Montana State Bobcats and majored in economics. After graduation, she took an accounting job for a large national trucking firm, but she kept feeling pulled toward a career change.

“The people who are helped by indigent criminal defense offices are many times people that have experienced extensive trauma and have limited resources financially,” she says. Nicole says these clients often get underrepresented in everything from education to health care to the criminal justice system.

During law school, Nicole began to see the glitches in the justice system. She did an unpaid internship at the Madge Bradley Courthouse in San Diego, which had a Domestic Violence

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Restraining Order Clinic. As she handed out the documents and worked with each victim to fill them out, she saw firsthand that “it’s not that easy to navigate the legal system.” After graduation, her work focused on debt collection defense and homeowner foreclosure during the mortgage crisis. “I had a lot of Hispanic clients who either didn’t speak English really well or may not have read English really well. They were supposed to have been provided loan documents in Spanish.” Nicole says they never were. As a result, she spent time fighting to keep families from losing their homes and ended up taking her concerns to the California Attorney General’s Office. “I said, this is a crime. This is fraud,” Nicole says. She remembers asking the office of the state’s highest prosecutor, “’Who do I call that is going to prosecute this crime?” After six years, the work bled into criminal defense.

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“It just feels noble to me,” Nicole says of her defense work. “I am privileged to be able to do it.” When prodded about why she feels honored to represent those facing criminal charges, she says, “It’s people’s liberty and lives at stake.” Since 2013, Nicole has represented hundreds within the court system. While the charges are different, time and time again the causes of crime remain the same. She gets emotional

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when she talks about it. “When someone has been brought up with no parents in a sexually abusive environment where they are sold in diapers and never really rescued from that except by themselves when they ran away as a teenager,” Nicole says, “Then, I get these people as adults in the criminal justice system who are looking at significant penalties for not knowing how to live in our society and not knowing how to be a productive member of the community.”

When she met Cyndie, Nicole recognized that she wasn’t a criminal who was a part of a felony drug ring. She was an addict. “She believed in me,” Cyndie says. “She didn’t believe I needed prison. She knew I needed help.” “She was looking at a 10-year mandatory minimum in prison,” Nicole says. “We got her approved for a local treatment court and she was ultimately sentenced to time served. She’s doing so well.”

With each case, she says, she makes sure the court knows that it isn’t a case number standing to face judgement. It’s a human being.

Today, Cyndie has been sober for two years. She’s held a job for over a year and a half. Her family is thriving. “I’ve got my life back, 100 percent,” she says. “Nicole never gave up on me.”

Two years ago, 50-year-old Cyndie Adams was one of her clients. She was facing 10 years to life for conspiracy to distribute dangerous drugs plus additional time on drug possession charges. Meth was her drug of choice.

Nicole knows that a criminal element is present in every community. It’s all the more reason, she says, that the criminal justice system needs to work.

“I’ve been an addict since I was 16,” Cyndie says. “I got in trouble again in 2018. Literally, I was selling drugs to make money to take care of my house. My daughter and my two grandkids lived with me at the time. I was the one making the mortgage and taking care of everyone in the house,” she says. “I also had to support my habit.” 26

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“I still represent them and make sure their case is handled properly,” she says. “If it’s not done properly then we run a huge risk of throwing innocent people in jail.” Since Nicole began her career, she’s witnessed, over and over, how treatment can be the important missing link in resolving a criminal case. She seen how treatment courts are changing lives.

“It’s slow but it is getting there,” she says. “Judge Jessica Fehr level. Kris Copenhaver still serves as the head of the Region Nine created our first truly diversionary treatment court for people State Public Defender Office, which serves all the courts within who get charged with felony drug charges. They are given Yellowstone, Carbon, Stillwater and Bighorn counties. She still resources immediately to get into treatment and intensive inadmires what she calls Nicole’s dynamic advocacy. patient treatment if they need it.” Nicole says that instead of her “She’s able to explain to the court who client pleading guilting and “felonizing this person is and why they are there themselves out of jobs and schooling in the first place. They didn’t just wake because of a substance abuse problem,” up one day and say, ‘You know, I am the court allows them to get access to going to be a junkie,’” Copenhaver says. SHE’S RARE IN THE SENSE THAT SHE treatment. “In most cases, the charges “Her career has been dedicated to this DOESN’T GIVE UP. SHE PROTECTS are dropped because hopefully, they’ve and that’s really rare. A lot of times, HER CLIENT’S RIGHTS AND FIGHTS been given the tools to deal with it,” she attorneys get burnt out by the system. FOR WHAT THE APPROPRIATE says. She’s rare in the sense that she doesn’t CONSEQUENCE IS. …THAT’S WHERE The Bureau of Justice reports that for give up. She protects her client’s rights SHE REALLY SHINES. every dollar spent treating an offender, and fights for what the appropriate — Kris Copenhaver there’s a $4 cost savings from avoiding consequence is. …That’s where she incarceration, health care and victim really shines.” costs. Over the years, Nicole has spent one “It’s like the insurance industry,” Nicole says. “Do you want to Christmas Eve at the Yellowstone County jail, consoling a mother pay for preventative medicine, or do you want to pay for cancer facing criminal charges who was missing her 7-month-old treatment later? It’s costly up front but the cost savings on the baby at home. She traveled to the State Capitol and spent days back end could be exponentially larger.” advocating for the Office of the Public Defender to prevent steep budget cuts to the already cash-strapped agency. She bought bus Before opening Gallagher Law a few years ago, growing her tickets for one client so he could get to Oklahoma City to see his own private practice built on indigent defense work, she spent brother. The man was a homeless and wheelchair bound veteran. a handful of years as a public defender on the state and federal

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NICOLE GALLAGHER-KINER'S FAMILY - TOP: NEIL KINER & NICOLE GALLAGHER-KINER MIDDLE: CHILDREN, GRAYSON & HAVEN BOTTOM: SON, MOSES & MOTHER, BARBARA GALLAGHER 28

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“He was a veteran with some really bad substance problems,” she says. “He had nowhere to go. Nowhere. He had missed court and so he had a warrant out for him. I had put it out there into the universe, please let me find this man. Let me lay eyes on him so that I can help get this situation sorted out.” She found him wheeling himself down North 27th Street near KFC on a Sunday morning. “He’d been sleeping in his wheelchair for who knows how many weeks. He said someone had robbed him,” she says. Before his court hearing, Nicole bought a hotel room, picked up some clean clothes from Family Service Inc., got him a shower, made sure he stayed sober and was at the hotel the next morning before his court appearance. She was able to get the charges dropped by telling the court he was on his way to live with his brother.

“I felt though that I had an inside look at some of the really big problems that our community continues to talk about — the homelessness, the crime, the resources.” While she was unsuccessful in the race, she came away knowing that she can continue to make an impact elsewhere, volunteering her time to spark awareness.

IT MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER AS A PERSON WHEN YOU DEVOTE TIME TO SOMETHING ELSE, TO DO SOMETHING FOR SOMEONE ELSE.

“It makes you feel better as a person when you devote time to something else, to do something for someone else,” she says.

As she raises her 4-year-old son, Moses, as well as the two children, Haven and Grayson, that she gained — Nicole Gallagher-Kiner by marrying her husband, Neil Kiner, she strives for a work/life balance that allows her to keep fighting for a system that recognizes each person not as an offender but as a human being.

Nicole says she couldn’t stand the idea “of seeing his name in the paper as some homeless guy who froze to death this winter.” In 2019, Nicole tried to push her advocacy efforts in a new direction by running for a Ward 4 seat on the Billings City Council.

“I will never be a part of using a jail to educate people out of bad choices,” she says with passion. “True believers believe that everyone gets a defense. I am a true believer. I believe in this. None of us is the sum of only our worst decisions.” ✻

“Politics was definitely not on my radar,” she says with a chuckle.

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THE RED Ds I WOKE TO MY DAUGHTER

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written by KAREN GROSZ

and her husband knocking on the door, telling me a sheriff needed to see me. I assumed, as this had been our biggest trouble so far in life, that one of our cars was stolen, or totaled by a drunk driver. Both had recently happened, both were annoying, and I wasn’t looking forward to dealing with the details. As I stepped into the living room, I knew this wasn’t about a car. I was immediately cold, and the sheriff’s face showed the grim news he was about to deliver. My youngest brother, a treasured member of our little tribe, had committed suicide. All I remember was screaming no, crying hard, and then apologizing to the officer for his having to deliver such hard news. We spent the night in a puddle on the couch, crying, lost, contacting relatives. To be fair, I didn’t call anyone, my family took that on. All I did was sit, shell-shocked that such a happy man could come to such a tragic end. That night was not the last time my people rallied around me and gave me strength to get from point A to point B, and I was too grief-stricken to tell them I noticed. All I did was breathe for a very long time. And that is what they let me do.

With a lot of hard work and a lot of time, I pulled myself out of that decline, got my feet under me, started to thrive and coached others to do the same. Then, Covid-chaos hit. My mom died on the day the world shut down, and instead of mourning her, I found myself mourning all of life. I reflected on the changes in my business, the isolation from friends and family, and the realization that there was a lack of toilet paper in my basement warehouse, as I had been traveling home from my mom’s sick bed when that alarm rang. I am not sure what was worse, the lack of TP or the fact I was not particularly good at running the remote as previously I’d been too in love with living to do much watching, but now that was all I had strength to do.

Life spiraled down from there. A few bad decisions, doubt

I was knee deep in an ice cream container when I realized

IN EVERY ISSUE 30

in what had before then been a life without doubt, fear, and more decline heaped onto my shoulders. I found myself letting life take me for a ride — seldom taking a stand, instead waiting for the other shoe to drop while I did the bare minimum. I call this being crushed by Red Ds — Death, Disease, Divorce (not part of my story, thank goodness) Debt, bad Decisions, Debilitating circumstances. The list of Ds can be a very long one, and many of us have more than one D at work in our life right now.

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ily in ana’s 14tha.org

Chase mber Finals ntana. morial uring

this could not, would not be my life, that BY DAMN, I would not just survive Covid, I would use the time to get healthier, and to build a stronger business.

the guy on the corner. When you give, your heart opens, ever so much, and you can start to feel the warmth of life, even when grief chills your bones.

By Damn. I would write my own story. I would help others to write a better story than the world was handing them. I would not die of kidney failure. I would not wither away into obscurity, having people ask, “Whatever happened to Karen?” By Damn.

Beauty & the Bea st

Making that decision lit me on fire. I developed and implemented Billings Studioa webinar Theatre for presents “Disney’s Beauty Beast a plan. I created local businesses, and inand Maythe of last Junior,” January 10th-13th. Brainy and beautiful Belle yearns to escape year, I delivered it to over 2,000 people — all for free — to give her narrow and restricted life including her brute of a suitor, Gaston. people hope in a hopeless situation. I lost 25 pounds. I leaned into Belle gets adventurous and as a result becomes a captive in the Beast’s learning. And, I stopped, as that is the one thing Covid-chaos gave enchanted castle! Dancing flatware, menacing wolves and singing usfurniture — the opportunity to stop. I felt the sunshine on my face and fill the stage with thrills during this beloved fairy tale about thevery grass under my feet. Being outsideinisone a healing sohow I different people finding strength anotherbalm, as theyand learn sattounder a lot of trees last year while growing forward. Always love.b i l l i n g s s tu d i ot h e a t r e .c o m forward.

FestivaL There are a few things FRinge these dances with the Red Ds have taught me, things I’d like to offer to you, if are crushed under theand Venture Theatre presents its Fringe you Festival, January 18th-19th 25th-26th.The weight of defeat.festival features four nights of shows featuring local and regional performing artists of all types including dance, standup comedy, theater improv, one act plays, musicals, performance art, THE SUN WILL RISE TOMORROW, AND IT IS YOUR spoken word/poetry, and puppetry.v e n t u r e t h e a t r e .o r g

DUTY TO GREET IT.

