Yellowstone Valley Woman Magazine

COMPLIMENTARY

BILLINGS’ MOST READ MAGAZINE | MARCH/APRIL 2022

Building

Billings

a Better

Meet the women working to do just that

13

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Letter

FROM THE

Editor

WHEN I STEPPED INTO

Magazine. We are dreaming up new ways to honor women. We are crafting new opportunities to give back to this valley. We are looking for different approaches to strengthen your voice even more. We want to build more community.

my role as editor of YVW more than 16 years ago, I had no idea what this magazine meant to our valley. Over the years, I’ve come to realize that it is more than paper and ink. This magazine, which is celebrating 21 years this month, has created a vibrant community.

I’ve seen that through the touching emails I receive from readers telling us they loved an article or, better yet, an entire issue. I’ve seen that when I’ve been standing in the produce section at the grocery store only to have someone strike up a conversation about someone YVW put in the spotlight. My heart has been warmed when one woman called to get not one but a handful of subscriptions for the treasured women in her life for Christmas. I’ve seen it on our social media when one reader will give an “atta girl” to another who was featured and so many other women will chime in to sing her praises.

And, I was blown away when our Facebook and Instagram pages blew up this past December after we shared the photo of a pup at the Yellowstone Valley Animal Shelter that had been at the shelter for 128 days and would love a home for the holidays. That post was seen more than 55,000 times and had more than 650 shares. I can’t say I didn’t cry when I heard that brown-eyed shepherd found an amazing home within two and a half hours after our post hit our newsfeed. It was all because of you!

It was in these moments I realized just how much of a voice you, our cherished readers, have in literally everything we do.

Why do I share? It’s because we have a few fun and exciting things up our sleeves here at Yellowstone Valley Woman

6

YVW MAGAZINE

Throughout the year, look for announcements both on our website and on our social media channels. Some of our new projects will be directly driven by your input. With other ideas, we want your help so that we can make an even bigger impact. I wish I could let the cat out of the bag and share it all now, but the pieces are still being put together.

I share these tidbits because if you are not a follower of ours on Facebook or Instagram, now is the time to click “Follow.” You won’t want to miss what we’ve got coming down the pike!

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this issue we’ve cooked up.

The women inside are a part of the heart of Billings and, as you read their stories, you’ll see they are working hard to make our town brighter than ever before. We are so happy to be able to share some of the great things they are championing.

So, flip through the pages and as you do, know that we appreciate you, our amazing readers. You have heart and soul and you have always been so willing to share it with us!

Enjoy this issue!

Julie

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MARCH/APRIL 2022 On The Cover

13 BUILDING A BETTER BILLINGS

Meet the women working to do just that

Features

14 BETTER OFF IN BILLINGS

The women determined to help Billings shine

18 SHARING A PASSION FOR COMMUNITY

30

The women behind some of Billings industrial revitalization

24 A DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH

Interest sparked in turning Billings’ Fifth Avenue Corridor into a city hot spot

30 TAKING BILLINGS TO THE NEXT LEVEL Meet Public Works Director Debi Meling

38 THE 1909 SOCIETY

Your ticket to keep the Billings Depot thriving

40 MEET DR. SARAH COUNTS

Balancing Life & Bringing New Care to Billings

46 REMARKABLE WOMEN

Inspiring & Impacting Change

6 5

50 STETHOSCOPES AND STILETTOS

Enterprising Woman Linda Brooks used her nursing career to help launch her dream business

56 FOR THE LOVE OF SHOES

The women who can't live without their collections

68 BIG RISINGS IN A SMALL SPACE

A look inside Samurai Sue’s Everyday Foods

YVW Home

74 8

YVW MAGAZINE

80 THE APPRENTICE

Kitchen & Bath Designer Megan Reed learned on the job and earned national honors

86 HIGH STYLE

What’s New in Kitchen & Bath Design

92 A BRIGHTER PATH FOR THE FUTURE

Couple returns to their roots with a major home remodel

2 9

IN EVERY ISSUE 36 62 74 90

KAREN GROSZ: The Great Resignation FASHION: Very Peri TASTE OF THE VALLEY: Your Personal Sous Chef LOOK WHAT WE FOUND: Spring Showstopper

MEET the STAFF PUBLISHER & EDITOR JULIE KOERBER julie@yellowstonevalleywoman.com COPY EDITOR ED KEMMICK SPECIAL SECTION EDITOR LAURA BAILEY

ED KEMMICK

LAURA BAILEY

TERRY PERKINS

TRISH SCOZZARI

LYNN LANGELIERS

MICHELE KONZEN

Copy Editor / Writer

Special Section Editor Social Media / Writer

Sales Executive

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 MICHELE KONZEN: 406-690-4539 michele@yellowstonevalleywoman.com

Sales Executive / Writer

Sales Executive

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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

MELANIE FABRIZIUS ON THE COVER Photography

by Daniel Sullivan

Design

WE

DANIEL SULLIVAN Photography

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OUR COMMUNITY PARTNERS

©2022 Media I Sixteen All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher.

MARCH/APRIL 2022

9

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Building

a Better

Billings MEET THE WOMEN WORKING TO DO JUST THAT

WHEN YOU BUILD COMMUNITY,

you foster connections. The spirit of community works toward building something that many can enjoy. In this issue of YVW, we targeted a handful of women who are rolling up their sleeves to build a better Billings. One is building infrastructure that will take our city well into the future. Another is looking to spruce up a section of town that many would prefer to ignore. A few are directing their passions to turn an industrial area of Billings into a hot spot for entertainment, recreation and relaxation.

And a handful more are donning hats to build the awareness of Billings outside of our city’s borders. So, dive into this series of stories and meet the women working hard to build a better Billings. ✻

MARCH/APRIL 2022

13

AMANDA WHEN

JULIE AMANDA

Amanda is a Better Of f in Billings ambassador.

It’s a program sponsored by Billings Works, a workforce THE WOMEN DETERMINED development p r o g r a m t h a t ’s TO HELP BILLINGS SHINE offered through Big Sky Economic written by LAURA BAILEY Development. Better photography by SARAH KINDSFATHER Off in Billings aims to help & MADDIE NICHOLE local businesses find and retain skilled workers. Hiring managers can refer their prospective “I don’t know,” he says. “I thought she must know you.” employees to ambassadors, who help them Nope. Amanda had never met the woman. The couple laughed it pitch Billings. off, but the more Amanda paid attention, the more she noticed “They might be really good at showcasing their company but that people in Billings – at the time it was their new hometown not so good at showcasing Billings and what’s great about the – would start friendly conversations, pay compliments and community,” says Marcell Bruski, the director of marketing at Big generally act with unexpected kindness.

Sky Economic Development. “That’s where we come in.”

“It was refreshing to come to a place where people are so Marcell oversees Billings Works and works closely with Amanda welcoming,” Amanda says. “People will talk to you even if they and the other Better Off in Billings ambassadors. There are 17 don’t know you. This was a new phenomenon for us.” ambassadors ready and waiting to answer people’s questions Amanda and her husband had lived and worked in larger cities about Billings. Each one has a niche. Some like to talk about in four states before landing in Billings, and she says there’s no outdoor recreation, community amenities or events. Some like to place that compares to it. answer questions about education or healthcare or housing or the business climate.

“It’s the people,” she says. “When they ask you how you are, they really mean it.”

Some ambassadors have lived here all their lives, while others are Boerboom’s daughter was about a year and a half old, an interesting pattern started to emerge. Amanda was at the grocery store when she happened to look over and see an older woman talking to Amanda’s husband and daughter, who was tucked into her stroller.

Amanda assumed that her husband knew the woman, and when they were loading groceries into the car, Amanda asked him who she was.

14

YVW MAGAZINE

MARCELL transplants. All of them are passionate about Billings, and they are all well-connected. If you’re new to Billings and you want to take a mountain bike ride or brewery tour, they can point you in the right direction. If you’re curious about the schools in Billings, or where to take your kids to play, they will have the perfect place in mind. If you’re curious about home prices, the daily commute for most workers or the best places for brunch, they’ve got you covered there, too.

Better Off in Billings ambassadors are also an independent voice not affiliated with any company or organization. They’re honest about Billings’s drawbacks, too.

“They are just community members who want to meet you and talk about Billings,” Marcell says.

Julie Seedhouse is a local real estate agent and Better Off in Billings ambassador. She’s also one of Billings’ biggest cheerleaders.

“I’m not a native of Billings but I wouldn’t choose to live anywhere else,” Julie says. “Billings has all the amenities of a bigger city but still has a small-town feel.”

She’s quick to point out the affordable housing, easy commute and the opportunity to live in Billings and work remotely.

Cultural draws like the Billing Symphony, Yellowstone Art Museum and Alberta Bair Theater attract some newcomers, while others love the idea that they’re just an hour’s drive from the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, and surrounded by miles of hiking and biking trails, or world-class fly fishing on the banks of the Stillwater and Yellowstone rivers.

IRENE Irene Ramirez, also a Better Off in Billings ambassador, is in her 20s and moved to Billings from Los Angeles in 2015 to attend college. Since then, she’s graduated, married and purchased a home. Irene has put down roots in Billings and is proud of how easy it is to thrive in Billings. She points to downtown Billings, which is home to dozens of small, locally owned businesses.

“There’s so much room to grow here,” she says. “If you have an idea, this is the place where you can grow that idea.”

Irene and her husband enjoy walks at Norm’s Island, the summer concerts at Josephine Crossing, Alive After Five concerts and breakfast at Stella’s. Irene always encourages visitors to take in a sunrise from the Rims.

“There’s nothing like the view from the Rims,” she says.

Like Irene, Marcell moved to Billings in 2013 to attend college.

Originally from Ekalaka, she developed a love for Billings and ended up settling here. Like Julie, Amanda, Irene and the other ambassadors, Marcell has become a believer that we’re all “better off in Billings.”

“It’s the people who make this community what it is,” Marcell says. ✻

FOR MORE INFORMATION

about Billings Works, go to BillingsWorks.org. Better Off in Billings ambassadors can be found at billingsworks.org/ambassadors.

“No matter what you like to do, it’s easy to find a place to connect in Billings,” Julie says.

MARCH/APRIL 2022

15

w e Big SkyN Economic Development’s

digs

HISTORIC MONTANA NATIONAL BANK WILL BE THE ECONOMIC POWERHOUSE’S NEW HOME

A full interior reconstruction is underway with work being done by general contractor TW Clark and Cushing Terrell, architects. Big Sky Economic Development received a $2 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration and a sizeable donation from Zoot Enterprises, the building’s previous owner, to purchase and renovate the property.

The first floor is laid out to become a coworking space for Rock31, Big Sky Economic Development’s entrepreneur development program. The space, which includes desks, offices, meeting rooms, mail services and access to technology, will also be open to the public, much like a gym membership with dropin opportunities offered as well.

