Montana According to Montanans
Illustration by Brent Zundel.
I originally completed this illustration for the MSU Exponent’s impromptu “Hastily Illustrated Edition,” published during fall 2011 dead week.
Local Band of Professors Releases Original Album
Textbook Blues performs at the release party for their latest CD, “Got Your Number,” on Nov. 10, 2011. Photo by Brent Zundel
By Brent Zundel
For the MSU Exponent
November 17, 2011
With final exams fast approaching, the name “Textbook Blues” likely conjures up many different images in students’ heads, but four Bozeman residents recently gave attendees at the Filling Station a different image. “Textbook Blues” is a local band composed of four members, all of whom have some connection to teaching, thus providing a fitting name.
John Priscu, a professor in the Land Resources and Environmental Sciences (LRES) Department, shreds a mean lead guitar when not conducting nationally renowned research in Antarctica. Edis Kittrell, an English professor who also teaches in the Honors College, provides a soulful lead voice.
Warren Jones, an environmental engineering professor and former Faculty Senate Chair, keeps rhythm for the band by playing a skillful bass. To round out the quartet, Greg Vallor holds a crisp beat on the drums. Although he holds a teaching credential, presumably he no longer teaches because he can “do.” Read More…
Allure of the Big Sky
By Brent Zundel
For the MSU Exponent
November 3, 2011
Author’s Note: This column was originally published in the “Community” section of a Nov. 3, 2011, special edition of the Exponent.
The allure of the Big Sky, as seen from Black Canyon Lake in the Beartooth Mountains of south central Montana. Photo by Brent Zundel
Montana is an easy state to love. “Once you’ve gotten drunk on her soul-soothing nectar – a signature blend of wild beauty, passionate patriotism and new-age sex appeal – there is no way you won’t return for a second slurp,” croons the Lonely Planet travel guide.
With its demure diversity, Bozeman is equally easy to love. Citizens can stroll down Main Street and experience the infectious charm of small town America, while international scientists conduct research in the world-class Center for Biofilm Engineering a few blocks away. Read More…
Local Beer on Tap
Local beers at the Brewers Festival. Photo by Brent Zundel
By Brent Zundel
For the MSU Exponent
September 15, 2011
Note: This piece was originally published as the feature in the Sept. 15, 2011, print edition of the Exponent.
Twenty-two different breweries brought a few beers each to the third annual Montana Brewers Festival last Friday, allowing Bozemanites to sample over 75 different brews. Held at the Gallatin County Fairgrounds, the event allowed attendees to sample as many beers as they wanted during the five and a half hours of general admission.
The most interesting aspect of the festival was its focus on high-quality craft brews made right here in Montana. Except for Missoula’s Big Sky Brewing, all of the larger, expected breweries were present.
Well-established breweries like Yellowstone Valley from Billings, Bozeman Brewing and Kettlehouse from Missoula served up their beers, but smaller breweries turned out strong for the event as well. While many Montanans regularly enjoy brews from the larger companies, this festival presented an excellent opportunity to sample hard-to-find beers.
Breweries from small towns like Wibaux and Red Lodge brought kegs of their beer to the festival. Due to limited distribution, these beers are often difficult to find even inside Montana. Beer from Glacier Brewing in Polson, for example, is available only in towns at about a three-hour radius from Polson.
Photo by Brent Zundel
The variety of breweries attests to the importance of beer in the Montana economy. Billings, the state’s largest city, hosts four microbreweries, but even tiny Wibaux, with a population of 589 people, opened up a new brewery in 2008.
Bozeman Brewing Company has called Bozeman home since 2001, while Madison River has been operating in nearby Belgrade since 2005. The 406 Brewing Company started up in Bozeman in January 2011. All three local breweries brought their beers to the festival. Read More…
Oil on the Yellowstone: Our Energy Future?
The Yellowstone River, roughly 40 miles above the location of the pipeline spill. Photo by Brent Zundel
By Brent Zundel
For the MSU Exponent
September 8, 2011
Two days before the fireworks of Independence Day 2011, Montanans found another, unexpected, flammable substance fouling the banks of the Yellowstone River near Laurel. The record floodwaters breached the Silvertip Pipeline, spewing oil into the surrounding waters.
Exxon initially estimated that 42,000 gallons of crude oil escaped into the longest undammed river in the lower 48 states, but, at that time, they also claimed that the pipeline had been shut off after only six minutes. Later, the Montana Department of Transportation showed that the pipeline was not fully sealed for 49 minutes — over eight times Exxon’s original estimate — but Exxon never updated their estimate for the amount of oil spilled. Read More…
Campus Crusade Partners with MSU Polo Team, Plans to Stage Actual Crusade
By Brent Zundel
For the MSU Exponent
March 31, 2011
Note: This satirical news article originally appeared as part of the Exponent’s annual April Fools’ Day edition, the Excrement.
In a move that has many members of the Bozeman community scratching their heads, MSU’s chapter of Campus Crusade for Christ has partnered with the polo team and announced plans to stage an actual crusade.
The polo team’s motivations were unclear, but sources point to a particularly painful loss at the hands of the Grizzlies last week. Many others believe the team is simply trying to raise student awareness of the fact that MSU has a polo club.
This sentiment was confirmed when the Exponent spoke with Peter Dawkins, a graduate student in religious studies. “I didn’t even know we had a polo team,” he said.
The MSU Archery and Fencing Clubs have also received invitations from CRU to participate.
