Clips

Parents often hyperbolize to their children that they had to ski to school through heavy snow, uphill both ways. It may not have been uphill both ways, but Grethe-Lise Hagensen, head coach of the Montana State University Nordic ski team since 2003 and the 2010 United States Collegiate Ski Coaches Association Coach of the Year, did ski three kilometers each way to school every day.

Hagensen grew up on skis in Tromsø, Norway, 300 miles above the Arctic Circle. As a child, Hagensen's mother didn't have a driver's license and her family didn't have a television or phone. If they wanted to talk to a neighbor or go to town during the winter, skiing was the only option. It was also fun. Like many families in her city, the Hagensens would spend Sundays skiing to a cabin, or to get a candy bar or pop.

"We played a lot on skis," Hagensen recalled. "It's the best form of training because you aren't aware of the training as you are learning balance. Later, the technique will come."

Read more at MSU News.

A Montana State University graduate student has won a $94,000 fellowship for research that may improve fishways, or fish ladders, that help fish such as salmon and shad navigate dams and other obstacles to reach their spawning grounds.

Katey Plymesser, a doctoral candidate in civil engineering, was one of only 14 students nationally chosen as a Hydro Research Foundation fellow. The foundation’s $94,000 award will fund two years of research for Plymesser.

“It’s a pretty impressive thing to get one of these,” said Joel Cahoon, professor of civil engineering and Plymesser’s adviser. “The monetary award is greater than a lot of the well-known scholarships and there are fewer of them given out.”

Read more at Indian Country

MSU is helping develop oilseeds that may one day change the world

Even after working at Montana State University's Central Agricultural Research Center near Moccasin for 25 years, Dave Wichman is still excited about safflower.

He's standing in a field of the prickly plants under a surprisingly blue sky. The dried plants are mostly a spineless variety (better for picking and forage), but they still rake at his pants as he walks through.

Wichman, CARC's superintendent, hops onto the Wintersteiger small plot combine and mows down a few rows of safflower. Mountains surround him--the North and South Moccasins, Judiths, Snowies, Little Belts, Highwoods and the peaks of the Bear Paws. Three deer--two does and a little buck--stand and walk nonchalantly away from the low roar of the combine. Grasshoppers pop up from beneath the drying heads of orange and yellow-blossomed safflower.

From safflower and other oilseeds come biofuels. And industrial lubricants. And jet fuel, cooking oil and omega-rich beef. They are coaxed from the earth by sun and science and transformed into useful products through technological advances mixed with the trial and error of the scientific process. Researchers in MSU's College of Agriculture and Montana Agricultural Experiment Station are working on growing oilseeds adapted to Montana's harsh, dry conditions that just might make a better world.

More at MSU News Service

As I am driving to the Bozeman airport at 4:30 in the morning, squinting in the dark for a driveway to a house where I’m dropping one of my dogs off, I’m starting to wonder if I’m little crazy. Do people travel to the other end of the globe pregnant and toting a one-year-old? Is this a smart idea?

But it is too late. Tickets are purchased, cabañas are booked and my huge duffel bag is weighting down the back of the truck with Anders’ travel cot, board books, diapers and wipes, tot-friendly food and a change or two of clothing for me.

Read more at Women's Adventure.

WE'LL RAISES UP OUR GLASSES AGAINST EVIL FORCES, SINGING, "WHISKEY FOR MY MEN, BEER FOR MY HORSES!"… songwriter, Toby Keith

At the mention of the Farm to Table movement, you might think of buying beets at the farmer’s market, buying Flathead cherries from a roadside stand or dining on Montana-raised lamb at your favorite restaurant. But broaden your horizons a bit and let this sink in: The next time you hit the pub, ask for a shot of Montana whiskey.

The array of choices just might surprise you.

Microbreweries dot the state. A micro-distilled, local whiskey seems like a natural fit for Montana, but until recently one didn’t exist. In 2009, RoughStock Distillery in Bozeman became the first legal distillery in Montana since Prohibition and the first distillery to open its doors in the state in more than 100 years. A 2005 shift in Montana state legislation changed the Prohibition-era liquor laws to allow micro-distilleries to produce small batches of alcohol for limited distribution.

Read more at Big Sky Journal's site.