The second floor, dedicated to training, will also be open to the public, and will be equipped with the most up-to-date technology for virtual, in-person and hybrid meetings. It’s estimated that the event space can accommodate up to 100 people The top floor will be offices for Big Sky Economic Development staff. The open workspace model will facilitate collaboration, Rogers says.

“We designed the space with growth in mind,” she adds.

One of the features of the building is a coffee shop on the main level that will be an incubator for entrepreneurs interested in operating a coffee shop or other food service business. They’ll have the opportunity to learn firsthand how the business works before making a full-time commitment on their own, Rogers says.

LATER THIS SPRING,

Big Sky Economic Development will be moving to a new location in downtown Billings. The staff and programs will take up residence in the shadow of Skypoint in what’s long been known as the Montana National Bank, at Broadway and Second Avenue North. The four-story building will provide a co-working space on the main and lower levels, training space on the second floor and offices on the third floor.

“Our goal is to make that corner a vibrant space in downtown – a hub with all these incredible resources that works for the good of our community,” says Becky Rogers, operations director at Big Sky Economic Development.

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YVW MAGAZINE

Efforts are underway to have the building listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and as part of the research necessary for that it was discovered that Montana National Bank, built in 1918, was one of only a handful of Montana banks that survived the Great Depression.

“It was a historical hub of economic development in its day,” Rogers says. ✻

TOURS OF THE BUILDING are offered weekly. To join one, email tours@bigskyeda.org

THE MAIN FLOOR OFFERS SHARED WORKING SPACES, PRIVATE OFFICES AND MEETING ROOMS ALONG WITH SPACE FOR BARISTAS DEVELOPING CAFESTYLE PRODUCTS TO WORK HANDS-ON WITH A MENTOR.

ON THE SECOND-FLOOR MEZZANINE, OPENINGS ORIGINAL TO THE 1918 PORTION OF THE BUILDING ARE BEING EXPOSED ONCE AGAIN AND TURNED INTO WINDOW SEATS.

THE SECOND FLOOR SEATS UP TO 60 PEOPLE FOR TRAINING AND EVENTS. RENDERINGS COURTESY CUSHING TERRELL

MARCH/APRIL 2022

17

Sharing a

passion for

community

THE WOMEN BEHIND SOME OF BILLINGS INDUSTRIAL REVITALIZATION written by JACI WEBB photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

THERE IS MAGIC IN

the Billings Industrial Revitalization District (BIRD), a feeling like anything could sprout in this gritty urban landscape between North 22nd Street to MetraPark.

Over the last few decades in the BIRD, innovative industries have endured the boom-and-bust economic cycle, and now the Covid pandemic. Industrious, community-minded people have helped shape the revitalization efforts here, focusing on the needs of the community and a shared vision to turn the BIRD into useful, attractive space. Sprouts of hope and new development mix with Quonset huts and warehouses scattered across the BIRD.

AMANDA 18

YVW MAGAZINE

Three of the most noticeable success stories in the BIRD are Red Oxx Manufacturing and Events Lawn, the Pub Station and future Pub Station Pavilion, and the Explorers Academy-Head Start. Three Billings women are behind all three enterprises.

Amanda Markel, her husband, Jim Jr., and their business partner, Perry Jones, run Red Oxx, a business that Jim’s father Jim started in 1986.

Amanda joined the team in 2006 with a background in retail operations. The business faced challenges during the pandemic as one of its major manufactured items was travel bags and people aren’t traveling as much. Red Oxx began focusing more on other merchandise, including bags for the railroad industry and fire departments.

They also turned a gravel parking lot into an event space, artfully landscaped to fit the urban vibe with a fence made of recycled iron. The space launched with Oxxfest in 2019 and expanded from there, integrating touring bands, like Charley Crockett last summer, with community and private events. They partnered with the Pub Station and 1111 Presents to present concerts and offered the space to be rented for private events.

The Events Lawn began as a way to create a community space and show appreciation for the support they received from the community over the years, but it has also turned into another source of revenue for Red Oxx. Amanda says she’s been intrigued by the BIRD

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even before it had a name, back in the days when her dad was a meatpacker at the old Pierce Packing on First Avenue North and would come home at night smelling of bacon.

ANN

“We believe in this area – the BIRD – and we just love it down here. It still is an eclectic mix of manufacturing, ag and industrial space,” Amanda says.

Amanda considers herself lucky to have been mentored by strong, yet thoughtful and kind, women over the years, including her boss at Sears, Linda McGillen, and her mother and grandmother.

“Linda understands the value and the gift of work. My generation was two years, then climb up the ladder. You didn’t even have time to implement your ideas,” Amanda says.

Amanda’s mother and grandmother and her close-knit family instilled in her the idea that you need to treat people with respect and kindness.

WE BELIEVE IN THIS AREA – THE BIRD – AND WE JUST LOVE IT DOWN HERE. IT STILL IS AN ECLECTIC MIX OF MANUFACTURING, AG AND INDUSTRIAL SPACE. — Amanda Markel

“What’s important is to love and be loved,” Amanda says.

Red Oxx’s low staff turnover rate speaks volumes about the importance of Amanda’s early lessons in kindness.

Like Amanda and Jim, Ann Kosempa and her husband and business partner Sean Lynch, have brought their vision to Billings. Last fall, they revealed plans to turn an RV storage area at 203 N. 17th St. into the Pub Station Pavilion, which will hold up to 3,000 people. It may host some local shows as early as this summer although they don’t expect to open the venue to touring bands until 2023.

Ann and Sean turned the old bus station on First Avenue into the popular Pub Station, which hosts live music by touring and local bands. Even though the pandemic caught them off guard 20

YVW MAGAZINE

Billings Industrial Revitalization District (BIRD)

MARCH/APRIL 2022

21

and forced them to shut down in the spring of 2020, losing some employees, Ann and Sean have forged ahead and are now expanding the live music. They couldn’t do that without local support, Ann says.

“The one thing I do know about Billings and the reason why I love being here, is the people who support us,” Ann says. “It’s humbling.”

Their initial timeframe to buy the building where the Pub Station is housed was 10 years, yet they were able to purchase it in half that time.

Ann believes in downtown Billings and is excited to incorporate the BIRD into their plans. She lives in the area and walks everywhere.

JANICE

“Part of the culture of downtown is I run into people and have that face-to-face contact with them,” she says.

“That is so important right now.”

Ann says it’s worth noting the Pub Station and 1111 Presents do not work in isolation. Promoting talented acts involves working with the other Billings venues, including the Alberta Bair Theater, where they presented Josh Turner and the Pixies, and MetraPark, where they booked Kenny G. In the music business, their name carries a solid reputation for putting on quality shows and attracting an audience. Ann is also making her mark across Montana as a strong businesswoman. She serves as the

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YVW MAGAZINE

chair of Big Sky Economic Development and is a member of the Downtown Billings Association Board.

“Their brains are rapidly growing,” Janice says. “It is the best time for intervention. We’re setting these kids up for school and life.”

A commitment to making the community better is something Janice King shares with Ann Kosempa and Amanda Markel. In her role as executive director of the Explorers Academy-Head Start, King is working on staff retention, engaging with families, and partnering with other community organizations.

One of the four campuses for Explorers Academy-Head Start is housed in the former North Park Elementary School at 615 N. 19th St., which is in the neighborhood they serve. Families feel more connected to the facility because it is part of their community.

“I want to be the best employer in Yellowstone County,” Janice says.

When she took over her position in March 2020, Janice was the fourth director in two years, and she had to work hard to build trust among her staff. She supervises 105 staff members spread over four facilities with 360 children enrolled.

“Head Start is really a comprehensive program,” Janice says, noting that some people incorrectly assume it is only a daycare or a preschool.

Explorers Academy-Head Start also offers nutrition, providing two meals a day for the children, and snacks. Mental health services, parenting programs and CPR training are all part of the services the federally funded program offers.

“The one unique characteristic is we serve the neediest kids in the toughest neighborhoods,” Janice says. “We work with families dealing with homelessness, drug addiction and foster care.”

The Explorers Academy-Head Start works with youths ages 3 to 5, which is a crucial time in their development.

BECOME A MEMBER OF THE

Janice is looking forward to being able to bring volunteers back into the classrooms. In the meantime, community members are needed to help sort clothing and to clean. She invites the public down to witness an art project spruce up the neighborhood later this year as the asphalt on North 19th Street between the Explorers Academy-Head Start and North Park is painted.

If there is one thing King, Kosempa and Markel have in common, it’s their spirit of community — from turning parking lots into attractive concert venues and community gathering spaces to educating the next generation to face challenges in a complex world. These three women are dedicated to helping transform the core of downtown Billings and, piece by piece, are turning what was once just a hot spot for industry into a cultural community destination. ✻

JACI WEBB, writer

Jaci has spent more than three decades working as a journalist for The Billings Gazette and most recently, The Laurel Outlook. She serves as Student Publications Director at Rocky Mountain College.

She and her husband Chris have two daughters and a grandson.

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A Diamond in the

Rough INTEREST SPARKED IN TURNING BILLINGS’ FIFTH AVENUE CORRIDOR INTO A CITY HOT SPOT

written by ED KEMMICK photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN AND COURTESY SANDERSON STEWART

THE FIFTH AVENUE CORRIDOR SOUGHT INSPIRATION FROM MISSOULA'S MONTANA RAIL LINK PARK WITH IT'S 4-1/2 ACRES OF GREENWAYS AND RECREATION SPOTS. 24

YVW MAGAZINE

YOU MAY NEVER

have heard of the Fifth Avenue North Corridor, but if you’ve been in Billings for any length of time, you’ve probably seen it.

The railroad corridor is two miles long and stretches west from near the entrance to MetraPark almost to the YMCA on North 32nd Street. The corridor runs, as you might expect, between Fourth and Sixth avenues north. For most of its length it is home to a railroad spur that still serves a handful of businesses, though no tracks remain west of North 26th Street.

There is a ghost-town feel to most of the corridor now, with wide expanses of dirt and gravel flanked by old warehouses, industrial shops and Quonset huts. In the coming years, it might be something else entirely — a linear park with bicycle and pedestrian trails, landscaping, lighting, benches, gathering spaces, bathrooms and public art.

firm headquartered in Billings.

Lauren was the lead planner on the Fifth Avenue North Corridor Feasibility Study, commissioned by the Yellowstone County Planning Board, which oversees transportation planning for the Billings urban area. The study was presented to the community in the spring of 2021 after a year of research and design work, planning, public engagement and stakeholder meetings. Much work remains to be done, but the goal of having a nonmotorized travel corridor stretching from MetraPark to the core of downtown Billings now has a recognizable blueprint.