Get up, get out, and sing to the sun. If tReet d anCe there is nothing elsesouL you cansdo for the day, stand in the glory of This high energy show comes to the Alberta Bair Theater on January a new beginning and one day you will fully embrace it as yours.

19th and presents a new era in dance, while pushing the artistic boundaries of street dance. Soul Street concerts consist of a mix of movement that will keep You you have at thebeen edgetoo of tolerant your seat. FORGET TOLERANCE. forThe toomusic long. is combined with about an electric mix ranging hip-hop to classical. I am not talking diversity; that youfrom should tolerate. Stop It’s a show thatbehavior will makeonyou laugh and all ages tolerating poor your part orkeep the audiences intolerableofbeing entertained. done to you by others. Stop tolerating an unmade bed, uncombed

PLAN SOMETHING FOR TOMORROW. SOMETHING FOR A WEEK FROM NOW. Beyond that might seem too much, but with nothing to do, nothing to look forward to, your heart has no reason to beat a little faster. We learned this when we owned the ceramic studio, In Good Glazes. There were people who felt hopeless, and even suicidal, that painted a mug, or a tiny cat, and waiting to see it come out of the kiln gave them reason to live for five more days. Then, they would do it again, and eventually, with prayer and therapy, their life did not require trips to the studio as they were busy living it.

LET OTHERS HELP YOU. They don’t really know what to do, they ask, “How are you?” when it is the dumbest question in the world, but they are sent, these people who stop to notice your pain, to serve you, to help you see the light of the Lord. Let them. Often it helps them as much as it helps you. When you are in the doldrums, when the Red Ds have taken over, I hope you will look for the blessings, the things you can learn, and know that someday your Red D will be a part of your story, but not the end of your story. When Allan died, I thought I would be defined, and limited, by his death. An angel told me I didn’t have to be and I learned, from her and others, how to comfort someone in grief, which prior to that I thought meant baking a casserole and cheerfully saying, “I’m sending prayers.” I am a fuller, happier person because of these journeys with the Big Red Ds and you will be too. I promise you that. You just have to get through today and tomorrow too. ✻

hair and life in sweatpants. If it is not serving your highest self, why are you toleratingRt it? FoR the w hoLe FamiLy a ConCe KAREN GROSZ, writer

Billings Symphony presents its Family Concert on January 26th at the Alberta Bair Theater.When Four you timeare Grammy “Trout HELP SOMEONE. down,nominees, out, sad and ugly,Fishing the in America,” will perform along with the Billings Symphony. Trout last thing you think you have is anything else to give and I am Fishing in America is a musical duo which performs folk rock and here to tell you that is part of the death spiral. You have something children’s music. b i l l i n g s s y m p h o n y.c o m

Growing up in the shadow of Mt. Rushmore gave Karen an appreciation of high ideals. Living in Alaska for 25 years gave her a frontier spirit. Life in Montana finds her building community. A selfdescribed "multipotentialite," she loves coaching others with her business, Canvas Creek Team Building.

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ENERGIZING the BODY WHY SOME ARE TURNING TO PULSED ELECTROMAGNETIC THERAPY TO COUNTER PAIN written by JULIE KOERBER photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN 32

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JULIE JOHNSON has battled back pain for years. She’s not sure what the root cause of the pain was, but she knows now what can bust through it when she encounters a flare-up. “I would tweak my back doing stupid things, daily things like bending over to pick up laundry and then it would hurt for two to three weeks,” Johnson says. “I’ve struggled with this for 20plus years. I know it’s nothing serious. I’ve had an MRI. They saw arthritis and there are times when it flares on me. It feels terrible and restricts my movement.” Last fall, after multiple trips to her chiropractor, her doctor suggested something Johnson had never tried before — Pulse Electromagnetic Therapy, or PEMF. After one session, Johnson felt the pain begin to drain from her body. “I had no idea what I was getting into,” she says, describing the treatment as “physical therapy meets massage.”

— Julie Johnson

Jodi Alexander owns Live Better-Feel Better, a business that strives to heal the body using not only PEMF but also regenerative stem cell therapy and massage. One of the first questions she gets regarding PEMF is simply, how does it work? She explains how the magnetic pulses “vigorously shake every cell in the body to kick out toxins and make the cells more permeable to allow oxygen and nutrients into the cell.” Alexander says when oxygen

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“We can only beat our bodies up so much before our body starts to shut down,” Alexander says. “Once one system starts to shut down, then the next one starts to shut down.”

“I have a really arthritic knee from playing sports in high school — basketball, track and volleyball. All involved jumping,” she says. “When I was 27, my doctor told me I needed a new knee. I thought, there was no way.” Knowing she’d need another one by the time she was 40, she limped along for the next 15 years or so. “At 43, I told my husband, I needed a new knee. I was sore. I couldn’t get out of bed. I never knew what days I would be able to go do things and what days I couldn’t.”

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“It’s definitely life-changing not having my back hurt all the time,” Johnson says.

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“Our cells hold a charge,” she says. When cells become stressed and inflamed, she says, those cells start to lose their charge and become sluggish. PEMF helps energize the natural healing power of the body’s cells, reducing inflammation and, as a result, reducing pain. Alexander adds that pain isn’t the only concern. Cancer, diabetes and heart disease all start with inflammation.

Alexander doesn’t just operate the machine, she uses it daily as well.

After witnessing success in one session, Johnson kept going back. She now blocks off time every Monday afternoon to sit on the pulsating mat and let the magnetic waves roll through her body.

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That’s when she stumbled upon PEMF. “I went on it for an hour and 10 minutes, and 15 minutes of that time was just on my knee,” Alexander says. “I walked in at about a nine on the pain scale, limping in. I walked out at about a two or a three. My inflammation was gone, completely gone, and my mobility was back.” As a massage therapist specializing in deep tissue since 2001, she made plans to fly to Atlanta where the machines were

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REDUCING PAIN. manufactured. “I heard story after story about how this therapy is assisting with people’s ability to naturally heal.” She and her husband put their home on the market and reorganized their finances in order to buy two PEMF machines. She’s now been helping clients with the therapy for close to two years. “To help someone get their life back, that’s the greatest goal, isn’t it?” she says. Diane Walker, 72, is one client who feels like she’s gotten a new lease on life. When she walked in the door for her first PEMF treatment, she was on the verge of dialysis from chronic kidney disease. After seven hour-long sessions over the course of a month, a comprehensive blood test revealed that her body was healing.

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“His blood sugar and A-1C has improved by several points. He’s now in the normal range. He isn’t taking insulin. He’s just watching his diet,” Walker says.

TO HELP SOMEONE GET THEIR LIFE BACK, THAT’S THE GREATEST GOAL, ISN’T IT? — Jodi Alexander

“I was kind of surprised really. When I first went to Jodi, I was skeptical about it,” Walker says. “When I went to my doctor, my kidney function had improved from a stage four to a borderline stage three.” Her creatinine level, which is an indicator of kidney disease, had dropped. “I was no longer in the stage where I would need dialysis. That was really

good news for me.” She adds, “My doctor was very surprised.” Since then, Walker invested in a machine and uses it every other night for an hour. She says her husband, who suffers from type 2 diabetes, is also witnessing a health boost.

While Alexander describes PEMF as being like charging your body’s battery, those who create the PEMF technology say what’s really happening is that mitochondrial respiration and reproduction are being stimulated, which leads to greater energy and better cellular health. “Our body is constantly moving fluids, constantly regenerating cells,” Alexander says.

When you sit on the PEMF bed, you might feel a light vibration, which Alexander says is a neurological setting and caters to those suffering from PTSD and depression. If she increases the megahertz and reduces the number of pulses per second, the machine can be used to target inflammation. The

technology has been used not only to help alleviate pain but stimulate tissue healing, reduce stress, strengthen bones and help people reach a deeper, more restorative night’s sleep. Athletes have used it to heal injuries or to better recover from intense training.

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“We chart everything,” Alexander says. “It’s all about trying to figure out how it works on each individual. The machine knows when it hits your body where it is needed the most.” As for Alexander’s knee, her replacement surgery has been permanently postponed. “Right now, I am not looking at a new knee,” she says. “My pain, to put it in perspective — before this 80 to 90 percent of my days were in pain and about 10 to 20 percent, I felt good. That’s now reversed. My bad days now are so few and far between.” ✻

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NEW NEIGHBORS, NEW MARKETS AMISH COMMUNITY TAKES ROOT IN CARBON COUNTY written by LINDA HALSTEAD-ACHARYA photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

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BY LATE MORNING, Leona Hertzler’s apron is dusted with flour, the meats and cheeses have been sliced for build-your-own sandwiches and the aroma of sweet baked goods teases anyone who steps into the Chuck Wagon, located on Highway 212 just south of Roberts. The store is one of three new businesses that have taken root in the Roberts area during the past year. Each business — the Chuck Wagon, the West Bench Country Store and Pioneer Sheds — is owned independently by different Amish families that have recently moved to Montana’s new Amish community. Both Leona Hertzler and her sister Sue moved with their families from an Amish community in Michigan. A year later, they are all smiles when asked about their new home. They feel welcomed and excited about living under the Big Sky. “Oh, I love it,” Sue says. “It’s been so fun.” If the upbeat chatter coming from the bakery/deli was any indication, they also seemed to relish their jobs. “I enjoy this,” Leona adds. “I’ve always enjoyed the bakery.” The first clue to the Amish presence in the Rock Creek Valley is a bright-yellow cautionary road sign featuring the signature black silhouette of horse and buggy. (Yes! Please slow down as you pass through the area.) MAY/JUNE 2021

THE CHUCK WAGON is known for its fresh-baked breads – particularly the

customer-favorite

JALAPENO

CHEESE BREAD

Colorful “flags” mark the new businesses, but do not broadcast their Amish ties. The owners prefer it that way, hoping that the quality of their products earns them a reputation that draws customers. The Chuck Wagon is a family-owned specialty store run by Paul Hertzler, brother of Leona and Sue. Its aisles display a wide assortment of hard-to-find products – from bulk spices to fair-trade coffee to paper products to locally grown eggs and even Troyer Cheeses from Ohio. Paul, whose background is in construction, relied on input from his sisters when deciding what to stock. “Both of my sisters had worked at a grocery store back East,” he says. Much of the store’s inventory is bought in bulk and repackaged to pass along savings. Likewise, many of the products are shipped from Eastern markets in trucks that head back east with loads of Wheat Montana flour. The Chuck Wagon is known for its fresh-baked breads – particularly the customer-favorite jalapeno cheese bread. “That single product has drawn in more sales than any other product in the store,” Paul says. “Number two are the deli sandwiches.” Just down the road, the West Bench Country Store, with its porch full of Adirondack-style chairs, gliders and rocking chairs, seems to invite travelers to pause. Inside, the store provides a showcase for quality dining room sets, bedroom furniture and living room groupings in a wide range of styles. Many boast polished hardwoods that beckon the touch. The store features smaller items, too, such as wooden rocking horses, knotty walking sticks, puzzles, wind chimes and cutting boards. The products are not 38

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MAY/JUNE 2021

“In Lewistown, we used to sell half a dozen sheds a year,” he says. “Here, I figure we sell between 80 and 100.” The Amish community in Roberts is one of the newest in Montana, where an estimated 1,000 Amish live among 11 communities. The decision to create a new community comes from church leadership, which considers factors such as the price of available land and whether locals would be open to the newcomers. “There’s a lot of talking with Realtors,” Paul explains. “There’s a lot of planning that goes into it.”

made on site but reflect customer feedback from a similar store in Colorado. “We went with the top sellers – good, quality workmanship,” says Mahlon Mullett, who owns the business with his wife, Katie Marie. Just north of Roberts, employees at Andrew Hershberger’s Pioneer Sheds build solid sheds of varying sizes. “We go the extra mile,” Andrew says. “We build them with the small things – 4-inch by 6-inch runners and corner studs, for example — that make a difference.” Andrew’s business was the first Amish-owned commercial endeavor in the area. He’d already established his regional markets while living in an Amish community in Lewistown. The move to his Highway 212 location, however, has proven to be a wise one. 40

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Most of the dozen new families in the Roberts community chose to relocate from places such as Michigan, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Iowa and Ohio — as well as other Amish communities in Montana. Already, the community in Roberts counts three ministers. Services are held in private homes on a rotating basis, or occasionally in the one-room school building where the children — referred to as “scholars” — attend classes. Amish women often partner with spouses or family members in business operations. They might also be seen driving the traditional horse and buggy when out visiting. At the Chuck Wagon, Leona took a moment from her role as bakery manager to explain the Amish dress. Women wear simple long dresses out of modesty, she says. The rich green color of her dress was in keeping with the community’s preference for earth tones. As for the white head coverings, Amish women wear them in adherence to a Bible scripture, she adds.