CRU’s motivations have been more difficult to discern. Jerome Wood, a freshman member, claimed that the group was “tired of waging spiritual warfare against the powers of darkness that reside on campus” and wanted to wage a “literal crusade.” Read More…
Mikeservations: Mike is Missing
By “Mike” Brent Zundel
For the MSU Exponent
March 24, 2011
Note: Mikeservations, written by ex-Exponenter Mike Tarrant, was a weekly social commentary column run by the Exponent. Former Editor-in-chief Eric Dietrich remarked that the column “inspired both more complaints and (I’m told) more devout readership than almost any of our other content.”
At the Exponent, we are a dedicated bunch of student-journalists. That’s why the due date for all the articles in this week’s opinion section was, as always, the Thursday of the previous week.
Last Thursday, March 17, however, was different from every other Thursday. It was St. Patty’s Day.
As everyone who has met him already knows, Mike Tarrant enjoys a good beer, regardless of the time of day. He’s also from Butte.
With that evidence, understandably, no one has either heard from or seen Mike since he missed his St. Patty’s deadline. Anyone with information is encouraged to contact the Exponent office. Mike is easy to identify: He will be the one standing in the corner of the bar or party, drinking either Scotch or a Moose Drool, and glaring judgmentally at everyone else. Despite the persona he cultivates, he is safe to approach.
Last St. Patty’s Day, an individual who will remain nameless woke up in a minivan on blocks in an auto lot over five miles away from Uptown Butte, where he was last seen. Exponent members believe a similar fate befell Mike. Read More…
Public access under fire from Montana GOP
Public lands in the National Forest along the upper reaches of Lower Deer Creek, Montana. Photo by Brent Zundel
By Brent Zundel
For the MSU Exponent
March 3, 2011
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks employees might not be digging trenches in front of their offices around the state, but the agency is under fire from the Montana Legislature. Legislators are also attacking public access with over 150 bills that specifically target wildlife and public lands issues.
Some of the most ludicrous bills have been killed, but one of the most contentious still threatens Montanans. House Bill 309, sponsored by Rep. Jeff Welborn, R-Dillon, would gut the landmark 1985 Stream Access Law.
The result of conversations between landowners and recreationalists, the 1985 law allows public access in all rivers up to the high water mark, without regard to ownership of land below the river. In essence, it ensures that private citizens cannot own the rivers.
HB309 does not add any additional protection to private ditches – which are already protected under the old law. Instead, it would reclassify hundreds of miles of stream and river channels as irrigation ditches, thus inhibiting public access. Read More…
Undercover Operatives, Aerial Photography and an Apocalyptic Church
The Exponent’s Controversial 1988 Investigation of the Church Universal and Triumphant
An aerial photograph taken by then-Editor-in-Chief Chet Uber, showing the construction of fallout shelters made by burying two Burlington Northern rail cars on their land near Corwin Springs, Mont. From the March 3, 1988 edition of the Exponent.
By Brent Zundel
For the MSU Exponent
April 15, 2010
Author’s Note: This article, originally published as the feature of the April 15, 2010, edition of the Exponent, was the first in a two-part series that examined the controversy surrounding the Exponent’s reporting on the Church Universal and Triumphant during spring 1988.
With the spring semester ending, the Exponent is taking a hard, introspective look at, arguably, one of the most controversial periods of its 115-year history. The year was 1988. The Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT) had been in Montana for nearly three years, and Chet Uber was the editor-in-chief of the Exponent. The church and the Exponent were about to clash in a way that would leave a lasting impact on both.
Reacting initially to what he believed was an attempt to recruit Montana State University students, Uber began an extensive investigation of the church that included secret attempts to infiltrate them, aerial photographs of the CUT compound, and subsequent censorship by the ASMSU Senate. As a result of purchases Uber made to support this and other investigations, the issue also raised controversy over the Exponent’s budget.
The Church Universal and Triumphant
Elizabeth Clare Prophet. Image courtesy tsl.org
CUT is a New Age religious movement, founded originally as the Summit Lighthouse, by Mark Prophet, a traveling salesman from Wisconsin. Prophet met Elizabeth Clare Wulf in 1961. They had, she claimed, met before — in an earlier incarnation — in King Arthur’s Camelot: She was Guinevere, and he was Lancelot. Shortly after the 1961 meeting, they each left their spouses and married.
When Mark Prophet died, or “ascended,” as followers believe, in 1975, Elizabeth Prophet assumed control of the organization and renamed it the Church Universal and Triumphant. In 1981, Prophet married Ed Francis.
After stays in Colorado and later California, CUT purchased Malcolm Forbes’s 12,000-acre ranch in Paradise Valley in 1981. The organization sold its property in California and moved to Montana in 1986.
Apocalypse Now
Rumors and controversy have followed CUT everywhere it has moved, but at the time many Montanans were particularly leery of the organization. Elizabeth Prophet began to predict a nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States, because of “accelerated negative karma.”
An aerial photograph taken by then-Editor-in-Chief Chet Uber of one of the fallout shelters being constructed by burying a Burlington Northern rail car. From the March 3, 1988, edition of the Exponent.
In order to survive the impending nuclear apocalypse, the group began constructing a number of underground bomb shelters and stocking them with food and survival equipment on its ranch near Corwin Springs, which they named Glastonbury. After the nuclear exchange did not occur, Prophet claimed that group members’ prayers had averted disaster.
In 1989, Francis, Prophet’s husband, pleaded guilty to conspiring with fellow CUT member Vernon Hamilton to purchase $130,000 worth of weapons, including armor-piercing assault rifles, and 120,000 rounds of ammunition. They were arrested for using false identification to buy the arsenal. Read More…
Author
Mountain Solitaire Author Brent Zundel
MOUNTAIN SOLITAIRE 