The hope is that work on the corridor will spark “complementary and adjacent redevelopment of some of those buildings and some of the vacant properties,” Lauren says — development that could include new businesses and new housing.

A feasibility study completed last year envisions changing that strip of mostly overlooked land in the heart of Billings into an attraction in its own right, a high plains version of the San Antonio River Walk. Mayor Bill Cole calls it “a diamond in the rough whose value just now is being discovered.”

Kristi Drake, director of TrailNet, which advocates for bicycle and pedestrian trails in Billings, says the redeveloped corridor “would be huge for our city, and a huge benefit for businesses as well.” She sees the possibility of new coffeeshops, breweries and similar establishments, a place “just buzzing with commerce where pedestrians aren’t having to battle with traffic.”

Few people have spent more time thinking of what that corridor might one day become than Lauren Waterton, senior land planner at Sanderson Stewart, a civil engineering, planning and design

The concept of redeveloping the railroad corridor has been floating around for decades. It was talked about in the Downtown Billings Framework Plan, which was completed in 1997, and it was MARCH/APRIL 2022

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mentioned that same year in a report on the possibility of renovating the old Parmly Billings Library. Architect Don Olsen, who worked on the library plan, once said the Fifth Avenue Corridor is “an amenity a lot of cities would give anything to have.”

Earlier attempts to do something with the corridor foundered in the face of opposition from some of the businesses that are still serviced by trains using the spur. The new plan, accordingly, breaks the corridor into four distinct sections and calls for incremental development, saving the most active rail district for the future, whenever rail service is no longer needed.

“It’s a two-mile corridor,” Lauren says.

“That’s a tremendously long corridor to build a lot of improvements on. But if you take it in small chunks and you build off of it, you can start to build a corridor out in a way that supports adjacent properties, and in a way that supports the neighborhoods.

And suddenly you’ve got something.”

One of the key sections, and where the plan Lauren shepherded to completion suggests starting, is close to the middle, and would encompass one of the most problematic obstacles—the crossing of North 27th Street near the Yellowstone Art Museum.

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Eventually, the corridor would also take in the railroad line that runs from Fifth Avenue to Montana Avenue. In its entirety, the project would connect the downtown with MetraPark, with bustling Montana Avenue and with the East Billings Urban Renewal District.

As Mayor Cole notes, “Downtown is moving east.” And with the continued redevelopment of East Billings and plans

by Yellowstone County to add landscaping and other improvements to the MetraPark entrance near the end of the rail corridor, he says, “all those things together will make for a fabulous connection between the Fifth Avenue Corridor and the Metra.”

As the feasibility study points out, redevelopment of old railroad property is hardly uncommon throughout the country, and similar projects have already been completed in Montana, including in Kalispell and Missoula. The experience of

project location

Billings’ Fifth Avenue Corridor

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other cities suggests that all rail uses in the corridor will end someday, Lauren says.

“So, how can you as a community be planning for that inevitability?” she asks. “We need to be thinking along that parallel line — let’s do something now and also be planning for the future.”

The most important next step is working with Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, which owns the land underlying the corridor, to get a clear understanding of railroad use in the area, as well of uses in the right-of-way and on property adjacent to the right-of-way. Then, more detailed engineering and design work can be done to develop improvements and safety features that are acceptable to BNSF. Very rough estimates put a price tag for full redevelopment of the entire corridor at somewhere between $4 million and $6 million, and the study identifies funding sources that include city of Billings funds, targeted assessments, nonprofit foundations and a wide variety of state and federal grants.

But that’s all in the future. The task in front of city, county and economic development officials now is to move the feasibility study into an active redevelopment project.

“It’s exciting,” Cole says. “When developed, the corridor will link downtown with the Metra and the Heights and set off a rush of redevelopment in the East Billings District. … This could be huge.

It could just be really, really cool.” ✻

MEET Waterton

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THE WOMAN BEHIND THE 5TH AVENUE CORRIDOR PROJECT Lauren Waterton joined Sanderson Stewart 10 years ago as the engineering firm’s first land planner. She worked in the company’s Bozeman office for most of that time, but when her son was nearing high school graduation in 2020 and her husband got a college teaching job in Ashland, Oregon, they made the move to the city in southwestern Oregon.

When she was planning the move, she was worried about how difficult it might be to start working remotely for Sanderson Stewart.

“Little did I know when I thought of it that the entire world would be working remotely,” she says. “So, it was actually an easier transition than I thought it would be.”

Though many meetings with stakeholders and members of the public took place via the internet, Lauren still traveled often to Billings, as she had during her time in Bozeman, to meet with landowners and others face to face, and to familiarize herself with the Fifth Avenue North Corridor.

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She says the Fifth Avenue project has been a natural one for her and for Sanderson Stewart because “it was a project that really fits with the skills that we have at our company — the combination of planning, urban design, placemaking and transportation.” ✻

TO LOOK AT THE FIFTH AVENUE CORRIDOR FEASIBILITY STUDY, or to watch a short video on the project, go to sandersonstewart.com/ projects/5thavenue.

“If you don’t like something, change it.

If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” ~ Maya Angelou

MARCH/APRIL 2022

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takingto the billings

next level MEET PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR DEBI MELING written by ED KEMMICK photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

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DURING THE 15 YEARS she spent as city engineer in the city of Billings Public Works Department, Debi Meling truly loved her job.

“When you’d see something wrong in the city — you’d be driving and you’d say, ‘Oh, that’s not right.

We need a turn lane there.’

And you’d do it! It was just the coolest thing, to actually see problems in your community and fix them,” she says. “So, I thought it was the perfect job.”

Why, then, did she decide to apply for the position of public works director after David Mumford announced he was going to retire in the summer of 2020?

“At the end of the day,” Meling says, “I felt like my impact on the community had been maximized in my job as an engineer. And so I felt like, even though I was enjoying my job, I maybe wasn’t making a difference anymore to the level that I wanted to. I guess I saw the opportunity to start having more impact again.”

City Administrator Chris Kukulski obviously believed Meling was up to the challenge. He decided to hire her as the new director after he and a city committee looked at 20-some applicants from all over the country. In the end, it came down to Meling and a candidate from Texas.

“She really was head and shoulders above the competition,” Kukulski says, “not only in her experience and her experience specific to Billings, but just her attitude, her approach to successfully leading a team and a department. And so far, she’s been doing a really fantastic job.”

Although the Public Works Department is not directly involved in economic development, it paves the way for it, literally and figuratively, providing all the infrastructure—roads, bridges, water lines and trash and sewer services—without which economic development is impossible.

As such, the biggest task facing Meling is shepherding a new water-treatment plant to completion over the next several years.

Originally budgeted at $140 million, the new water plant will be

located south of the Shiloh Conservation Area along Hesper Road near King Avenue West, with a groundbreaking scheduled for this summer.

“Water is the key to everything,” Meling says. Rapidly growing Bozeman is expected to exhaust its water rights in the next 10 to 15 years, while Billings has enough water rights to support a city of 450,000 people. But the city of Billings needs a new plant to increase production for an expanding population, and to draw water from more than just one source on the Yellowstone River, as it does now, to prevent a crisis if something were to jeopardize that source.

“Having good, relatively low-cost water—I don’t know how a city MARCH/APRIL 2022

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would grow and expand and be healthy if you didn’t have that,” Meling says. “It’s pretty essential.”

The new plant is likely to have an even greater impact on the quality of life in the Billings area because plans call for creating two reservoirs encompassing 160 acres of water surface, with a depth of up to 22 feet. Lake Elmo in the Heights, by contrast, covers about 120 acres to a depth of eight feet. The city hopes a combination of public and private funds can be used to develop recreational amenities around the new water plant— including fishing, swimming, picnicking and nonmotorized boating.

“If we have the blank canvas there,” Meling says, referring to the reservoirs, “then the community can add what they want to it.”

BILLINGS NEW WATER TREATMENT PLANT WILL BE LOCATED NEAR KING AVENUE WEST, WITH A GROUNDBREAKING SCHEDULED FOR THIS SUMMER.

RENDERING COURTESY LAND DESIGN, INC. 32

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Meling has witnessed growth in more than one booming city. A native of Kalispell, she earned an engineering degree from Montana State University in Bozeman and then worked with her husband, Todd, also an engineer, at the Hanford Site, a decommissioned nuclear production complex in Washington state. Then, still employed by the same international consulting firm, she worked in Boise for a couple of years before spending another two years with the city of Boise’s water

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When her husband took a job in Billings in 2000, Meling was hired by the Montana Power Co., and then by the engineering firm Morrison-Maierle, consulting on water- and sewer-related projects. She left that job to become the city engineer 16 years ago and took over as department director in December 2020.

Meling, 50, is the first Public Works director in the history of Billings, and when she earned her engineering degree from MSU, women were relatively scarce in the profession.

“There are still people who are more comfortable working with men in this field, and that’s OK,” she says. “I’m not out to change every single person. … I learned early on that I could fight it or learn to work with it, and that’s kind of where I went.”

Ultimately, she says, that fact that she is the first woman in her position

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shouldn’t matter much. “I kind of hope we’ve reached the point where it’s not a milestone,” she says. “I think it’s great if nobody notices. That means we’ve really come to where we need to be.”

Meling now oversees 265 employees and infrastructure valued at $6 billion.

No other department comes close to Public Works in terms of investment.

Over the next five years, the city is scheduled to spend just shy of $548 million on capital improvement projects. Public Works alone accounts for nearly $364 million of that total.

And as Meling says, those projects are crucial for economic development.

Since taking over as director, one big development Meling played a role in involves a new Coca-Cola bottling plant off South Frontage Road near the Harley-Davidson dealership. The plant will require huge amounts of water, and the land on which it will sit was not within city limits.

But Coca-Cola agreed to have the land annexed into the city, and the city agreed to run water and sewer lines— which now dead-end at Elysian School nearly a mile away—out to the plant.

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City Administrator Kukulski said the new water and sewer lines will open up another 60 acres of raw ground to additional commercial development.

During negotiations with Coca-Cola, Kukulski said, “Debi was in the middle and absolutely saying, ‘How do we make this work? How do we make this happen?’”

Even more mundane projects that are scheduled, like major upgrades to 32nd Street West and Mullowney Lane, are vital to continuing development, Meling says.

“We’re always looking for how to take our community to the next level,” she says. “We’re at that point where we’re a city now. We’re not a town, and so we have city problems. So, we have to find better ways to do what we do and make it still affordable to live here.”

As part of her new job, Meling has gone out at least a dozen times with snowplow, garbage and other crews to get a firsthand look at the operations she oversees.

“Those have been fun days,” she says.