IN LEWISTOWN, WE USED TO SELL HALF A DOZEN SHEDS A YEAR. HERE, I FIGURE WE SELL BETWEEN 80 AND 100. — Andrew Hershberger’s

Since their arrival in the Rock Creek Valley, members of the new Amish community have responded to questions from locals and travelers alike. Some questions can be answered simply. Others require a deeper understanding of the culture itself.

business will benefit. “We anticipate, come July or August, we will look back and wish we had a few of these slower days,” Paul says, smiling. ✻

“I would rather explain things than leave someone in the dark,” Paul says. One common misconception: Montanans are apt to mistake the Amish for Hutterites. The two cultures differ considerably and each has adapted to modern times in different ways. Yes, the Amish still travel by horse and buggy. They also rely on bicycles. But when they need to make longer trips, they hire a driver and vehicle.

LINDA HALSTEAD-ACHARYA, writer A long-time resident of the Columbus area, Linda Halstead-Acharya enjoys spending time and learning from her rural neighbors. She has a degree in wildlife biology but for the past 25 years has pursued a career sharing other people's stories in print. She loves riding, writing and traveling.

“Part of that is because we don’t live far apart,” Paul says. “We choose not to because of the value of a close-knit community.” They also choose not to use computers, largely due to negative online influences. The businesses in Roberts, however, do have a simple, informational Facebook presence posted for them by an independent party. Along the same lines, the Amish have devised a way to receive emails via Fax, thus avoiding the Internet. Paul compares their simpler life to America in the 1940s and 1950s, when lifestyles of the Amish and non-Amish were not so different. “I think the pros far outweigh the cons,” he says. Since the stores just opened last summer, under the shadow of Covid-19, the owners are hopeful that, as restrictions ease, MAY/JUNE 2021

JULIE GREBE IS HELPING TO GROW GREEN THUMBS NATIONWIDE written by LAURA BAILEY photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

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AS ANY GREAT GARDENER KNOWS, good soil is the key to a bountiful harvest, but even the best soil can use a little help. Soil Diva, an all-natural microbial stimulant, unlocks the soil’s potential to grow even more big, juicy tomatoes, tender tasty greens and vibrant veggies. It also works to bolster flower beds and enhance houseplants, and can even be effective for lawns, trees and shrubs. Soil Diva is a Billings-based company, founded in 2017, that is helping gardens thrive across Montana and in 34 other states. The woman behind the cute pinup label, Julie Grebe, is no diva. She’s a hard-working businesswoman who has grown her business from the ground up.

HOW SOIL DIVA WORKS Soil Diva is a proprietary blend of biological ingredients, and one of the primary components is seaweed. It is bee safe, pet safe and kid safe, and can be applied throughout the growing cycle. It enhances the natural ecosystem in the soil, stimulating the growth of beneficial bacteria and fungi, which makes the nutrients in the soil more accessible to the plant. It’s applied to the soil and the plant’s leaves. When it hits the leaves, Julie says, the ingredients translocate to the roots. “It works on any soil, in any region on any plant,” she adds. Soil Diva is sold in 32-ounce spray bottles and in a concentrate for large-scale projects like lawns and trees. As long as it is diluted properly it can’t be over-applied. It’s best used when the weather isn’t too warm.

Success stories pour in every year as people try Soil Diva on various plants. It’s brought back the damaged turf on Big Timber High School’s athletic field, and it is helping a Broadview Hutterite colony grow more vegetables for the Billings Farmers’ Market. Single-family gardens are producing more and people rave about their beautiful houseplants. “They fall in love with it, and they come back wanting more,” Julie says.

A HOMEGROWN SUCCESS STORY Julie’s story starts on the prairie east of Billings. She grew up on an alfalfa seed farm outside Custer. It was a small operation, and she and her three siblings worked alongside their parents from the time they were young. She credits those early years for helping her develop a strong work ethic – and a strong back. Julie’s father embraced biological ag products in the early 1980s, and when Julie graduated from Montana State UniversityBozeman with an ag degree, he encouraged her to look into the emerging field. Julie signed on as an independent sales rep for AgPro Systems 27 years ago and has been helping organic and conventional farmers across the West increase their yields with all-natural, American-made products. “The entire ag industry is wrapping their arms around biological products right now,” Julie says. Julie saw the effectiveness of AgPro Systems proprietary products and wondered if there was a way they could be diluted

MAY/JUNE 2021

I THINK THAT IT’S AMAZING THAT AMERICA IS FOUNDED ON SMALL BUSINESS, AND I’M PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN WHERE I CAN START ANY BUSINESS I WANT. — Julie Grebe

Judy Baker, MT

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and packaged for home and garden use. When she approached AgPro Systems about her idea, company execs jumped at the opportunity. “I have all this experience with this product, and I thought I have to get this out to people,” Julie says. “Soil Diva takes it from industrial strength to garden strength.” In spring of 2018, when Soil Diva was just barely a year old, Julie was sidelined with aggressive, stage-two breast cancer, but it couldn’t keep her down. She put up a fight and endured six rounds of chemo, a lumpectomy and another 30 radiation treatments. Now she’s cancer-free and beyond grateful for her second chance.

“The gardening business is so exciting right now. Because of Covid, the industry has doubled and people all over are turning their back yards into gardens,” Julie says. “We’re just going with this trend.” One of the greatest challenges has been in labeling the product. Each state has different standards, and some are stricter than others. Understanding what needs to be included on the label and how it needs to be stated is a new, and often difficult, undertaking each time they market to a new state. “We honestly don’t know why some states are so limiting,” Julie says.

“I had incredible care right here in Billings,” Julie says. “I can’t say enough about St. Vincent Breast Center and the Fortin Cancer Center.”

Soil Diva is proudly Montana-made, and Julie has made it her mission to keep it that way, right down to the graphic design and marketing materials, which were designed by a woman in Bozeman and printed in Great Falls.

GROWING A BUSINESS

“I think that it’s amazing that America is founded on small business, and I’m proud to be an American where I can start any business I want,” Julie says.

The Soil Diva headquarters, factory and warehouse are located just east of Billings, and since Julie is still on the road selling AgPro Systems, her husband Todd manages the day-to-day operations. Together, they visit several trade shows each year to pitch Soil Diva to large- and small-scale corporate home and garden centers.

Julie and Todd call themselves “serial entrepreneurs.” When they see an opportunity, they go for it, and over the years they have started and sold several businesses. Almost all of them have been ag-based. Soil Diva has been the business with the most longterm potential, and Julie and Todd are in it for the long haul.

MAY/JUNE 2021

“For me, it’s not about what I need to sell, it’s about what my customers need to buy,” Julie says. “I love helping people and I love giving people something they enjoy using.” Julie’s feet are firmly set in reality. She’s aware that building a business of any kind takes years and a substantial financial investment. She’s willing to share her advice with budding entrepreneurs. “I say, go for it, but do your research and build your budget first. You want to make sure you’re starting a business, not just buying yourself a job. It has to have the potential to pay yourself and provide you a return on your investment,” she says. Julie believes in Soil Diva’s potential and wants to see it available in every home and garden store and nursery across the nation. She doesn’t intend to let up until she’s met her goal. Customers sharing their success stories inspire her to keep going. “We’re just getting started and I feel like we’re at the tipping point,” Julie says. ✻

SOIL DIVA

can be found at hardware stores and garden centers throughout the Billings area, or you can order it online at

SoilDiva.net.

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Welcome to the

LADIES LOUNGE by Janiel Olson, Financial Advisor

Do you want to build a little financial intelligence? Over the course of the next year, I’m going to help you do that. But, before we dive into this spicy topic, let me introduce myself. My name is Janiel Begger, formerly Janiel Olson. I grew up in Billings, went to West High and then went on to play Women’s Basketball as a Lady Yellow Jacket at Montana State University Billings. In my professional life, I am a Financial Advisor with Edward Jones. I teach hot yoga, help coach varsity basketball at West High and occasionally referee city league basketball games. This brings me to my “why” on this article. As women, we literally do it all. We go from running kids, working full time, to owning our own businesses, and at times adding a side hustle, or another part time job and then we press repeat. When it comes to investing, however, statistics show our powerhouse selves either avoid investing or don’t feel comfortable doing it. Why is it important for women to

invest? Let’s peek into the statistics compiled by Edward Jones. For starters, women control or influence almost $20 trillion of household assets. Women represent 57% of the U.S. workforce and as of 2019, there were about 13 million womenowned businesses across the nation. They employ 9.4 million workers and generate $1.9 trillion in revenue. Not to mention, women keep moving up the corporate ladder with 28 percent in senior management positions in 2020 versus 23 percent in 2015. Yet, only 38 percent of women have calculated how much income they will need for retirement. When you consider between 80 to 90% of women will be solely responsible for their finances at some point in their lives, investments seem critical. Women live, on average, five years longer than men. When it comes to divorce, the divorce rate is lingering around 15%. Even more concerning is the rising trend of so-called ‘gray divorce,’ the divorce of couples who had been married 20 plus years. The rate of divorce for those 50 and

older has roughly doubled since the 1990s. I became a Financial Advisor because I have a passion for investing and love helping people meet their financial goals and become educated investors. My goal for this series is to share a little education with my fellow ladies who like to do it all. I hope to be a resource for questions and give women the confidence in their financial strategy. Putting together a financial strategy can be overwhelming and add one more thing on the already neverending to-do list. Since women are busy making business moves, let’s make sure that our financial strategy is moving with us. NEXT UP: We’ll talk about tax smart investment moves for higher earners.

When it comes to

When it comes to When it comes to your your to-do list, put your to-do list, put to-do list, put your your future first. your future first. future first. To find out how to get your To find out how to get your financial goals on track,

financial goals on track,

To find out how to get your financial contact us for a contact us for a goals on track, contact us for a complimentary review. complimentary review. complimentary review. Janiel N Olson

Janiel N Olson

edwardjones.com Financial Advisor

926 Main Street Suite 20 Billings, MT 59105-3359 406-248-4490

Member SIPC

FAP-1966F-A

Financial Advisor

edwardjones.com

Member SIPC

926 Main Street Suite 20 Billings, MT 59105-3359 406-248-4490

This article was written by Edward Jones for use by your local Edward Jones Financial Advisor. Edward Jones, Member SIPC

THE COMPOST

EVANGELISTS EVANGELISTS CONNIE & WAYNE BURLESON TAKE THE ART OF GROWING TO AFRICA written by LAURA BAILEY photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN 48

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CONNIE AND WAYNE BURLESON

have been gardening together for almost 30 years. For many retirees, gardening is a fun hobby, but not for these two. They see it as their mission and call themselves “compost evangelists.” The couple have been on 21 trips to 10 developing countries where they teach the poorest of the poor how to start and keep a successful garden using compost as a base. Wayne carries instructional “how to make compost” cards in his wallet and the couple are co-authors of a book called “Gardening for Life, No Money Required,” which is based on the techniques Wayne and Connie perfected while teaching gardening in Africa. They also teach free organic gardening techniques in workshops in Billings and the surrounding area. “For 13 years we’ve been growing in compost only,” Wayne says. “Compost is a whole food factory that’s slow release.” “Compost is a magical process,” Connie adds.

ON A MISSION Most of the trips Connie and Wayne have made to developing countries were through the Farmer-to-Farmer Program, a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) program. It’s a volunteer program, and all travel costs, accommodations and related expenses, including interpreters, are paid for by USAID. In remote villages, Connie and Wayne teach composting techniques while staying with the villagers, sometimes for a month or more. They teach by doing. They get their hands dirty building compost piles everywhere they go. Wayne approaches the men in the village for larger scale growing, while Connie teaches the women how to build and tend small gardens right outside their doors. Organic gardening is a novel approach for everyone they teach. “They have everything they need to make compost, and in their heat, it turns fast,” Wayne says. In Africa, it’s common practice to burn fields after every harvest, which robs the soil of potential nutrients from the plants as they break down. In one illustration, Wayne holds up a dollar bill and a lighter as if to light the bill on fire. Everyone in his workshop will gasp. “I tell them don’t burn your money,” Wayne says. “Every time you burn your fields, you’re burning money.”

spend about 80 percent of their income from their crops on fertilizer, Wayne says. They believe that without fertilizer they can’t grow anything, and with the burning practices they probably can’t.

Another barrier that Wayne and Connie help people overcome is the need for fertilizer. In most African countries, farmers

“We teach them to make their own soil and eliminate the need for fertilizer,” Wayne says.

MAY/JUNE 2021

WAYNE AND CONNIE'S BOOK

“GARDENING FOR LIFE NO MONEY REQUIRED"

AN ILLUSTRATED GUIDE FOR GROWING YOUR OWN FOOD AND HEALTH Find it on AMAZON.COM

When they train people, they encourage them to train others, hoping the methods will catch on throughout a village. Connie and Wayne teach seed saving too and encourage them to use wash water on their small kitchen gardens rather than tossing it out. Nothing is wasted, and in time, the villagers can become fully self-sufficient. Connie and Wayne have been so successful that they’ve been recognized by the Farmer-to-Farmer Program. Wayne received the Volunteer of the Year award in 2017, and while he’s grateful for the recognition, he thinks Connie should have received it too. Wayne calls Connie the heart of the operation, and whenever possible she goes into the schools and orphanages to help. She even teaches children how to plant seeds. “It’s about building relationships and trust,” Connie says.

NO EASY TASK While Connie and Wayne are seeing success now, they didn’t start out that way. Their first trip to Africa for Farmer-to-Farmer was to Wuppertal, South Africa, in 2008. It was what they would both describe as a failure. They weren’t prepared for the poverty they encountered. Connie and Wayne visited what is called an informal settlement outside Cape Town, South Africa. More than a million people lived there, and they were so impoverished that whatever could be grown between the shelters where people lived was stolen because people were so hungry.

GARDENING CAN BE A LOT OF WORK, BUT YOU CAN’T BUY THIS KIND OF FOOD. WHAT YOU BUY AT THE STORE IS NOTHING LIKE THE NUTRITION FROM PLANTS YOU CAN GROW RIGHT AT HOME.

“Our program fell apart because we brought modern ideas,” Wayne says. “We fell on our faces,” Connie adds. “We had no idea what poverty really was.”

— Connie Burleson

On their last trip to Rwanda, they were there for three months, long enough to work with the villagers to “go from seed to stomach,” as Wayne puts it. This particular settlement was made up primarily of young men, barely teenagers, who were survivors of war and genocide. They gravitated toward Connie, who couldn’t help but pour out her heart. At the end of the trip they wept, calling her “mother.”

Determined to make a difference, Connie and Wayne returned to Absarokee where they lived and attempted to garden like Africans. They laid out a four-foot by four-foot square plot, loaded it with compost, planted seeds they had on hand and by the end of the season they had grown more than 100 pounds of food. “We had to learn to do it with no money,” Wayne says. On their next trip to Africa, they taught the new methods they learned at home with great success. “You have to adjust to their culture to make it work,” Connie says.

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Safe

GROWING FOR HEALTH

STAY

Connie and Wayne moved from Absarokee to Billings about two years ago to be closer to their family. One of the first improvements they made on their new house was to establish a garden. While in Absarokee, they had an extensive garden and made it a practice to grow their own vegetables and greens nine months a year. To do that, they used a variety of innovative coverings. Connie cooks using the produce from their garden year-round.

WE DELIVER! Quality Incontinence Supplies

“Gardening can be a lot of work, but you can’t buy this kind of food. What you buy at the store is nothing like the nutrition from plants you can grow right at home,” Connie says. “I think we’re healthy because we grow our own food.”

delivered to your door every month!

In May of 2018, Connie took a very serious fall on the steep hill behind their house. She broke nine bones, including vertebrae in her neck, back, ribs, shoulder and sternum. All summer, 24 hours a day, she wore a halo device to stabilize and protect her neck while it healed. “We ate every day out of our garden,” Connie says. She attributes good nutrition to her healing. “You have healthy soil, then you have healthy plants, and then you’re healthy,” Wayne says. Connie made a full recovery and has no after-effects from the accident. She and Wayne are in their 70s, and are as spry as any two 50-year-olds. The COVID-19 pandemic has dampened their Farmerto-Farmer work but as soon as they are cleared to return to Africa, they will be off again, teaching the magical process of composting. While Connie and Wayne teach organic gardening, they’ve also learned from those they teach. Africans are very resilient, inventive people, and creative problem solvers. They don’t shy away from hard work – even the youngest children help haul water and gather firewood – and, Connie says, they’re grateful for what they have. ✻

534-1439

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710 Black Hawk, Unit F2, Billings

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Caring for someone with Alzheimer’s isn’t easy. Reaching us is. Free Alzheimer’s Association 24/7 Helpline: 800.272.3900 or Area Agency on Aging: 800.551.3191

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HONEY LOCUST

Farm

HOW RAISING SHEEP & CREATING YARN CAN BE A STEPPING STONE TO GREATER GOOD written by KAREN KINSER photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

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FOR MOTHER-DAUGHTER TEAM

Ali Starr of Joliet and Megan Kerr of Boyd, their Honey Locust Farm business of selling beautiful skeins of Montana grown Merino wool yarn is about creating and nourishing relationships. And that begins, first and foremost, with the relationship they have with their boutique flock of Merino sheep. “Sheep are very grounding,” Megan says, “and they can pick up on your attitudes and the emotions of others.”

one piece. Megan throws each piece onto a table to pull off the solid bits and judge the quality of the piece. The wool is then bagged and taken to Mountain Meadow Wool Mill in Buffalo, Wyoming, where it’s cleaned, processed and turned into yarn. It’s all hand-dyed, and Ali and Megan name each color. “Color is always such a hallmark of whatever we’ve done creatively,” Ali says. “Color is life.” To be reflective of the area, the green yarn is called Lodge Pole, red is named Red Lodge, pink is Apple Blossom, blue is Hyacinth, and grey is Granite Peak. Even the natural, non-dyed yarns are creatively named — Lily of the Valley for the lighter natural, and Edward for the natural black yarn.

Megan developed her love of sheep as a child when she raised them for a COLOR IS ALWAYS SUCH A HALLMARK 4-H project. After marrying Jake Kerr, OF WHATEVER WE’VE DONE a sheep shearer, she became even CREATIVELY, COLOR IS LIFE.” more interested in the industry. She — Ali Starr tried shearing, but learned that wasn’t her strength, and focused instead on “The yarns are all slightly nubby and wool classing (examining raw wool variegated,” Ali says, “so you get that and judging the quality). While on beautiful, natural look.” The label printed on kraft paper and a shearing trip with Jake, she purchased a group of pregnant adorned with their logo wraps around each skein of yarn before Merino ewes and she and Ali started their flock. Watching them being wrapped in tissue paper stamped with “Thank Ewe.” among the sheep, it’s clear they love their animals. “A lot of people have sheep to support their yarn habit. We have yarn to support our sheep habit,” jokes Megan. Once a year, Jake shears the sheep, with the wool coming off in

Under the shadow of a century-old honey locust tree on Ali’s historic family farm, you’ll often find their flock of 25. The area is adjacent to a lovely and sturdy farmhouse. Both women say that when working with the new mothers and their ewes it’s important

MAY/JUNE 2021

venture is now simmering on the back burner. “We only have so much time on this planet,” Ali says. “And we want to be able to make an impact in the most positive and uplifting way that we can.” With Ali modeling this outlook, Megan and Jake have also made an impact by purchasing livestock for Ethiopian families, funding a group of men to start a shoe-making business, and sponsoring a child for schooling. to stay grounded and positive. Not that this pair needs to “work” at being positive. A radiant joy infuses their relationship, and its nurtured by a deep and abiding faith. “It absolutely informs every aspect of decision-making for our lives,” Ali says. “To whom much is given, much is expected. We’ve been so blessed that we feel it’s an automatic reflex to help others.” That philosophy has helped them grow wool to affect the lives of others as far away as Ethiopia. Since 2009, when Ali and her pediatrician husband, Brian, first traveled to the country on a medical mission, Ali has been pulled back there nine times. She’s met a group of women in a microfinance co-op, who combine their money and loan it out to help jumpstart businesses. “It’s women empowering women,” says Ali. The businesses run the gamut from selling clothing to making items for tourists, to creating original clothing designs and running a mending business. Eventually, the pair would love to start a knitting co-op to have Ethiopian women create items with Honey Locust yarn. Ali would then purchase the items and bring them back to the United States to sell. Last February, she took 60 skeins to Ethiopia, but with the pandemic, along with import/export complications, the

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“School is free, but students are required to provide books, uniforms and supplies,” Megan says. “This is out of reach for most families.” Both Ali and Megan see a larger purpose in creating yarn, and the two feel that caring for this herd of sheep brings them, their families and those they want to help closer together. Between Ali’s four children (two from Ethiopia) and Megan’s son and two foster children, Ali says, “We live a fairly simple life and that’s by design.” She adds, “Brian and I came of age in the ’80s and there was such an expectation that we felt to be successful and to be go-getters and the perfect picture of success. We bought into that when we were younger, and then realized we just want a simple life. The irony is,” Ali pauses, “that we really found success in that simplicity.” ✻

KAREN KINSER, writer Karen enjoys retirement with her husband, Michael, in Joliet. She revels in travel, hiking, gardening, growing grapes, winemaking, literary landmarks and seeking restaurants mentioned in novels - just to see if they exist - as she continues her quest for the perfect margarita.

HONEY LOCUST YARN can be purchased through their website at thehoneylocustfarm.com, at the Yarn Bar in Billings and at the Montana Wool Growers Convention. For information on microfinancing, visit Hope Ranch International at hoperanchinternational.org.

Beginning June 1st, visit us downtown at our new location – 2909 2nd Avenue N. (Hedden-Empire Building).