WE’RE AT THAT POINT WHERE WE’RE A CITY NOW. WE’RE NOT A TOWN, AND SO WE HAVE CITY PROBLEMS. SO, WE HAVE TO FIND BETTER WAYS TO DO WHAT WE DO AND MAKE IT STILL AFFORDABLE TO LIVE HERE.

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On top of everything else she does, Debi Meling continues to be heavily involved in SAM’s Run, an annual event that focuses on suicide prevention and mental health awareness.

The event was started in 2016, a year after Meling’s 13-year-old son, Sam, who was one on the cross-country team at the Laurel Middle School, took his own life in 2015. SAM’s Run (SAM stands for Suicide prevention and Awareness of Mental health) is co-sponsored by Step In (www.stepin406.com) and the Sam Meling Memorial Foundation.

Celebrating 15 Years of Wellness!

Debi Meling lives in Laurel with her husband, Todd, and their daughter, Lucy, a sophomore at Billings Central Catholic High School.

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THE GREAT

Resignation

MY FRIEND TINA OFTEN CALLS

YV W CO LUMIST

written by KAREN GROSZ

it “in the time before” when talking about life and business before Covid waltzed onto the stage and made itself part of our reality.

Sometimes we laugh when she says it, sometimes we cry. I am betting you feel quite the same.

There were things “in the time before” that we did without thinking, like run into the grocery store for one item with nary a thought as to what that could mean to our health. There are things that we miss, like milestone celebrations without masks. And then, there’s the overarching aroma of hand sanitizer. The time before. It’s like the romanticized good old days, only not that long ago.

As we have journeyed through Covid, I’ve been endlessly fascinated about what we are lamenting and what we are growing towards both as individuals and a society. I went into Covid with both the loss of my mom and all of my scheduled team-building events on the day the world shut down. I soon found myself sitting on the couch trying to figure out who I would be both in the moment and when the pandemic ended.

It wasn’t a pretty sight. There was ice cream on my T-shirt and tears on my cheeks as I screamed at the TV. Then, in an act of divine grace, I was reminded there were still things I could control, things I could use this time to improve, like my fitness, and change, like my wall colors. I decided that,

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by damn, I would come out of Covid with a stronger business and stronger biceps, and I did. I found that I was not alone, that there were legions of people determined to not just survive, but thrive, even in a world gone mad.

And now, here we are, two years later, still in pandemic mode, still trying to figure out what it all means, and discovering that the questions have led to a new phenomenon, The Great Resignation.

The Great Resignation started as The Great Quit. Frontline workers quickly burnt out under pandemic demands or discovered that quitting and taking a job down the street for $1 an hour more was not just possible, it was kind of fun. As the job market went from an employer’s market, with people feeling lucky to have their job, to an employee’s market, where employers with millions of open jobs offered signing bonuses, extended benefits and blue-sky promises.

Next came the professionals, the degreed and the early retirees, all marching out the door with heads held high, anxious for change. As a coach who helps individuals and teams deal with change, I can tell you that finding people anxious for change, instead of fighting it, is not what I am used to seeing!

Millions of people seem to be asking themselves my favorite

question, what’s next? If they are tired of dead-end jobs, curious about entrepreneurship, or wondering why they continue to commute when their home office feels safer, this feels like their time.

Steve Arveschoug, executive director of Big Sky Economic Development Authority, recently mentioned to me that The Great Resignation fascinates him, and that he feels people who are nearing retirement in the next 10 years or so seem to be saying “this change is for me.”

They have done the time, slogged through Zoo Lights the duties of life, and are at a point where Take want time out of the frenzy, they to not justholiday have ashopping job, but to love pack up the family in the car that job.and enjoy a magical holiday light display during ZooMontana’s

counseled more than 100 new women-owned businesses. Their training calendar is brimming with more who are learning how to be entrepreneurs. Women are stepping into new roles and titles, seeking out their dream jobs instead of waiting for someday, as someday seems to have landed in their laps with a fever and a cough.

The Great Resignation, while creating strife for employers, is also giving them a chance to say, “out with the old and in with the new,” in a graceful manner.

As people& leave Beauty the positions, Bea st those positions are reevaluated, redesigned or eliminated.

Billings Studio Theatre presents “Disney’s Beautythe and the Beast Policies that no longer serve greater good Junior,” January 10th-13th.

Brainyextinguished, and beautiful Belle yearns to escape are being and strategic plans include focus culture than they did her narrow and restricted life more including heron brute of a suitor, Gaston. theastime before.

Hoping these andBeast’s other Belle gets adventurousinand a result becomes a captive in the measures will right the ship, or atand least stop enchanted castle! Dancing flatware, menacing wolves singing the rocking as people come and go, seems to furniture fill the stage with thrills during this beloved fairy tale about be the pastime of executives everywhere.

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Covid, with all its pain, have given 15th, and 20th-24th fromseems 5pm toto 9pm each night. zo o m o n t a na . org people the gift of reflection, the opportunity to reevaluate the current status of life and seek to live not just inse the hawks moment, but to Cha Rodeo live with a new dedication to tomorrow’s Touted as one of the best rough stock rodeos in America, the Chase moments as well. Employers are stepping Hawks Rodeo takes place in the Rimrock Auto Arena on December up, reevaluating everything about their 22nd.Top cowboys stock come straight from the National Finals organizations andand making improvements Rodeo in Las Vegas to compete right on the fly instead of dragging them outhere for in Billings, Montana.

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Association works to bring comfort and assistance to families during According to Fortune Daily times of tragedy and crisis.m e t r awriter p a r k .cLance om

Lambert in an article titled “The Great Resignation is No Joke,” 73 percent of CEOs feel that The Great Resignation is the most likely external issue to disrupt their business growth. Fifty-seven percent also say that attracting and retaining talent is their organization’s biggest focus. The churning of the employee pool will cost business billions of dollars in 2022 as companies find and train new employees and miss out on opportunities they simply don’t have the bandwidth to take on.

IN 2021

Women who began leaving the workforce as soon as the pandemic started are using these facts to their advantage. At first, as “the time before” ground to a halt, women seemed to feel the need to spend time at home protecting their families from the virus, and to participate in the schooling of their children. Now women are using this as an opportunity to demand more flexible schedules, improved childcare benefits and, some would say at long last, to demand and get a dramatic increase in their salaries.

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In Montana, approximately 15,000 women started new businesses s s i c aSmall @ b i l l iBusiness n g s 3 6 5 .c Development om in 2021, and our j elocal Center

comedy, theater improv, one act plays, musicals, performance art, However, if you are in the mood to seek out spoken word/poetry, and puppetry.vent u ret hea t r e . or g

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She 19th wanted and presents a new her era creativity in dance, and while the artistic started Lone Raven Art and hasn’t looked back.

If, in reevaluating boundaries of street dance. Soul Street concerts consist of a mix of you discover notyou content, to music say, “In movement thatyou willare keep at the this edgeisofyour yourchance seat. The is the time before I was stuck, but now I am free to be me.” A gift like combined with an electric mix ranging from hip-hop to classical. this doesn’t come along very often. ✻ It’s a show that will make you laugh and keep audiences of all ages entertained.

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The6

1909 Society2 YOUR TICKET TO KEEP THE BILLINGS DEPOT THRIVING written by JULIE KOERBER photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

IN 1909, when the Billings Depot witnessed the first rail

cars roll into the Magic City, the now-historic brick structure was a bustling transportation hub, providing shelter for upwards of 200 passengers at a time. It offered a gentlemen’s smoking room as well as a ladies’ lounge. The building hosted presidents, historical figures and celebrities. The Post, a building right next to the main portion of the Depot, served as a cantina for World War I soldiers as they passed through.

“Calamity Jane spent some time here,” says Michelle Williams, the Depot’s executive director. “She had a little place on the other side of the tracks and we have some pictures of her here at the Depot.”

Many have said, if only these walls could talk. They’d have some colorful stories to tell.

Walking through the Depot’s halls today, you might notice the burn marks on the floors left behind by the barrels that transients lit on fire to stay warm during the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, when the Depot sat vacant.

“We never got rid of those,” Michelle says. When the Depot was refurbished and reopened in the late ’90s, she adds, “They tried to leave as much as they could intact, and those are the original floors.”

Today, it’s Michelle’s job to make sure that this building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, has a long and bright future. She’s hoping a new “society” will help her in her mission. The 1909 Society, which launched in 38

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2 April of last year, is a membership group designed to support the Depot’s preservation and give members some unique benefits in the process.

“Your membership goes to support the Depot but then you also get special perks as a part of the membership,” Michelle says.

“You get VIP access to all of our events, along with a welcome box with some Depot swag.”

Cultural partners have jumped in and are helping sweeten the deal. The Petroleum Club gives 1909 Society members 30-day access to the club. BarMT gives 50 percent off growler fills.

Members also get discounts at ZooMontana, the Art House Cinema & Pub, the Babcock Theater and Billings Symphony events.

The only thing members need is their custom 1909 Society copper “ticket” to claim these cultural perks. But over and above a love for this historic building with its striking red roof and historical charm, Michelle wants to build an experience.

“I really want people to encounter the Depot in a new way,” she says, “making new memories here, experiencing new events and seeing it on a more personal and intimate level.” ✻

TO LEARN MORE about the 1909 Society, visit billingsdepot. org/1909

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Meet5 DR. SARAH COUNTS BALANCING LIFE & BRINGING NEW CARE TO BILLINGS written by SUE OLP photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

FROM THE TIME she was a little girl, Dr. Sarah J. Counts was drawn to medicine.

“I wanted to be a doctor for as long as I can remember,” says Counts, 37, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Billings Clinic. “I was the kid who even drew anatomical hearts on valentines.”

She was a fan of the 1990s TV show “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman” and enjoyed watching surgeries on the cable channel TLC. Remarkable as it sounds, at age 7, she even helped give subcutaneous injections to her church’s children’s choir director at the woman’s home when she was undergoing cancer treatment.

“That’s the first time I really remember trying to help take care of someone during their illness,” Counts says. “It has never wavered since then.”

Born in Connecticut, she was the first in her family to choose medicine. But her father, a corporate pilot, felt pulled toward aviation from childhood, “so maybe I got that drive from him.”

During an interview, brown-eyed Counts, her hair cropped short, apologized for speaking so quickly. But perhaps her rapid-fire delivery is symbolic of the way she has managed to cram so much into her relatively short life.

Counts entered the University of Connecticut at age 16, while she was still in high school. She started medical school at 21, the youngest student in her class.

of Osteopathic Medicine in Maine, graduating as a doctor of osteopathy (DO). She liked the body-mind-soul holistic approach to treating patients emphasized through that type of medical care.

Counts treats patients the same way she would family members.

“When they ask, ‘Well, doc, what would you do?’ I say, ‘Well if you were my dad or my loved one, this is what I would do,’” she says.

“That’s really my approach to every patient I see.”