Join us and be inspired to create with fiber. 406.534.4032 yarn.bar

W E’R E M O V I N G ! MAY/JUNE 2021

y l l a i c fi i t Ar

AUTHENTIC

PUT A FRESH AND BUDGET-FRIENDLY TWIST ON ANY BOUQUET story and photography by LOVELY HITCHCOCK 56

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CAN YOU TELL

WHAT'S REAL AND

WHAT’S NOT? We’ll let you in on our little secret. The peonies, dendrobium, hanging succulent, baby’s breath, silver dollar leaves and green queen Anne’s lace is all faux. The arrangement was brought to life with orange lilies, snap dragons and baby tulips. (pictured on page 56)

NO MATTER THE SIZE of the vase or how intricate or simple the flower arrangement, having a colorful collection of blooms brings joy to my soul. They’re a simple way to liven up any room in your home with a pop of color that immediately brightens the mood. Buying fresh flower arrangements, however, can be a little hard on your wallet. When I bought my wedding bouquet at $150, it was far more expensive than I had expected, especially considering its small size. The flower arrangement I have in my living room as I write this would undoubtedly cost me at least $50 if I had bought it pre-arranged. How do you add this look without emptying your wallet for a nice flower arrangement? It’s easy when you give artificial flowers a fresh twist. Years ago, I began combining artificial stems with fresh flowers and quickly discovered that these mixed arrangements are just as marvelous as those made completely with fresh blooms. I saved so much money that when a dear friend recently got married, I offered to make her bouquet myself. What normally would have cost her nearly $200, I was able to make for $50 by combining real and artificial flowers. Anyone at the wedding or viewing her wedding photos would never be the wiser.

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• Scissors or gardeilnl need... ing shear s A • vase. My person al hack is to shop store, ru at a local dollar m secondh mage sale, or che and store s. You’ll b ck surprised e a t t h e treasur find. es you’ll

• Water and plant fo od • Flowers and green

taste. St ery to fit ar y primary a t by picking your our nd secon mixing bo dary flow e t flowers. h real and artific rs, ial

MAY/JUNE 2021

Assembling the Arrangement First, fill the vase with water and add some plant food. Remove any unwanted leaves as your real flowers will absorb the water much faster without this step. Next, add your greenery. Place them loosely around the inside the vase. Now, place the larger flowers where you feel comfortable and gradually fill in with the smaller flowers. For a nice finishing touch, you can add a bit more greenery but be careful, as too much green can create a visual imbalance. Fill large gaps with taller greenery. Keep in mind that your arrangement doesn’t have to perfect, it just has to make you happy. Give those beautiful blossoms some sunlight, remembering that too much of a good thing can prematurely kill your arrangement. To maintain your creation, periodically cut the stems as they get mushy and old. Don’t wait until the water gets cloudy to replace it. Keeping the water fresh extends the life of the arrangement. Now sit back and enjoy your cost-effective but expensive-looking arrangement of artificial and authentic flowers. No one will know some of it is faux. ✻

YVW MAGAZINE

Humble One THE

A TRIO OF WAYS TO SERVE UP THIS SUPERFOOD

CABBAGE IS ONE OF THE MOST inexpensive and

TA STE OF T HE VALL EY

written by KAY ERICKSON

nutritious vegetables in the veggie drawer but takes center stage only once a year, around St. Patrick’s Day. That’s a shame. The humble cabbage is a great source of vitamins (A, C and K), minerals, antioxidants and dietary fiber. And there are so many types to choose: green, savory, Napa, red. Its family tree is also impressive, with broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and kale as close relatives. And let us not forget sauerkraut. I always have some type of cabbage in the fridge and use it in so many dishes. My go-to is probably coleslaw. In a matter of minutes, I can have this salad chilling in the refrigerator without using a bag of coleslaw ingredients. I prefer to use my own so I can change it up by making a blend. A quick and easy cabbage side dish is sauteed cabbage. If you want to make it a main dish, nestle some precooked sausage into the cabbage in the last five minutes or so to heat up and serve with some crusty bread and spicy mustard.

IN EVERY ISSUE 60

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My favorite cabbage main dish is stuffed cabbage rolls. I have so many variations of this dish from my childhood, but the one I make most often is what my mother called Swedish cabbage rolls. Where the Swedish comes in is unclear to me. I have also been known to use raw cabbage in salads and on tacos — chopped red and green cabbage on fish tacos is a favorite. Take my advice and add some cabbage to your next shopping list and discover the meal possibilities. 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.

sautéed cabbage 4 T. unsalted butter 4 c. (about ½ medium head) shredded cabbage 1 yellow onion, thinly sliced 1-1/2 t. kosher salt ½ t. freshly ground pepper

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DIRECTIONS In a sauté pan, melt the butter and stir in the remaining ingredients for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until cabbage is tender and begins to brown. Season to taste and serve.

Let’s Get

SOCIAL! SOCIAL!

NOTE For a main dish, nestle some precooked sausage in the cabbage for the remaining 15 minutes. Cover and cook until the sausage is heated. Serve with some crusty bread and spicy mustard.

coleslaw 3 c. shredded cabbage (I like to use two cups of green cabbage, one cup of Napa cabbage and a few slices of red cabbage) 1 c. grated carrot 1/3 c. mayonnaise 1 T. cider vinegar 2 t. sugar ½ t. kosher salt ½ t. celery seed DIRECTIONS Combine the mayo, cider vinegar, sugar, salt and celery seed in a large bowl, whisking until the sugar dissolves. Add the vegetables and toss well. Refrigerate 30 minutes before serving.

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YELLOWSTONEVALLEYWOMAN.COM MAY/JUNE 2021

THE

HEALTH BENEFITS OF VITAMIN & NUTRIENT RICH

CABBAGE

Cabbage is packed with nutrients that aid in keeping inflammation at bay. It’s packed with vitamin C and, when fermented, it provides probiotics which helps both the immune and digestive systems.

swedish cabbage rolls SERVES 6

1 large egg

DIRECTIONS

1 t. Worcestershire sauce

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

¼ c. diced yellow onion

In a large bowl, combine the egg, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, onion and milk, and mix well. Add the beef, pork and rice and combine but do not overmix. I typically mix this up using my hands.

2/3 c. milk ½ lb. ground beef ½ lb. ground pork ¾ c. cooked rice 6 large cabbage leaves (green or savoy) 1 can condensed tomato soup 1 T. brown sugar 1 t. lemon juice 1 t. kosher salt ½ t. freshly ground pepper

Immerse the cabbage leaves in boiling water for about 2 minutes or until limp. If there is a heavy center vein it may need to be slit about an inch to allow the cabbage to be rolled. Place about ½ cup of meat mixture in each leaf. Fold in the sides and roll the base of the leaf over the meat and to the end. Place seam side down in a 12x7x2 inch pan or any other pan which will hold 10 rolls (I have also used a 9x9x2 pan) In a small bowl, combine the tomato soup, brown sugar and lemon juice and whisk until smooth. Pour over the cabbage rolls and bake for 75 to 90 minutes, basting every 20 to 30 minutes with the sauce.

NOTE I always place the baking dish on a cookie sheet to catch any spillover. 62

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the taste of DISH UP SOME BEEF NOODLE SOUP, PHO BO written by STELLA FONG

VIETNAMESE BEEF NOODLE SOUP,

or pho bo, is considered Vietnam’s national soup. Pronounced “fuh,” this dish typifies Vietnamese eating where dishes are finished with garnishes and accompaniments. In this Southeast Asian country located south of China and east of Laos and Cambodia, pho bo is served day and night at almost every street corner. The Vietnamese soup consists of broth, rice noodles, herbs and meat, usually beef (pho bo) or chicken (pho ga). I learned of pho bo 20 years ago when I traveled to Vietnam with the Culinary Institute of America on a tour led by restaurateur and cookbook author Mai Pham. I fondly remember slurping noodles while seated on knee-high stools alongside a busy street in Hanoi as trucks and mopeds buzzed by. When I was growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area in a Chinese household — my mother was from Hong Kong and my father from southern China — Cantonese food dominated our table. This style of food features seafood, meats and poultry in its most natural form. Soy sauce and sesame oil gently flavor the food. My palate danced when I discovered the heat from peppers, pungency from basil and sourness from lime juice, all highlighted in Vietnamese fare. 64

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The traditional pho broth is clear, but I find the broth takes on more richness when the meat has been roasted. Because my husband is not a fan of star anise, I use the five-spice powder freshly made from the recipe in “Flavors Under the Big Sky: Recipes and Stories from Yellowstone Public Radio and Beyond.” The traditional broth is enriched with the addition of star anise, cloves and cinnamon. My preference is to use medium-sized rice noodles for this dish but it is usually served with thin vermicelli noodles in Vietnam. For the garnish, instead of the saw leaf herb, I use fresh cilantro. The long serrated leaf imparts a strong cilantro flavor, but unfortunately is not available locally. Thai basil, which has essences of cinnamon and licorice, is the other garnish that is used, but I substitute Genovese basil and add some mint leaves. Sriracha sauce, a bright red, multi-purpose hot sauce made from red chili peppers, garlic, vinegar, salt and sugar, originally from Thailand, is a nice addition, adding a dimension of spiciness. The accompaniments encourage the freedom of adding the flavors you want, contributing an element of playfulness, and freshness. Vietnam is a country once conquered that is rising again and sharing its culinary treasures with the rest of the world. ✻

broth 4 pounds beef bones with some meat on the bones 4 inches ginger, unpeeled 1 yellow onion, peeled, halved 1 T salt ¼ c. fish sauce 1 T. sugar 1 t. five-spice powder DIRECTIONS

five-spice powder From my cookbook, “Flavors Under the Big Sky: Recipes and Stories from Yellowstone Public Radio and Beyond,” fivespice is the flavor of the childhood dishes of steam sweet rice wrapped in lotus leaves and barbecue pork. I have customized the formula because my husband does not like the flavor of star anise.

1 T. Sichuan peppercorns 3 star anise 1 t. whole cloves 1 stick cinnamon 2 t. fennel seeds DIRECTIONS Put all ingredients in a spice or coffee grinder and grind to a fine powder. Store in an airtight container for up to several months.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a rimmed pan, roast bones for about 20 minutes until browned. Remove bones, then roast ginger and onion until blackened, about 10 minutes. In stockpot over high heat, add bones with enough water to cover 1-inch above the bones. Bring to a boil. Skim off impurities. Add ginger and onion, salt, fish sauce and sugar. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, and simmer for three hours, skimming as needed. Remove bones and set aside. Add five-spice powder and continue cooking for another hour. Remove stock from heat and with a slotted spoon, discard the solids. Strain stock through a fine-mesh sieve layered with cheesecloth into a large bowl. Let broth sit at room temperature for about one hour and then skim off fat. Let stock cool completely and transfer to airtight containers to store in the refrigerator for up to three days, and in the freezer for up to four months. Remove meat from the bones, cutting into bite size pieces. Set aside. MAY/JUNE 2021

noodles 1-pound dried medium rice sticks DIRECTIONS Boil a pot of water. Place noodles in a large bowl. Pour water over noodles and soak for about 20 minutes. Drain and cover noodles with more boiling water if noodles are still firm. Soak for another 10 minutes or until noodles are tender. Drain. Leave noodles in bowl.

WHERE TO FIND

accompaniments 3 green onions, sliced on the diagonal 1 pound bean sprouts 6 fresh mint sprigs 24 sprigs of cilantro 12 fresh basil sprigs 2 jalapeño chilies, thinly sliced 2 limes, cut into wedges Fish sauce Sriracha

Two retail operations in Billings might have what you need.

✔ Amaya Oriental Market at 520 Wicks Lane

✔ Isabella Asian Market at 1005 24th St. W.

TO ASSEMBLE Just before serving, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Pour the boiling water over noodles to re-heat them. Transfer warmed noodles to six large, warmed soup bowls. Divide beef on top of noodles. Ladle hot broth soup over the noodles. Arrange fresh accompaniments on a large plate. Allow each diner to top soup with green onions, bean sprouts, mint leaves, cilantro leaves, basil and jalapeño. Have bottles of fish sauce and sriracha on the table. 66

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STELLA FONG, writer

Stella divides her time between Billings and Seattle and is the author of two Billings-centric books, Historic Restaurants of Billings and Billings Food. Her writings have appeared in Big Sky Journal, Western Art and Architecture, the Washington Post as well as online at lastbestplates.com.