By the end of her five-year residency, Counts had narrowed her scope to cardiothoracic surgery. That specialty involves the area of the heart, lungs, esophagus and major arteries in the chest.

She still recalls the impact of performing her first heart surgery, with the patient’s heart stopped while on a heart/lung bypass machine.

IT’S HARD TO EVEN PUT IT INTO WORDS, FROM WANTING TO BE A DOCTOR AS A LITTLE KID TO GETTING TO THE POINT WHERE YOU’RE ABLE TO DO THAT. IT’S JUST A FEELING OF AWE. — Dr. Sarah J. Counts

She was one of 10 of an estimated 10,000 applicants to be chosen for a general surgery residency at Yale New Haven Hospital, the primary teaching hospital for Yale School of Medicine. In her fifth and final year, she was chosen chief resident, the highest honor she could achieve, overseeing the work of 90 other residents.

Counts was only the second woman to graduate from Yale’s twoyear cardiothoracic fellowship. She chose a field in which, as of 2018, only 6 percent of the surgeons were women. And while still at Yale, she co-authored a chapter on thymic tumors published in the textbook adopted by the Society of Thoracic Surgeons.

“You’re holding someone’s heart in your hands,” Counts says. “It’s hard to even put it into words, from wanting to be a doctor as a little kid to getting to the point where you’re able to do that.

It’s just a feeling of awe.”

In the last year of her fellowship, Counts traveled to Billings Clinic at the invitation of Dr. Alexander “Sasha” Kraev, also a cardiothoracic surgeon who completed his fellowship at Yale.

“He had a positive impact on me when I was a resident,” she says. “When he heard that I was looking for a job, he called me up directly and said ‘I think I have the job for you. I think you’d love it.’”

Despite offers from prestigious hospitals back East, Counts chose Billings. A smaller venue gave her a chance to be active in her patient care and share her expertise with colleagues throughout the region, something more difficult to do at larger institutions.

“People have my cell phone number and so they’ll call me for advice or help with things, and I like that about being here,” she says.

“I’m very driven and Type A,” she says, laughing.

At Billings Clinic, Counts has honed her focus even further to thoracic oncology and thoracic surgery, often dealing with patients suspected of having lung cancer.

But in all she does as a physician, Counts’ focus is on her patients.

That’s why she chose the University of New England College

“Part of what I really like about thoracic surgery is that I can have a rapport with patients for a really long time because I need to MARCH/APRIL 2022

41

“It looks like I’m playing a Game Boy, with a TV screen in front of me,” she says. “The robot actually holds itself in place so I don’t have to, unlike the old bronchoscopy.”

Whereas the earlier technology confirmed the presence of cancer about 60 percent of the time, Counts says, her use of the Monarch Platform in a little over 30 cases has provided an 89 percent yield rate.

“It means that 89 percent of the time when I go in thinking that there’s something, I’m actually able to biopsy it and prove it,” she says.

follow them, make sure the cancer doesn’t come back,” she says. “There are patients I operated on when I first got here who I talk to now and they’re doing great, and that’s great.”

PART OF WHAT I REALLY LIKE ABOUT THORACIC SURGERY IS THAT I CAN HAVE A RAPPORT WITH PATIENTS FOR A REALLY LONG TIME BECAUSE I NEED TO FOLLOW THEM, MAKE SURE THE CANCER DOESN’T COME BACK.

Her days at the clinic vary, some filled with surgeries, others by meeting patients or talking with them by phone or electronically via telemedicine, a product of the Covid-19 era. Often, an extra one or two telemedicine appointments are slipped in “because if there’s a way that I can get to people now and not make them wait till next week, I try to do that.”

— Dr. Sarah J. Counts Counts’ passion for providing the best patient Another goal she has is to make it home by 5, in care led her to help bring a new diagnostic tool time to have dinner with her two daughters, ages 5 to the clinic in August, a tool that diagnoses lung and 9. “My priority is my kids,” Counts says. “They’re cancer earlier and more accurately, making Billings Clinic No. 1 and then everything comes after that.” the first hospital to do so in a four-state area. With a CT-scanThough she employs a nanny to help out, Counts shoulders most generated 3-D model of the patient’s lung to guide her, Counts of the responsibility for running her household and makes sure directs a tiny robotic endoscope into hard-to-reach nodules (or she’s available to attend doctor visits or the girls’ activities and masses) in the periphery of the lung, to view and biopsy the mass. to FaceTime daily with family back East. They enjoy heading to 42

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Billings Clinic Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Cristen Olds, MD, chose to become a facial plastic and reconstructive surgeon because she is passionate about helping people feel confident in their own skin.

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Red Lodge to ski, and traveling is a passion, though Covid-19 has put that on hold.

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Part of what lets her function in her roles as mom and doctor is her choice of specialty. Unlike cardiac cases, which can require surgeons to drop everything for an emergency surgery, thoracic patients don’t require that kind of rapid response.

That flexibility also frees up time for other pursuits, such as bodybuilding. Counts rises at 3:30 or 4 a.m. to work out in her home gym, climbing on her StairMaster, then lifting weights, “to set myself up for success, to start the day on a good note.”

Counts, who has always been athletic, traded long-distance running for weightlifting after the birth of her youngest daughter.

“I went from being like a string-bean marathon runner to lifting weights and feeling strong,” she says, noting the benefit it brings to her practice. “The thing about operating, especially cardiothoracic surgery, is you have to have some muscle because you’re cutting through sternum, you’re pulling up ribs and moving things around.”

Counts won a bodybuilding contest in Wyoming in the fall that qualified her for a national competition later this year.

Juggling her practice, her home life and her hobby is nothing new for the on-thego physician. To prove the point, Counts tells of the time of when she was pregnant with her youngest daughter, while she was in training at the Yale hospital. Counts performed a 12-hour surgery the day before her daughter was born.

The next day “I was on the phone actually dealing with a patient problem, while I was in the labor and delivery room,” she says.

“Ten minutes later, I had a baby.” ✻

The Longest Day® is the day with the most light — the summer solstice. And it’s the day the Alzheimer’s Association® calls on everyone to fight Alzheimer’s disease by raising funds and awareness for care, support and research.

On June 21, stand up to the darkness of Alzheimer’s. Together, the strength of our light will outshine the darkness of Alzheimer’s.

START NOW. SELECT YOUR ACTIVITY AT ALZ.ORG/THELONGESTDAY.

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SUE OLP, writer Sue Olp worked for many years as a reporter at the Billings Gazette, covering everything from healthcare and education to county government, tribal issues and religion, not to mention plenty of human-interest stories. Now retired, she is a freelance writer and enjoys gardening, reading and spending time with her family, including her grandchildren.

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22-BL-00208 (02/22)

INSPIRING & IMPACTING CHANGE written by JULIE KOERBER photography by DENNIS MAILLOUX

YOU PROBABLY KNOW

a few remarkable women, the kind who graciously roll up their sleeves, many times unasked, to make the lives of others a little easier. Yellowstone Valley Woman joined forces with Your Big Sky, which operates both ABC 6 (KSVI) and FOX 4 (KHMT), to help put a handful of these women in the spotlight for International Women’s Month.

After all of the nominations were reviewed, four women rose to the top as finalists of the Remarkable Women campaign. You’ve read the stories of two of these women here on the pages of YVW. Others are getting their time in the spotlight now. Stay tuned.

YVW will reveal the winner of the Remarkable Women contest in our next issue!

LYNN MULLOWNEY CABRERA pandemic. Under her leadership, she was able to expand and offer more than 30 educational programs virtually and be that resource at a time when so many desperately needed one.

WHEN LYNN Mullowney Cabrera starts her day, she prays for guidance and holds a certain mantra close to her heart.

“I think for me, that Mother Teresa quote — ‘Do small things with great love’ — is really where I am at right now in my life.

Whatever little way that I can add some light to the corner of my world is what I am working on doing,” Lynn says.

After five years in the role of executive director of the Billings Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, Lynn stepped down last August “to be more present” for her family. The love of her life, her husband Nardo Cabrera, suffers from a form of early-onset dementia. Within the last few years, her mother was diagnosed with dementia as well. She knew every day spent with them was worth its weight in gold.

Lynn couldn’t feel more honored that her former staff nominated her as a “Remarkable Woman” because of the impact she’s had on Alzheimer’s awareness programming, especially during the 46

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It’s through her network that she recently signed on to be a facilitator for the Lifespan Respite Coalition. She helped write the grant that now helps provide respite care for caregivers, some of whom are caring for those with dementia. She knows the program is helping to reduce extreme stress and letting those caregivers care for themselves.

“Everything that has brought me to this place has not been by my doing, my making or my design,” Lynn says. “It’s been an open door.”

While she still has a lot on her plate, Lynn will be the first to admit, she’s not quite sure what her future holds. She knows she wants to plug into meaningful work. She’s just not sure what kind of work that should or could be. She’s thankful she’s had the experiences that led her to this place in her life.

“You know how all roads lead to here? I’m a huge believer in that,” Lynn says. “So, let’s see where this road goes, shall we?”

LYNN MULLOWNEY CABRERA

was YVW’s cover story in September of 2020. To read her full story, click onto yellowstonevalleywoman.com/cover-lynn-mullowney-cabrera.

LISA HARMON in the building. It’s why Eat. Share. Give., a food program that fed families in need during the pandemic operates out of the church’s kitchen. The Phoenix, a sober active gym, set up its equipment in a corner of the building. And, after New Year’s Eve when a sewer pipe burst, closing the doors at Off the Streets, a low-barrier homeless shelter, her church has been able to house upwards of 40 homeless people a night since then.

WHEN YOU TALK with Lisa Harmon about her role pastoring

at Billings First Congregational Church, she reveals her servant’s heart by giving the credit to her congregation for all she’s been able to orchestrate at the downtown church.

“This congregation, over the years, has been so courageous in stepping into the middle of many, many issues,” she says. “We want to be that church that opens out into the community, really blurring the line between our doors and the front steps to the community.”

It’s why she’s opened the door to a number of Native American causes, giving organizations like Standing Buffalo Strong, Elk River Tribal Center and the Unspoken podcast some office space

She vividly remembers what the weather was like when she got the call from Off the Streets asking for help. It was negative 4 degrees that day.

“There’s no doubt in my mind,” she says. “We saved lives.”

When asked why she’s transformed this space, she answers with a question. “Can our built space be a place of peace and comfort for people?” She hopes the answer is a resounding “yes.”

“There’s something really divine about the community coming together to solve its issues,” Lisa says. “All of us together can make incredible things happen. We are making incredible things happen right now.”

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DINA HARMON Exchange Club. She’s been in some form of leadership for six of the seven years that she’s been a part of this service group. She’s earned honors in the state and has been recognized nationally within the organization for her leadership.