Gift Ideas for her... Mason Cash Mixing Bowls

Colorful, playful and functional - these mixing bowls are as artful at the edible creations she’ll make with them

$17.95 - $34.95

Runamok Maple Smoke & Barrels Collection

Let Mom know you’re sweet on her with this collection of four barrel-aged and smoked craft maple syrups

$19.95

Chico Artisanal Foods: Mild Hot Sauce

If you can’t take Mom to Chico, take Chico to Mom with Chico Artisanal Food’s mild, Southern-style hot sauce

$4.95

Eat This Yum! Balsamic Caramelized Onions

Sweet, savory, and tangy, this condiment has no shortage of uses and adds that little “something extra” to any meal that will make Mom feel special

$11.95

Breakfast Strata M O T H E R ’ S

D A Y

3 cups cubed country loaf, such as Le Fournil 2 Tbs extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for greasing 1/2 lb breakfast sausage 1/2 lb ham 1 medium yellow onion, diced 1 red pepper, diced

M A K E - A H E A D

10oz fresh spinach 1/2 cup drained and chopped sun-dried tomatoes 10 large eggs 1/2 cup whole milk 1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese, such as Amalthea Dairy

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease a 3 quart baking dish with a little bit of olive oil. 2. Toss the cubed bread with the 1 tbs olive oil and spread on a baking sheet in a single layer. Bake for 10 minutes or until toasted and golden brown. 3. In a 10 or 12” skillet over medium heat, heat 1 tbs olive oil. Add the onion and red pepper, and saute until translucent, then add the sausage and ham. Cook until sausage is well brown, breaking up into small pieces with a wooden spoon. Stir in the spinach and cook until just wilted. Add the sundried tomatoes and remove from heat. 4. In a medium mixing bowl, beat together the eggs and milk until frothy and pale. 5. Spread the toasted bread cubes in a single layer in the bottom of the prepared baking dish. Top with the sausage and ham mixture, then pour egg mixture over the top so it covers the entire casserole. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight. 6. When ready to serve, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Sprinkle the casserole with the feta cheese and bake, uncovered, for 30 minutes or until set. Cool 10-15 minutes before serving.

4 0 6 - 5 3 4 - 8 4 2 7 | 1 1 0 N 2 9 T H S T | B I L L I N G S | W W W. Z E ST B I L L I N G S .C O M

S written by VICKI-LYNN TERPSTRA photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

unglasses

SHADES ARE A PERSONAL expression of your style. That’s why if you’re looking to turn heads, make sure to have a shape that fits your face with flair. Try an unexpected color or flirt with an unconventional shape. Or, if you prefer a more classic look, you can’t go wrong with a timeless design that will carry you through the years. These handheld fashion statements can also pack a little punch since some support a good cause with each purchase. We tapped some of our local fashion authorities to see what shades they’ll be sporting this summer. ✻

FASHION 68

STATEMENT MAKING

YVW MAGAZINE

ELEVATE YOUR SUMMER STYLE

MEANT TO FLY

Laverne Royer, owner of Cricket Clothing Co., knows her fashion and knows what looks good on every shape and size. She expertly picks aviators as her favorite shape of sunglasses for her heart shape face. This classic standby is a perfect partner for heart-shaped faces, and they pair just as well with oval frames. This style can also be a great companion for square-shaped faces. Laverne loves the Freyr brand because it emphases exceptional quality and styling for a reasonable price.

on sunny days

As the days get longer and the sun livens up, Laverne loves to garden, swim and play pickleball. Laverne’s Freyr shades, $64 at Cricket Clothing Co.

IN THE WINGS

A square and slightly winged frame is the perfect balance of timeless and edgy for Linda Brooks (pictured on opposite page), owner of Something Chic. With an oval-shaped face, it’s easy for Linda to look stylish in just about any shape. She’s also a fan of a good aviator frame, which is a true classic. Something Chic recently added a new brand with a mission Linda loves. Topfoxx is a company that’s 100 percent women-owned and operated. With every sunglass purchase, the company donates a pair of reading or distance glasses to the visually impaired around the world.

on sunny days

Linda loves walking her pup, Harrison, or enjoying a glass of vino on the patio. Linda’s wearing Topfoxx shades, $59 up to $89 at Something Chic.

MAY/JUNE 2021

YVW MAGAZINE

SPORTY & SLEEK

Mariah Carpenter, Operations Manager of Joy of Living, has an on-the-go life that calls for sporty sleek shades. It’s a necessity that her sunglasses perform while walking her pups, while taking trips in between business meetings or during an evening on the patio for happy hour. Picking the perfect frame matters to Mariah and she loves that Diff Eyewear gives a pair of reading glasses to a child in need with every pair sold. This classic shade with a black frame also blends easily with her wardrobe.

on sunny days Mariah loves exploring new places and walking her dogs. She’s wearing Diff Eyewear, $85 per pair at Joy of Living.

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

It’s fun. It’s stylish. ...and it’s all about making you look your best!

259-3624 • 2814 2nd Ave N • Billings, MT WWW.CRICKETCLOTHINGCO.COM

MAY/JUNE 2021

YVW MAGAZINE

IN THE DARK

Denise Johnson, owner of Neecee’s, is all about the large-framed, dark lenses. Pair it with the Brighton label and you have a classic sunglass look. Another pick? Denise likes the RS Eyeshop brand because she says they change up their styles and colors. At a price tag of $30, you can have several pairs in your fashion arsenal.

on sunny days

Denise loves riding her bike or reading a great book on the patio. Denise is wearing Brighton, $98 per pair at Neecee’s.

T I R I L E SP

FRE K SCHOO ROC

Y, A L P TO G N N I R N A R E A LE O L l.com T G IN ai PLAY ckinfo@gm site! o r web piritr u s o e r e r u f ko Chec

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VICKI-LYNN TERPSTRA, writer With nearly a decade long career in retail, Vicki-Lynn has cultivated a true passion for fashion. 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.

Call today!

406-200-7407 13th & Grand • Billings

LOCATED INSIDE EVERGREEN ACE HARDWARE

evergreendelicafe.com MAY/JUNE 2021

Love

DELIVER A LITTLE

2 4

YVW MAGAZINE

1 PUT YOUR BEST FOOT FORWARD

Just arrived… XtraTuf Ankle Deck Boots are a go-to for anglers but are also perfect for just wearing around the yard! Gardeners and other outdoor workers and explorers are sure to enjoy the new durable lightweight Muck Outscape shoe. And, our women’s Muckster II all-purpose bootie offers a roll-down upper for versatility and added flair. All three styles of boots are waterproof and available at Shipton’s Big R!

2REBUILD & REPLENISH YOUR HAIR

Repair your hair from the inside out with Mondo Verde Natural Organic Products. Get it today at Park Place Styling Salon, 801 14th St W, 245-8188.

NEECEE’S

Best. Gift. Ever. Neecee’s locally made “Love Montana” necklace continues to be everyone’s favorite. Artistically crafted in sterling sliver and set with a Montana Sapphire, $199. You can also choose our classic Love Montana necklace with no bling, $89. Complimentary gift wrap. We’ll ship for you too. Located at Shiloh Crossing. Contact us at 406-294-2014 or email info@neecees.com.

4HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!

Tallman Medical Spa is the perfect place to treat Mom to an extra special Mother’s Day! Our Gift Cards are calorie free, never go out of style, and may be used on any Spa Products or Services! Give us a call at 406.294.9660 and our Spa Staff will help you make Mother’s Day special!

PAMPER HER WITH FLOWERS

Send mom a beautiful hanging garden or patio planter from Gainan’s. Each one is planted with a unique selection of compatible annuals in mixed complementary colors. Starting at $69.99.

6 NOURISH YOUR SKIN

Vampire Altar Skin Therapy is an amazing retinol cream that ramps up the delivery of nutrients and oxygen to your skin. Rich in the extremely hydrating hyaluronic acid, this cream is the perfect complement to our services known as the Vampire Facial and Vampire Face Lift. Find it all at Vitality Medical and Wellness Center with Licensed Provider Melissa Fuller, NP. Book your appointment online at www.myvitalitymedicalwellness.com.

7PAMPER MOM

Sanctuary Spa: Treat your Mom to her favorite service and we will throw in the flowers for free! $100 gift card and a pot of beautiful flowers. Purchase online at www.sanctuarymt.com or stop by today!

KEEP YOUR SUNNIES SAFE

Fun leather eyeglass cases are the perfect gift for your Mom! Only $19.95 at Joy of Living, located at 1524 24th St. W., Billings, MT.

9STEP INTO SUMMER

The BIRKENSTOCK footbed is synonymous with exceptional comfort. Each element of the footbed serves a purpose to encourage proper foot wellbeing and health. The result is signature style coupled with all day support. Mom will also appreciate that BIRKENSTOCK is committed to environmentally friendly operations and uses sustainable materials in the making of the sandals. Find them at The Base Camp, located at 1730 Grand Ave., Billings, MT. 75 MAY/JUNE 2021

Music MAKING A NAME IN

THE EVOLUTION OF SINGER/ SONGWRITER GILDA HOUSE

written by SYLVIE POORE photography courtesy of JASPER HEINS & MEG GILDEHAUS

YVW MAGAZINE

AFTER A LONG YEAR of strict pandemic rules and virtual events, Billings’ Pub Station celebrated a socially distanced return to live music in early April. The atmosphere was charged as a figure strode onto the ballroom stage and reached for her microphone as cheers filled the dark room. With pink hair, dressed in camo pants, black boots and a bold red top, Gilda House launched into “Special Day,” the first song from her new album, “AB Side A.” The sold-out crowd on that April 3 evening numbered only 100 people, but Gilda House performed like she was rocking an entire I WANT TO stadium. “It’s strange,” she says. “I can say it felt like that middle ground where intense preparation meets intense spontaneity. I haven't performed in over a year and I've never performed like that … but I've always wanted to!” She adds, “My band mates absolutely nailed it and I am so excited for more shows. I feel like this is what I was made to do.”

Mountain College in 2016. She performed with the indie rock band Arterial Drive for four years. Her previous EP, “You’re Invited,” was released in August 2019. Now, just a year and half later, “AB Side A” feels like a big leap from her earlier work.

“I did have the intention of leaning into content and topics that are harder to talk about than the more easy-listening songs,” Meg says. “I wasn’t quite satisfied with ‘You’re Invited’ because ultimately I realized it was a half-truth. I think if half-truths become the only truths KEEP LETTING then there's half of us still hiding. Hiding FEAR AND MOVING anything ultimately starts to hurt.”

GO OF THROUGH THE FEAR. I WANT TO KEEP BUILDING AND DEVELOPING THE LIVE SHOW WITH THE BAND.

The six songs on “AB Side A” range from groovy pop ballads to anthems, filled with upbeat rhythms and electronic vibes. Before arranging and producing any music, she — Gilda House spent six months fleshing out each song. She wanted to leave the narrative open to interpretation so that her fans could connect with it through their own experiences. Then Meg composed, produced and recorded all of the music Gilda House is the stage name of 26-year-old Meg Gildehaus. in her house, with the exception of the guitar and saxophone Born in Red Lodge, Meg’s family moved to Idaho when she was 6 that her close friends Riley Haynie and Konnor Stiles recorded years old but returned after one year and have lived in Red Lodge themselves. Where other people might have a dining room table, ever since. She was awarded the prestigious Cook Scholarship, Meg has a keyboard and a laptop with music software. which each year sends one Montana high school student to St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire. Meg moved back to Montana, earning her BA degree in communication studies at Rocky

Music has always been her outlet. MAY/JUNE 2021

TO LISTEN TO

GILDA HOUSE

visit gildahouse.com EE A

WANT TO S

SHE'S PERFORMING:

MAY 6 @ YELLOWSTONE COUNTY GIVES JUNE 26 @ THE HARLO MUSIC PROJECT ? W AUGUST 7 @ RED LODGE ALES SHO

“I do music because I can't not do it at this point It makes my life,” she says. “Music just never goes away, if I try to quit it always comes back. It’s become a non-negotiable.”

that energy-producing.”