She loves the fact that the Exchange Club ties itself to both child abuse prevention and veterans’ causes, and she’s been on the front lines to help the club raise awareness for both.

IF YOU LISTEN

to Dina Harmon (no relation to Lisa) talk about her work and volunteer roles, it’s clear that she loves helping to provide stability to families.

Her full-time job is with the city’s Community Development Division, managing the first-time homebuyer program. She helps low-income families with the down payment assistance needed for them to buy their first home.

“It’s very rewarding,” Dina says. “Every family deserves some place safe and decent to rest their head at night.” She helps upwards of 70 families make that move each year.

In her off hours, Dina has enjoyed helping lead the Breakfast

“We started Bites of Billings last April that I oversaw and got going,” Dina says. “On April 28, we asked restaurants to donate a portion of their proceeds to the Family Tree Center.”

The nonprofit’s mission is child abuse prevention. “We got 25 restaurants on board and we raised about $10,000.”

Dina is leading the charge again this year and hopes to raise even more.

“We have an awesome community,” Dina says, “and if we all support this community it will keep growing and be vibrant.”

TO KEEP TABS ON this fundraising event, be sure to follow the Bites of Billings page on Facebook.

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LEYNA KINGMAN cycle. That’s where my passion lies.”

Right now, Leyna is helping to lead community training events.

RiverStone has shared these events at CASA and the Yellowstone Boys and Girls Ranch, as well as at schools and agencies that work with children and families.

BY DAY,

Leyna Kingman works as an administrative project coordinator for RiverStone Health. She’s also the animal bite investigator for Yellowstone County. While her work is important, it’s her volunteer job that fuels her.

“One of my favorites is the trauma-informed care committee,” Leyna says. Trauma-informed care takes into consideration the pervasive nature of trauma and works hard to deliver a healing environment, one that doesn’t unknowingly re-traumatize a person.

“We need to make sure that we bring awareness to what trauma is and how it can affect us into adulthood and then make sure we have the tools so people understand they are resilient beings,” Leyna says. “There’s a lot of help out there and a lot of ways that we can help people cope.”

As she works hard to help educate the community, she’s got her sights set on one goal — making trauma-informed care something that’s understood.

“I’d like to see us as a leading force within the community,” Leyna says. ✻

“Growing up, I witnessed my fair share of trauma with family,” Leyna says. “It’s a passion of mine to make sure that I can bring awareness and help someone who might be able to break that

YWCA Breaks Ground on New Shelter for Abused Women and Children Domestic violence spiked significantly during COVID and it is not subsiding.

YWCA’s existing shelter cannot begin to accommodate the number of women and children who seek refuge from abuse.

The new Gateway Horizons Shelter will increase capacity by 300%. Construction begins this Spring with opening in the Fall. The cost is $4,000,000. YWCA has raised $2,600,000. Your support is needed!

Your gift to YWCA’s Capital Campaign assures women and children’s safety for decades to come!

YWCA Billings | 909 Wyoming Ave 406.252.6303 | ywcabillings.org

With your help lives will be saved and changed.

Victims will become survivors!

Give today at ywcabillings.org/donate or via mail to YWCA MARCH/APRIL 2022

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ENTERPRISING WOMAN LINDA BROOKS USED HER NURSING CAREER TO HELP LAUNCH HER DREAM BUSINESS written by LAURA BAILEY photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

YOU’VE HEARD THE SAYING, “Don’t quit your day job.”

But what if your day job could make your dreams come true?

That’s what Linda Brooks did. She used her job as a nurse to fulfill her dream of one day holding the keys to her own business.

Located on Second Avenue North in the heart of downtown Billings, Something Chic — her fashion forward women’s clothing store — has a light and airy feel with a floor-to-ceiling gilded mirror at one end and matching, polished brass fixtures throughout. The styles are modern and contemporary – with a few trendy throwbacks like combat boots and pleated jeans. At the center of the store is a comfy couch for chilling while friends hit the dressing room. ✴ A quick glance at the tags reveals that almost all the ✴ items are priced under $100. ✴✴

idea to open a clothing store and helped her draft a business plan.

“There was definitely a fear of the unknown and some imposter syndrome going on,” Linda says. “It was scary at first.”

Dena Johnson worked at the Small Business Development Center when Linda first came in and was immediately impressed by her passion and willingness to learn. Dena knew Linda was headed for success.

✴ ING S I R P R ENTE N ✴✴✴ A WOM

“I like to carry timeless pieces that fill in with trending pieces here and there,” Linda says while giving a tour of her store.

Something Chic opened in 2019, but Linda had been dreaming of taking her love for fashion to the next level and becoming a business owner for several years before then. She started her journey at Big Sky Economic Development in their Small Business Development Center. There, the staff helped her research her

“She wasn’t afraid to give up a very secure career pathway – nursing – to pursue her dream,” Dena says.

With her business plan in hand, Linda decided to enter the Battle of the Plans, a contest sponsored by the Downtown Billings Alliance, in collaboration with Big Sky Economic Development Small Business Development Center, Montana State University Billings and Rocky Mountain College. Battle of the Plans was launched in 2016 to encourage entrepreneurs to submit their business concept for consideration to open or expand a storefront in downtown Billings. Linda’s plan caught the eye of the judges, and she was a finalist. At the time, Linda had a partner, who decided to step away from the project, but Linda wasn’t giving up.

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“I wasn’t going to give up, just knowing the life I wanted to create,” she says.

In little more than a year, Linda managed to save up $25,000 for the business, as well as pay $25,000 toward student loans and pay off her car.

She had her eye on the space she wanted downtown and could visualize her sign above the door and everything in place inside.

In 2017, Linda competed in the Battle of the Plans again – this time from afar, while she was stationed in Denver. She dug in again, learning more about business, doing more research, refining her plans and adding projections. This time she was a cowinner of the 2017 competition and received $20,400 for startup.

After a marathon year and so much in savings, Linda was sure she would have enough money to get a small business loan and launch her dream, but after approaching several banks and other lenders, all she heard was “no.”

WHEN LINDA SETS HER MIND TO SOMETHING SHE’S NOT GOING TO GIVE UP UNLESS ALL ELSE FAILS. YOU WON’T MEET ANYONE NICER OR MORE WILLING TO HELP. — Maisie Sulser, Architect and Co-Owner of Restor Design Build

In early 2018, she was told she didn’t have enough set aside for inventory but couldn’t borrow money for additional inventory – she needed another $20,000 before she could be approved.

“I didn’t really want to leave and go back to traveling again,” Linda says.

Linda connected with Janine Mix, a retail consultant based in Billings. They did some brainstorming and Linda decided to do a crowdfunding campaign, offering VIP memberships. In advance of the store opening, supporters could purchase a membership and receive a 15 percent discount for the first year the store was open as well as early access to semi-annual sales. The challenging caveat was that she had to reach her goal within 60 days. Linda was essentially selling a product she didn’t have yet.

She networked like crazy and managed to raise another $15,000.

Just days before the deadline, Linda thought she wouldn’t make her goal, when a surgeon she worked with, Erin Stevens, gave her the remaining $5,000. dreamed up on paper, so she turned to travel nursing. Linda is a surgical nurse with expertise in cardiac care. She’d been working at Billings Clinic but pulled up stakes and moved to Portland with the goal of earning as much as she could as fast as she could.

It meant 60-hour work weeks, with an abundance of nights and weekends. Her husband stayed in Billings and after a nine-month contract in Portland, Linda went to Pueblo, Colorado, then back to Billings for three months, followed by another stretch in Denver.

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“Every woman who signed up I’m incredibly grateful for because they believed in it before it was even a reality,” Linda says.

She had the money, but not the loan. So, Linda hit up the banks again, and through a recommendation she went to Rocky Mountain Bank for a Small Business Administration loan, which she received. Her banker, Jeff Keller, was so impressed with Linda’s tenacity and her thorough business plan that he uses her business plan as an example to other hopeful business owners.

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

Two and a half years in, Linda finally had the green light.

She went to market in L.A. and purchased inventory, but because the store wasn’t open yet, she had it all sent to her home.

The storefront had stood empty for five years, but because it was a women’s clothing store before, it didn’t need a lot of changes. Linda turned to Maisie Sulser, an architect and co-owner of Restor Design Build. She helped transform the space and became one of Linda’s biggest cheerleaders along the way.

“When Linda sets her mind to something she’s not going to give up unless all else fails,” Maisie says. “You won’t meet anyone nicer or more willing to help.”

After a few final touches, Something Chic opened early in May 2019.

“I had a lot of women in my corner who really made all this possible,” Linda says, adding that her husband, Dan, has been incredibly supportive as well.

That first trip to market was overwhelming, but these days her quarterly trips are easier.

She’s learned what styles are trending in Billings and buys with her regular shoppers

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in mind.

“You’re bringing collections together from a variety of brands and you have to visualize them working together,” Linda says.

Something Chic is located next door to Cricket Clothing Company, a downtown Billings staple. The two stores carry different styles and target different customers. Linda has never felt a sense of competition.

“Having more clothing stores in one area makes you more of a destination,” she says.

Linda never considered locating her store anywhere but downtown and has developed friendships with other store owners, who have all been welcoming and excited to have her join the scene.

“I love downtown. I always have. It has character,” Linda says. “There have been lots of improvements downtown, and it’s only getting better.”

Linda still loves nursing and works one or two shifts a week as well as one night a week on-call. She never considered giving up nursing even when the hours were long and she was far from home. Nursing was her ticket to her dreams, but it was also always part of the plan.

“Now I’m doing exactly what I want to do – exactly what I set out to do,” she says.

Linda owes a lot to the Small Business Development Center, and when people ask her about starting a business, she sends them there.

“I became the most prepared that I could ever be because of them,” Linda says. “They just know it all, and it’s free!”

Looking back, Linda is grateful for the struggle and the time it took to reach her goal. It offered her the chance to learn more and become better prepared for business ownership. Though it was tough, Linda never considered walking away.

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406-259-4939 | 180 S 32nd St. W., Ste 1, Billings | www.cladisadvisory.com MARCH/APRIL 2022

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shoes FOR THE LOVE OF

THE WOMEN WHO CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT THEIR COLLECTIONS story and photography by LOVELY HITCHCOCK

WHEN SOMEONE mentions having a love of shoes, I can’t

help but think of Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines, and her astounding collection of 1,000 pairs of shoes.

Or was it 3,000? While many say she owned 3,000 pairs, she once clarified, “I did not have 3,000 pairs of shoes. I had one thousand and sixty. They went into my closets looking for skeletons, but thank God all they found were shoes, beautiful shoes.”

The typical woman owns 20 pairs of shoes. Apparently, I am a typical woman. I’m sure you have that one pair of shoes that 56

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you’ve only worn once because you just don’t have the outfit to go with it. You might have shoes you’ve repeatedly worn to the point they required repair or a pair you’ve flaunted despite the blisters they deliver. Or, you might have those pairs that have never seen light of day but you had to have simply because they were irresistibly beautiful.

Recently, I approached my girlfriends and solicited their thoughts regarding their own love for shoes. The results were not disappointing.

s

KHUANMANNY FOLEY Khuanmanny is the wife of Jason Foley and a successful partner in one of the busiest ramen restaurants in Billings, Lucky’s Ramen Noodles and Rolled Ice Cream. She is also the owner of Taste of Asia.

Do you wear your shoes or do you just collect them?

Give me just one reason why you love shoes.

You have a particular style you love the best?

“I love and obsess with shoes because it makes me feel sexy and it gives me that extra boost of confidence.”

“My favorite style is an ankle strapped heel.”

When did you decide to start collecting shoes?

“I probably wear half of the shoes I have. The rest are collection pieces.”

How many pairs of shoes do you have?

“I probably have more than 300 pairs.”

“I think 15 years ago, when I started wearing heels. After that, I started collecting.”

How do you organize your shoe collection?

What is your most expensive shoe purchase?

“I usually organize my shoes by color and style. I have a walk-in closet built specifically to house my shoes.”

“Christian Louboutin!”

What is your favorite brand?

“Jimmy Choo.”

What do you do with the shoes you don't want anymore?

“Shoes that I don’t want or wear anymore? I give away or donate them.”

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Kristi serves as the Executive vice president of development at Yellowstone Boys and Girls Ranch Foundation, where she supervises a team of six and is responsible for Annual Giving, Major Gifts, Grants, Direct Mail and Marketing & Communications.

Give me just one reason why you love shoes.

“Shoes are fun. They are a way to express yourself. I love the challenge of buying shoes of all colors and finding outfits to match. I also tend to buy heels because I always wanted to be taller and, with heels on, I can pretend I am. At 5’1” I know I only have a limited amount of time to continue wearing the high heels that I do, but I’m making the most of the time I have. And when I can’t wear heels anymore, I’ll start collecting flats.”

When did you decide you wanted to start collecting shoes?

“Not until my early 30s.”

What is your most expensive shoe purchase?

“I’m a bargain shopper so my most expensive pair of shoes is actually a pair of tennis shoes for $120.”

What is your most favorite brand?

“Gianni Bini.”

Do you have a favorite pair of shoes that you find yourself wearing more often that the others?

KRISTI FARVER OAKS

“With so many pairs, I wear a different pair just about every day of the year. Of course, I have my workout shoes that I wear when exercising at night.”

Do you have a particular style you love the best?

“I really have all different styles. If I had to pick a style I had the most pairs of, it would probably be a pump with a very high heel.”

How many pairs of shoes do you have?

“About 350 to 400. I definitely wear them —all of them.”

How do you organize your shoe collection?

“I organize by style and then color and pattern. At any given time, half my shoes are in totes in our garage. I either have the winter/fall collection in the closets or the spring/summer. I just don’t have enough room to have them all out at one time.”

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AllProducts_Poster_24x36.pdf

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Nicole is regional territory manager for Ariat footwear Give me just one reason why you love shoes.

“I love most footwear in general. But boots (Western boots specifically) are just fun. They come in such a variety of brands, colors and styles. From a classic vintage to a modern twist, I seriously love them all.”

When did you decide you wanted to start collecting shoes?

“I don’t know if there was ever a specific point in time that I made a decision. It just started happening. I have the hardest time saying no to a new pair of boots!”

What is your most expensive shoe purchase?

“That would be a pair of custom Pirarucu fish boots from Tony Lama that I designed a few years ago. They would retail for about $700.”

What is your favorite brand?

“I’m biased, but my favorite is Ariat. I’ve worked for Ariat since 2019 and I recently became the Ariat territory manager for footwear, handling Montana, Wyoming and Idaho independent accounts. Ariat is all about quality, innovation and technology, while still being a leader on trends and fashion.”

Do you actually wear your shoes or do you just collect them?

NICOLE SCHUTTER

“I definitely wear them! They all have a purpose.

A good boot is meant to be worn.”

Do you have a favorite pair of shoes that you find yourself wearing more often than others?

“I definitely wear my Ariat Dixons the most. I have them in multiple colors, of course!”

Do you have a particular style you love the best?

“My go-to is definitely a snip toe. I always think they look super dressy.”

How do you organize your shoe collection?

“I think for boots, having a good shelving/cubby system is the best. I have multiple different heights of boots, so having shelves that can accommodate that is perfect!”

What do you do with the shoes you don’t want anymore?

“Depending on the condition of the boots, I might try sell them on Poshmark (an online secondhand store) or something like that. A lot of times if I don’t feel like going through the hassle of posting them, I’ll just find one of my friends who wears the same size as I do and pass them along.”

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What is your everyday shoe or do you rotate them during the day?

“I chuckled at this question because I sometimes feel like I’ve worn three different pairs of shoes in one day depending on what I’m doing. If I’m on the road for work, I’m always in Ariat, Dixons typically, or an exotic (ostrich or Pirarucu) square-toe boot. But if I’m running errands in town, I like to choose something more casual. The Ariat Hilo is the comfiest shoe for running around in.

Cushy with tons of support, I love them. Then, if I’m going to an event or dinner, I’ll be in a dressy boot for sure.”

What is your go-to store for shoes?

“I have gotten my boots all over the place, locally and in my travels as well.”

Regarding a Tony Lama boot that she designed, Nicole says, “This was such a fun process for me. I worked closely with the rep from Tony Lama. I had an idea of what kind of boot I wanted. We built this boot from scratch. I picked the toe shape, heel height, what type of sole I wanted, leathers, piping color, stitch color and pattern … everything. I wanted a boot that nobody else would have.

Also, I’m totally a sucker for exotic leathers. Pirarucu (from the sea bass family) is among some of the largest known freshwater fish. Their scales are quite large and are tough but flexible. I love the look of the skin and I had to have a pair. I can’t remember how long I waited for them to be built. It was probably a few months but it seemed to me like it was forever. But when they showed up, I seriously was blown away with how beautiful they were and how every detail was exactly as I’d wanted. Knowing this boot is a one-of-a-kind original is something that is truly special to me. ✻

WHAT THE SHOE LOVERS SAY Try these tips & tricks Once you are home, walk in your new shoes for a several minutes both on carpet and hard surfaces to see how well they fit. If they’re not comfortable, return them.

When trying on shoes, wear the kind of hosiery or socks that you would normally with that type of shoe.

Rule of thumb: while standing, allow about an inch between the end of the shoe and the tip of your longest toe. If the shoe rubs your toe, that means it’s too small.

To avoid blisters, if your heel slips in and out while walking, don’t buy them.

Your feet are 8 percent larger at the end of day, so that’s the best time to measure them.

Alternate your shoes. Not only is it best for your feet, but your shoes will last a little longer.

DISTRIBUTED BY THE PEPSI-COLA BOTTLING CO. | BILLINGS, MT

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Peri e

very7 MEET THE COLOR OF 2022

WHEN PANTONE UNVEILED its color of the year for 2022, it claimed the hue

written by VICKI-LYNN TERPSTRA photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

displayed a carefree confidence, one that animates our creativity. Well, if that isn’t enough of an introduction to “Veri Peri,” get ready for a fashionable dose and see how you can use this color to unleash a new look for this year.

Get Celestial Personalizing jewelry is hot right now. The Lotus line at Joy of Living provides you with an option to pick your own charms and meaningful stones. This necklace with a celestial charm like this crescent moon shows you how you can add a tiny touch of this cool color of the year. Since this piece is customizable, add and change the stones to deliver different colors throughout the year.

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get the look2

Lotus Stone, $14; Lotus Silver Celeste Necklace $49.

Both can be found at The Joy of Living.

Soft Spring Jackets The hybrid between a classic shirt and a jacket trend a.k.a. “the shacket,” is not slowing down in 2022. This versatile layering piece should be a staple in everyone’s wardrobe. Dress it up over jeans or elevate the piece by throwing it over a dress. During the winter months, we were wearing shackets layered over leggings and we paired them with combat boots. This spring, switch that out for sneakers and light denim for a more relaxed style.

get the look2

BlankNYC Brushed Plaid Jacket, $158; BlankNYC Madison Crop jeans, $98; Z Supply The Slub Pocket Tee, $39. All can be found at Something Chic.

PANTONE APPROVED POLISH Pantone’s pick for colors heavily influences many aspects of beauty and fashion. At the top of that list is manicure colors. There may be literal versions of Veri Peri and many, many interpretations through 2022.

This periwinkle hue perfectly greets spring and is likely to be the ‘it’ nail color. Find your unique twist by adding fun designs, sparkle or matte finishes.

get the look2

Nail artist Miranda Nealy at Nailissimo, manicures start at $40.

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Mood-Boosting Comfort Dressing for comfort is a trend that’s not fading in 2022, but we can add new colors to boost our moods. Try adding current denim styles like these crop flares and make this casual Sunday outfit even more modern. This splash of Veri Peri is sure to help us use our closets to emphasize our creativity and deliver a vibrant energy.

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

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get the look2

Joules Oakham hoodie, $65; PJ Salvage tee, $46; Liverpool The Gia Glider crop flare denim, $109. All can be found at Neecee’s.

SHOP WITH US FOR EVERY OCCASION. — Owner Courtney Burton and the RocHouse Team

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The Trouser Trend Leather or faux leather pants seem to gain popularity by the minute. Shiny black ones are the best first addition to any fashionable gal’s closet. As cool — if not cooler than your beloved denim — faux leather pants are fresh. Bring them into spring with the color of the year in a flowy blouse with edgy details like a smock-necked top with a waist tie and faux leather trim. This look is perfect for work or dinner on the town.

get the look2

Drew Midnight Jolie top, $229; Hudson split hem pant, $218; Sam Edelman Hazel shell, $139; Sahira Avery hoop earrings, $48. All can be found at RocHouse.

SPECIAL THANKS to our model, Tessie Rabold, a hair designer at Glow Salon. ✻

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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.

Big Risings in a Small Space A LOOK INSIDE SAMURAI SUE’S EVERYDAY FOODS written by STELLA FONG photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

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ASANO OTSU, owner of Samurai Sue’s Everyday Foods, plays

comfortably with Mother Nature. In a 600-square-foot green cottage with yellow framed windows off the main drag in Red Lodge, she focuses on baking up sourdough breads and preparing grab-and-go burritos, sandwiches and bowls. Her business motto is: “We cook foods you want to eat, EVERY DAY. Handmade, fresh and wholesome,” fitting her sensibilities for cooking and embracing the outdoors.