Music manager Brian Langeliers of Artifact Concept said of her, “We all witnessed Meg's potential as a natural performer in years past, but with Gilda House she is leveling up by focusing on her artistic vision, business savvy and the creation of this innovative music. Her performance at Pub Station presented a full-spectrum talent who is waiting for her star to rise.”

“I feel like right now I'm the most grounded I've ever been,” she says. “I want to keep letting go of fear and moving through the fear. I want to keep building and developing the live show with the band.”

After being hungry for live music for well over a year, the crowd at her April concert struggled to leave. The energy brought many to the front of the stage, hoping to share a word with the musician who created the powerful and unique event. “Everything so perfectly, achingly, joyously, tragically choreographed that it appeared as though she were springing to life organically from each and every song, again and again,” says close friend Mark Spragg. “And, I’m sure I can’t even begin to imagine how much work that took to make it look that effortless,

So, what’s next for Meg and for Gilda House?

Because this album is the first of two parts, Meg says, “I'm really looking forward to sharing side B with you.” ✻

SYLVIE POORE, writer Sylvie spent her childhood in Red Lodge, Montana and on the southern Peloponnese Peninsula in Greece with her parents, brother, step-family and grandparents. When she’s not attending school, she can be found backpacking or skiing in the Beartooths or fly-fishing the waters of Rock Creek. She graduates high school in May.

MAY/JUNE 2021

CRAIG LANCASTER WITH WIFE, ELISA LORELLO

e f i l l u f i t beau

and itl be a wil

A CHAT WITH BILLINGS AUTHOR CRAIG LANCASTER written by ED KEMMICK photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

YVW MAGAZINE

Editor’s Note: There are many interesting authors who call the

Magic City home. That’s why YVW will be chatting with some of them throughout 2021, telling you about their latest work and what you might want to pick up to read when you have a little downtime.

CRAIG LANCASTER

likes to keep busy. For the Billings novelist’s many fans, that’s good news. Lancaster is a full-time editor at The Athletic, a website that covers sports in North America and the United Kingdom. He is also a freelance editor, the design editor for Montana Quarterly magazine, and a part-time “pig tracker” who monitors the passage of electronic devices, known as pigs, through pipelines. In the midst of all that, and after moving back to Montana from Maine during the pandemic last year, Lancaster finished his ninth novel. “And It Will Be a Beautiful Life” is being published by The Story Plant and is set for release on June 2. Having grown up in Wyoming and Texas and then worked as a newspaper journalist in eight states, the 51-year-old Lancaster is not ready to say he’s back in Montana for good. “I’d better not make any broad declarations, because I’m almost always wrong, but Montana is home,” he says. “It is the most home I’ve ever been, including the place I grew up.” Lancaster was still working as the chief copy editor for the Billings Gazette when his first novel, “600 Hours of Edward,” was published in 2009. It was a promising start. The book attracted an international following and was translated into German and French. He published two more novels and a book of short stories before quitting the Gazette in 2013 to take up writing full time. He published four more novels in the next four years and then collaborated with his wife, Elisa Lorello, also a novelist, on a romantic comedy novel, “You, Me & Mr. Blue Sky.” He’s not sure there will be another collaboration, but writing that book was pure pleasure, he says. “It was fun for me,” Lancaster says. “It was fun to see the way my wife worked. It was fun to play off of her in sort of a jazz way — like, you know, ‘OK, you’re laying down a piano; I see where I can come in the with the bass.’” The new book makes use of the latest twist in Lancaster’s career by featuring a middle-aged Billings resident, Max Wendt, whose orderly, predictable job as a pig tracker is decidedly at variance with his messy, rapidly unraveling personal life. Besides trying to

figure out his own place in a confusing world, Max is navigating his way through complicated relationships with his wife, his adult daughter, his co-workers and a thought-provoking older gentleman he meets on his travels. The book is also suffused with humor—much of it stemming from the main character’s relentless sarcasm—despite its focus on some serious subjects. Lancaster is certainly happy with it. “This one’s my favorite so far, from the standpoint of a fully realized character and hitting the notes I wanted to hit,” he says. Lancaster and his wife, a native of Long Island, moved from Billings to Maine in the spring of 2018 as a means of being closer to Elisa’s family, but still living in a rural setting. People in Maine were friendly enough, Lancaster says, but he and Elisa came to believe that even if they spent the rest of their lives there, they would always be, as Mainers would put it, the people “who came from away.” And so, shortly after the global pandemic was declared, they closed on the sale of their house in Maine and arrived back in Billings on April 4, 2020. Lancaster had been working on “And It Will Be a Beautiful Life” while in Maine, but it had stalled out after about 40,000 words. As soon as he got back to Montana, he pulled the manuscript out, read through it, felt a surge of inspiration, and went back to work. “I pounded out the last 60,000 words on that in a month and a half,” he says. The inspiration continues: he’s got two more novels in the works, one of them nearly complete. “There’s something about being here that stokes that, and I don’t know what it is,” he says. Lancaster took a job as a pig tracker before going to work for The Athletic, and he says he did so only because he was bored and needed something to do besides write books. He soon realized that the dynamics of the job would be a good background for a novel, and that he, as a writer, was well-suited to the work. “Man,” he says, “pig tracking is the greatest job ever if you just like sitting around inside your own head.” ✻

CRAIG’S LATEST BOOK, “And It Will Be a Beautiful Life” will be released in early June. You can learn more or pre-order the book by visiting craig-lancaster.com.

MAY/JUNE 2021

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GROWING AND SOWING

Raised bed gardens becoming a popular way to enjoy fresh herbs & veggies

LIGHT UP THE NIGHT

DIY lanterns cast the perfect glow

A CONTEMPORARY MONTANA BEAUTY Sleek & Sophisticated Living

MAY/JUNE 2021

JERRY ANDERBERG AND GRANDSON, JACK SWITZER 84

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Growing and sowing RAISED BED GARDENS BECOMING A POPULAR WAY TO ENJOY FRESH HERBS & VEGGIES written by JULIE KOERBER

JERRY ANDERBERG has been digging in the soil for close to five decades. With a degree in horticulture, he’s made a business out of it, helping homeowners make sure the grass is not just greener on the other side. Over the past few years, he’s seen a gardening trend take root. More and more of his clients are turning to raised-bed gardens to grow fresh fruits, herbs and veggies. “I think a big part of it is space,” Anderberg says. “The lots in town are a lot smaller than they used to be. The big two-acre lots aren’t around anymore. They are very rare.”

during the pandemic it became a lockdown hobby. Interest spiked to the point that seed company shelves were wiped out. The trend doesn’t appear to be letting up in 2021.

With the popularity, Anderberg saw a way to help his 12-year-old grandson, Jack Switzer, learn some business skills and help a good cause in the process. Together, the two are building raised-bed garden boxes for a suggested donation, with the money raised going to benefit Community Leadership Development Inc., a nonprofit that seeks to help low-income GARDENING 12 INCHES neighborhoods thrive.

THE CONCEPT BEHIND A

RAISED BED

IS TO BRING TO SEVERAL FEET OFF THE GROUND,

LETTING GREEN THUMBS TEND TO THE AREA WITHOUT BREAKING THEIR BACKS.

“We can build a box at waist level so that it is just like you are working at the countertop in the kitchen,” Anderberg says.

“We recycle pallets and construction materials and that’s what we build our boxes out of,” Anderberg says. “We even take dirt from construction sites that is going to be thrown away and mix it with our own compost. We are providing a needed service for our community in the fact that the community is going to eat well and CLDI benefits.”

Ever since the 2008 recession, he’s seen the overall interest in gardening pick up. While part of the reason is economic,

If you’re concerned about animals, or even the elements, Anderberg has thought out of the box for solutions.

The concept behind a raised bed is to bring gardening 12 inches to several feet off the ground, letting green thumbs tend to the area without breaking their backs.

MAY/JUNE 2021

“If they want, they can have a little greenhouse cover made right over the top of the bed. We make that out of recycled material too,” he says. “We use pipe for hoops and greenhouse sheeting that has been taken off after a certain amount of time. We can also put a net over them for deer if that’s an issue.”

GETTING STARTED Have you been longing to turn a little patch in your backyard into a gardening hot spot? The experts say anyone can tackle a raised bed. “If you live in a condo or a place where you don’t have a spot for a garden but you have a nice patio or deck, this provides you the opportunity to have some fresh herbs or fresh greens,” says 86

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Pat Friesen, who’s spent 30 years running greenhouses and now shares advice with customers at Evergreen Ace Hardware. “People generally do several things wrong,” he says of raised-bed gardening. “They put a plant that needs a lot of soil in too small of a container and they use poor soil. Those two things set people up for failure.” Instead of digging up soil from the backyard and dumping it into your container, Friesen says its important to amend any topsoil you use. “Topsoils are fairly heavy and they don’t allow for much drainage. You need something that will be nutrient rich.” Andrew Marble, a landscape designer with Billings Nursery, says if you want to use topsoil as a base, simply add in a little compost. He says vermiculite can help loosen the soil and peat moss can be added as well.

“Peat moss retains water, but it is also a soil conditioner and helps loosen the soil,” Marble says. “It does slightly acidify the soil, too, which is good in our climate.” And here’s another tip on soil. You don’t have to fill the entire raised bed with it. If you have a taller bed, you can use a light gravel at the bottom to promote drainage. How much gravel will depend on the plants you desire to cultivate and their root systems. “Because you are starting with good soil, you are generally able to produce a higher-quality product in a small space,” Marble says. And with new soil, he says, you typically have less weeding as well. After you plant, all the experts agree that a fertilization timetable is key.

“When you plant something in a small container, the roots don’t have the advantage of spreading down into the ground,” Friesen says. “When you water a raised bed on a regular basis, you are leaching out all the nutrients. You should have a fertilizing timetable or use a time-release fertilizer that releases over a fourto-six-month period.”

PICKING THE RIGHT PLANTS When it comes to plants, there are really no rules other than what the seed packet or informational plant stake dictates. You have to think of sun exposure, root depth, how much room the plant needs to flourish and how tall it might get. “The raised bed will dry out quicker,” Anderberg says. “You MAY/JUNE 2021

really have to watch the soil and make sure in the hot weather, especially when the wind is blowing, that you keep the bed watered adequately. There is a learning curve to all of that.” If you long to plant tomatoes, cucumbers or beans, which can sprout to be fairly tall, Friesen says just make sure you choose a variety that you can easily tend. “Tomato plants, if you allow them to grow, they will grow to be six feet tall,” Friesen says. He says that’s why if you want a tomato, look for determinate varieties. These plants tend to mound instead of sprout upward. You can also plan for your raised bed to flourish all season long with simple plant placement. “Early on, May 1, when it’s cool, you can plant radishes, you can plant lettuce and put in some onion sets,” Friesen says. “The end of May you can start your bush cucumbers. By the time that plant gets to be of a size that will take up more room in your box, you can harvest some lettuce to make space.”

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ADDING COLOR & INTEREST Just because you want to harvest fresh veggies doesn’t mean you can’t have fun by adding colorful flowers into the mix. Besides adding some color and interest, Marble says, it can help a bit with pest control. “There is a theory to planting flowers with your garden — offering a nectar source near your garden so beneficial insects have a reason to stick around between doing their good business of killing bad bugs and they have a nectar source to eat on. They help keep it under control,” Marble says. While many have heard that marigolds and citronella can help keep insects at bay, there are really no rules other than picking a compact flower that won’t spread the distance of your garden bed. Anderberg has often planted gladiola and dahlias. So, with that primer on what it takes to start your own raisedbed garden, you can start day dreaming about fresh basil, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers and even fresh scallions or radishes to toss in your salads. ✻

Raised Bed Gardening

QUICK TIPS FOR SUCCESS Make sure the area for your container garden is level and that you aren’t planting a container on a slope Amend any topsoil you add to your container with compost along with vermiculite or peat moss Read the back of seed packets to determine proper plant spacing

Consider the harvest timeline and plant those with shorter times to harvest together so you can pick and make room for larger plants with longer times before harvest

Plant trailing plants at the edge or corner to make the best use of space

Create a fertilization timetable to make sure your plants are nourished all season long

If you are concerned about pests, the Yellowstone County Extension Office is a great resource. You can find them online at yellowstone. msuextension.org

Plan to add new compost annually to your raised bed at the beginning of the season

GET YOUR YARD

SUMMER READY! 7900 S FRONTAGE RD ❈ 656-2410 BILLINGSNURSERY.COM MAY/JUNE 2021

Light Up THE NIGHT

LOOK WH AT W E FOU ND

written by RACHEL JENNINGS photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

DIY LANTERNS CAST THE PERFECT GLOW

IN EVERY ISSUE 90

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SPENDING SUMMER NIGHTS on my backyard patio is one of my favorite things. This summer, I’m making them even better with a little lantern ambiance. This DIY uses one of the most unlikely supplies — a children’s game. So, dive in and elevate not only your patio, but the time you spend enjoying it. With a little glue, stain, Jenga game pieces and a glass container, you’ll be sitting all aglow, enjoying every minute of our warmer weather.

Let’s start with a glass container. As always, don’t forget to scout out thrift or dollar stores for a bargain. There’s always a wide variety of goodies in both stores with great price tags. Here’s where the project gets fun. The base of this lantern is constructed with Jenga tiles glued to the glass container base. I started by laying the tiles around the glass to check spacing and placement. I found that the size of wood Jenga tiles is perfect and the tiles don’t require a ton of sanding. Using a bricklaying method, I started placing my first row around the base of the container, again to practice spacing. For the second row, I centered the tile over the middle of a joint on the

What you wil l need... • Jenga gam e

• Hot glue gun and glue sticks • Stain/paint • Sandpaper • Candle • Tall glass container

first row, repeating the row all the way around. I continued this process, staggering the tiles with each new row. I completed my lantern midway through the glass container so I would still be able to see the glow of my candle and some of the glass, but feel free to take the tiles all the way to the top of the glass. It’s simply personal preference. The very top row will be a cap row. Instead of placing the tile on its side, lay these “cap” tiles flat on existing rows. Once I knew how many tiles my project would use, I sanded the Jenga logo from one side of the cap tiles. Because I am staining these tiles, I don't want it to show through. Don’t feel like staining? This project looks just as nice with a natural tile look. To stain, I put a MAY/JUNE 2021

half cup of stain in a disposable roasting pan. I let it sit a couple minutes and then flipped the tiles and waited the same amount of time. Once done, I removed the tiles from the stain and placed them on a paper towel to rub off the excess. After I was done, I separated out each tile to dry for up to 24 hours. I then poured the remaining stain from the pan back into the stain jar. Once the dry time was over, it was time to heat up the glue gun. I placed all my tiles row by row adding glue to the back of the tile to secure to the glass container. On the first row, I placed the glue on the back side of the tile where it touches the glass. The second row, I placed glue on the back where it touches the glass and on the bottom where it touches the first row. The other rows I put the glue at the bottom of each tile where it touches the previous row of tile. For the cap row I placed the glue on the side touching the glass and the flat side touching the previous row of tile. Once the gluing was complete, all I needed was to add my candle and head outside to enjoy it. Summer nights will now have a little extra flair thanks to these candle holders that don’t break the bank. It’s the little things! ✻

RACHEL JENNINGS, writer Rachel is a self described "Junker," who not only loves all things old, but LOVES the challenge of trying to make something new out of each find. While she is a Hair Stylist by day, in her off time you can often find her covered in paint, trying to repurpose something she's found.

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OUTDATED KITCHEN?

NOT ANYMORE!

BEFORE

AFTER

Amontana CONTEMPORARY BEAUTY SLEEK & SOPHISTICATED LIVING written by TRISH ERBE SCOZZARI photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

TANYA AND KEITH KLAWIKOWSKI moved quite a distance when they left their previous home this past October for their new ranch-style home in Black Rock Estates. “We moved from across the street,” says Tanya. “It’s our eighth home,” adds Keith, superintendent for Brown Builders, “and it’s been the toughest home for us. Contemporary design is new to us. We’ve always been rustic, that warm and cozy feel, but it was exciting picking the colors for this home. It’s sleek and crisp.” Tanya agrees, “It’s been a fun change.” The two-level Parade home built by Brown Builders sits on a half-acre corner 94

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Double three-foot entry doors grant a warm welcome to this contemporary ranch-style home in Black Rock Estates powered by Yellowstone Valley Electric Cooperative. The home’s back deck area features exterior zipper shades from All Kinds of Blinds. The motorized shade allows privacy when using the spa and also blocks the sun’s glare while toning down medium winds. A metal fire pit crafted by Majestic City Meta Art brings family and friends together. “Keith wanted the fire pit to go with the theme of the house,” says Tanya. Five speakers around the fire pit put out the tunes and big rock seats frame the circle of this choice outdoor space.

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lot on Pavestone Trail just off Central Avenue. Four garage doors set in black provide a striking distinction to gray siding and trim securing this Montana beauty into the surrounding landscape. It’s close to all the shopping, yet embraces a country atmosphere with a friendly neighborhood. “We have lots of friends here. We get together with the neighbors a lot,” says Tanya. People gather when they’re outside or when Tanya’s fixing something in the kitchen. “I like to cook,” she adds, eyes twinkling. This working mom also makes sure daughters, Tori, who’s in college, and Maddie, along with many friends are nourished with home cooking. “Mad’s a West High varsity cheerleader so we typically have eight kids at a time here,” Tanya says. “It’s nice because we have the space for 10 kids at the table, plus we have the counter at the center island.” The kitchen/dining/great room’s open concept with 12-foot vaulted ceiling offers the ideal layout for feeding hungry teens and for overall entertaining. A huge walk-in pantry off the kitchen “with steel shelves,” as Keith mentions, allows Tanya to keep supplies handy. A sophisticated black and white color palette in the kitchen, as well as throughout the 4,800-square-foot home captures clean lines of contemporary elegance while stainless steel accents

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enrich its beauty. “Keith wanted to accent with stainless steel for the more contemporary look,” says Tanya, “so we picked out everything. We even picked out the same kitchen countertop when each of us was out looking at different times. We have similar taste.” Cambria Roxwell quartz countertops, a USA-made luxury brand, define the large kitchen/dining area. “It is a gorgeous wave of gray dappled with charcoal, black and white flecks with a bit of sparkle that continuously flows throughout the kitchen,” says Alicia Eyre, lead salesperson and office manager at The Countertoppers. The 10-foot center island provides a solid anchor for this gourmet kitchen. The movement of the quartz top resembles sea-washed black sands. It’s a stunning piece complete with prep sink. “The base of the island is brushed foil acrylic, giving it a stainless steel look,” says Steve Wylie, co-owner and manager of Rimrock Cabinet Co. Plus, there’s plenty of storage space for Tanya’s cooking equipment. She eagerly swings open a door to the mixer-lift. Her often-used Kitchen Aid automatically rises to the perfect level. 98

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Double sliding barn doors on the theater room along with lighted cup holders in the chairs keep this spot in high demand.

A microwave drawer sits at the end of the island near the Thermador fridge. A step away is the stainless apron-front sink. An induction stovetop with stainless hood hovering above is close at hand while a double oven graces the wall.

approves of the under-cabinet lighting. A slight shimmer in the white backsplash from Rich’s Flooring Abbey Carpet lends just enough glitz to put the finishing touch on this exquisite space.

“The entire kitchen features custom white acrylic cabinetry with soft-close doors and drawers,” says Steve.” It’s all sleek and stylish with straight lines for simple function. Tanya wanted a very modern look and feel.”

A built-in hutch of the white acrylic cabinetry with upper cabinet reeded glass inserts showcase the Roxwell quartz countertop as it extends from the kitchen space into the dining area. “We’ve been married 25 years,” says Tanya, “so having our nice dishes right here by the table makes it easy to use.”

Tanya takes a shine to “bling,” too. “There’s a bit of glitter in the subway backsplash,” says Keith, after commenting how he

The front of the home faces west, with natural light flowing into the dining space through elegant dimensional blinds from

100

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Dark Luxury Vinyl Tile (LVT) affords easy maintenance for this high-traffic rec room and wet bar area adjoining the girls’ bedrooms and theater room. The wet bar, stocked with teenage beverages, stands out brilliantly with white cabinetry, black countertop and flashy backsplash.

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MAY/JUNE 2021

101

Tori and Maddie’s bedrooms are side by side in the lower level where each enjoys an over-sized sliding glass barn door walk-in closet.

All Kinds of Blinds. “The layering of designer fabric stripes with sheers creates a contemporary look and couldn’t be more practical,” says owner Bobby Gray. The blinds may be adjusted to block the sun when needed while contrasting superbly with the white cabinetry. “We wanted contrast and color,” says Tanya, “so everything’s not matchy-matchy.”

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Gray oak flooring from Rich’s Flooring adds warmth and texture. Black-stained woodwork and trim in the home create depth against pure white walls Another level of exceptional style is the focal point of the great room. A linear fireplace with seven different colors of light glows with ambient warmth from the floor-to-ceiling stainless steel covered wall. “It’s unique,” says Abe McCauley, owner of Majestic City Metal Art. “It was Keith and Tanya’s vision. It turned out clean and classy.” The nearby open staircase leading to the lower level ties it all together. “The railing is powder-coated black gloss with a rectangular flat stock (bar/baluster),” says Abe. It’s a stainless flat bar as they’re usually round. It’s a super clean look.” The carpeted stairs open up to the downstairs where the comfy family area invites lounging and TV time. The theater room that can be closed off with double sliding barn doors gets a five-star rating with movie screen and luxury seating. “It’s why the kids come here!” says Tanya. The bathroom in which Maddie picked out smoky blue hexagon shower tile further expresses the classy look this home characterizes. The bath is centrally located near the theater room and the two bedrooms. The girls’ rooms sit next to one another in this lower level haven while mom and dad’s sanctuary is situated upstairs.

A blue glass bowl sink delivers subtle color to this delightfully bright powder bath in the hall off the kitchen.

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Tanya and Keith’s master suite sits on the opposite end of the home from a Jack-and-Jill suite offering a shared bathroom separated with pocket doors. The couple’s domain is spacious. A nine-foot tray ceiling highlights black trim, recessed and rope lighting, and dark two-blade fan.

your comfort your way.

They retain private access to the covered back patio where they can easily slip in and out of the spa. It’s then a quick walk into the immaculate en suite through a sliding black barn door. “I like black and white,” says Tanya, “so it’s white quartz on dark cabinetry in here.” A wave of black swooshes through white Cambria Bentley quartz that bedecks the soaking tub surround. “It’s a beautiful statement piece,” says Alicia. The simple, yet eyecatching art of this stone continues across the double-sink vanity. White and gray porcelain ceramic tile cover the floor carrying into the tiled glass-enclosed shower. “It’s a no-curb walk-in shower,” points out Keith. “There’s nothing to step over.”

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655-9700 •2494 ENTERPRISE AVE•BILLINGS•RANDTSERVICES.COM 104

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new listing

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4727 AUDUBON WAY

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Robin, Tom, and Korinne made us feel like we were part of “their team”. Since we were not in marketing plan, being included in all decisions.

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A CONTEMPORARY MONTANA BEAUTY

HONEY LOCUST FARM

SOIL DIVA

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ENERGIZING THE BODY

60 YEARS OF GIVING BACK

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