In Japanese, samurai means “warrior or knight.” While an instructor for Outward Bound, a provider of outdoor education, Asano earned the nickname “Sue,” shortened from her last name.

“Around that time, I had a really old Toyota Forerunner that just left pieces everywhere,” she says. “I drove it held together by duct tape, and we used to call that car ‘Samurai.’” The name Samurai Sue’s Everyday Foods is “just a homage to the good times I have had.”

As the youngest child with an older brother and sister, Asano grew up in Kyoto, Japan, in the Ichijoji area. “I was allowed to do whatever I wanted,” she says. “I was a tomboy and into different things than my female peers.” She recalls hiking and skiing with her family in the nearby mountains, but Asano “always played outside” and participated in basketball in school. “My grandpa took me on golf trips,” she says fondly. He was also an avid mountaineer, and now in the house she is remodeling with her husband, Paul, an ice ax once owned by her grandfather hangs over their staircase.

“I was always around a food culture and always knew what good food was,” she says, noting that her mother was a caterer. “My mom and grandma cooked fusion food, French style food. My

mom’s signature dish was potato au gratin. She made it her own way, with bacon.”

She inherited three sharp tools from her culinary inspirations: a vegetable chopper, a fish cutter and a sashimi knife. Aside from holding family history in her hands, she says, “The part I love is they are comfortable in my hand.”

Asano’s last name was Nishikawa at birth. Because her grandparents didn’t have a son, their name wouldn’t be carried on. “It would have been easiest for my mother to take on her parents’ name,” she says. As a teenager, she took on the Otsu name, acknowledging that “I am willing to get into things and then figure it out.” When she married Paul 15 years ago, he took on her last name.

In the seventh grade, through friends of her father, Asano came to the United States to live with a family in Telluride, Colorado.

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obstacles and maneuver to triumph.

Asano came to Red Lodge as the operations manager for Outward Bound. She worked at Sylvan Peak Enterprises as assistant manager while continuing to bring students into the Montana wilderness. Her talents were used in the Red Lodge Fire Rescue and Northern Rockies Incident Management Team. All the while she worked with her husband in his business at Headwaters Studio, at first directing regional athletic events and developing websites, online product and ticket sales and graphic design and screen printing.

In 2014, Asano became an American citizen. “The ceremony was definitely enlightening —a good finale to the accidental immigration I started in 1991 when I was just 13 years old,” she says.

There she was happy.

“I could be free and not dress up and didn’t look weird,” she says, with a smile.

“I was super shy. I was really fortunate to be with good people who were inclusive.

I was always invited.”

Her ability to perform and not chatter characterizes her work in food. “The food culture values skills and ethics. It’s not all about talk. It’s about what you can do,” she says.

THE FOOD CULTURE VALUES SKILLS AND ETHICS. IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT TALK. IT’S ABOUT WHAT YOU CAN DO. — Asano Otsu

The ability and desire to “do” yielded success in her outside pursuits. In rock and ice climbing, paddling on water, backpacking in the wilderness, and mountain biking off-road, challenges can arise from personal physical limitations or Mother Nature’s moods. To endure and survive, she had to learn to work with the 70

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She changed careers in 2016 when she entered the food arena, managing Mas Taco. Two years later she started Samurai Sue’s Everyday Foods. Asano credits much of her skill in making bread to Heidi Gilbertson, who owns Island Café and Bread Company on Washington Island in Wisconsin.

Gilbertson once owned the bakery called the Bikery, attached to the Hellroaring Cycle and Ski shop in Red Lodge, where she taught herself to bake in a wood-fired oven.

The starter Asano works with is a “combination of starters” made of fermented flour and water that utilizes naturally occurring yeasts and bacteria given to her by friends, and revitalized yeast from Moon Lake Market, which closed a couple of years ago.

The Blodgett Oven is what she calls an “old school pizza oven”

with stone and steam decks. The oven was purchased in Montana and refurbished by Martha Young, who was a partner in the Regis Café, about a mile from the bakery.

She sold the oven to Gilbertson, who took it to Wisconsin. Years later Asano moved it into her bakery in Red Lodge.

The Hobart mixer she uses to mix her dough is from the 1960s and affectionately named “Big Red.” “This is an antique, vintage mixer.

They do not service it anymore,” Asano says, and consequently she has learned to do her own repairs and maintenance.

Asano’s Country Bread is made with whole wheat and rye flours, while her Ciabatta contains no rye, but receives some olive oil for a “crispy, lighter texture.” Her Shokupan is made with milk, egg whites and butter and baked in a pullman loaf pan. Every week she shapes, stretches and bakes 20 loaves of Shokupan, 60 to 80 country loaves, and a little less ciabatta. While the Shokupan takes about three days to complete, the others take two.

“I like to go by the smell and texture. It should have a nice, sweet, yeasty smell,” she says. “The starter is in a happy, acidic state for two to three hours when it is primed to be mixed.”

During the winter she feeds her starter every eight to 12 hours, while in the summer she must renourish every four hours. Asano MARCH/APRIL 2022

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With some grated zest from an orange that will be the next day’s lunch, the fishy flavor of the oil can be minimized.

“We have a lot of things in front of us that we can control. We just have to look at it,” she says of packing in real food for a backcountry experience.

Asano continues to focus closely on what she does. She has learned to respect and be patient with Mother Nature from her athletic pursuits to now cooking up real food and baking breads. ✻

YOU CAN FIND

Samurai Sue’s Everyday Foods sourdough breads, burritos, sandwiches and bowls at Circle 17 Sinclair, Beartooth Market IGA and City Brew in Red Lodge as well as the Yellowstone Valley Food Hub and Town and Country Foods in Billings. is working with Judy Cornell of Conservation Grains in Choteau, Montana, to develop a good flour combination for a bread with “more texture and depth.”

STELLA FONG, writer

Recently, Asano taught a Zoom class for the Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness Foundation using her sourdough pizza dough to create backcountry pizzas. With prebaked breads the size of a hand, she tops them with a sauce made from homegrown dehydrated tomatoes and kale. Her hints include: A can of sardines in oil makes great hors d’oeuvres while the oil can used in the sauce.

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.

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Lisa began her culinary journey in rural Wyoming, working in her family’s restaurant. A full fledged love affair with restaurant life led to her to culinary school, and eventually to owner her own restaurant in Washington.

Across many decades in the service industry, and after a culinary education that has unfolded in New York, Washington, California, Italy and France, Lisa still take the most delight in being a part of the culture and camaraderie of a kitchen staff. She is a mentor to young female chefs in the community and a champion of women in food. Lisa started Seconde Fresh as a passion project in her retirement while working part-time at Zest as our on-staff Culinary Educator and Chef.

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Proud mom and businesswoman Annika Charter Williams is a 3rd generation rancher, raising the next generation of agriculturalists for Montana. In addition to helping run the family ranch, she’s also one of the co-founders and board members of the Yellowstone Valley Food Hub and is passionate about local food.

Annika and her family have supplied beef for cooking classes at Zest.

You can find their products online at www.yvfoodhub.org and pickup at Zest every Thursday!

W W W. Z E S T B I L L I N G S . C O M

written by KAY ERICKSON photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

TA STE OF THE VALLEY

Your Personal Sous Chef WHY THE GROCERY STORE COULD BE YOUR KITCHEN ASSISTANT

TAKE A TRIP TO THE GROCERY

and you just might find your sous chef — not a person in white kitchen garb lurking in the aisles but prepped food that a sous chef oversees in the professional kitchen. We’re talking about presliced vegetables, filleted meats, even prepared sauces.

It was Jacques Pepin who got me to check out my local grocery store. He was on a national morning TV news show promoting his newest cookbook, which takes advantage of these prepared, pre-sliced items that can streamline our meal preparation. In the aisles, meat counters and produce section, I found the work of a sous chef waiting for me to take home.

How efficient is this “local sous chef”? I asked one Billings chef to use those grocery store prepped items to whip up a meal for a family of four.

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Angela Lyle of Raven’s Café d’Art accepted my challenge and created gourmet meals, including a vegan choice. Indicative of Angela’s creativity, she created Chipotle Salmon Tacos and Italian Polenta.

Do you need a little help in the kitchen to feed your family in a jiffy? The grocery store sous chef just might be your answer.

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.

Grocery List ✔ KALE SALAD

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to prepare kale salad

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✔ SAUSAGE

Italian POLENTA

Chopped Kit, 22 oz

Kale Taylor Farms Sweet

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Keep warm.

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Start by setting the cheesecake out to thaw. Make the kale salad.

Brown the sausage. Set aside and heat the vegetables in the same skillet. Heat the sauce. Warm the polenta.

Stir Fry, 12 oz

ed in, sauté the sausages were cook e th at th t t. ille sk In the same es back to the skille through. Add sausag d ate he til un les vegetab

✔ SAUCE

Italian Polenta in a Hearty Pasta Sauce with Vegetables and Garlic Fennel Sausage served with Kale Salad and vegan cheesecake for dessert. The cost for this meal is less than $6 per person.

Heat in a small pot.

✔ POLENTA

ion), 1lb in sunlenta (produce sect Melissa's Organic Po n herb flavor dried tomato or Italia the microwave or

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Dessert?

Daiya Vegan (frozen) New York Cheezecake, 14.1 oz

at in inch thick slices. He Slice polenta into ½oil if preferred. grill with a little olive d with the in sauce and toppe d ere oth sm ta len Serve the po salad on the side. le mix with the kale sausage and vegetab MARCH/APRIL 2022

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Grocery List

Chipotle

✔ MANGO SLAW

SALMON TACOS

Chipotle Salmon Street Tacos topped with Pico de Gallo and served with Mango Slaw, Lime and Herb Rice and finished with a Caramel Truffle Cheesecake. The cost for this meal is less than $12 per person.

Set out the cheesecakes to thaw. Make the slaw. Then start cooking the salmon. When the salmon is almost done, heat up your rice.

Total time is only about 15 minutes.

WHAT’S FOR

Dessert?

Sara Lee Rich Caramel Truffle 4 count mini cheesecakes

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Signature Farms Co

le Slaw Kit, 11.4 oz ba g In-store made fresh Mango Pico (produce oz section), 10

Follow package direc tions to prepare the coleslaw. Add about 5 oz. of the mango Pico to the finished slaw, more if you prefer.

✔ RICE 2 packages Vee Tee Thai Lime & Herb Ri ce (heat and eat) , 10.6 oz Follow the package

directions to heat th e ric

✔ SALMON TACOS

e.

2 packages (froz ) Sea Cuisine Honey Salmon fillets, 10en Chipotle .5 oz 12 ct Mission Street Tacos (flour or corn ) In-store made fresh Pi co de Gallo (produce oz section), 10 Optional: In-store m ade fresh Guacamole (produce section), 14 oz Follow package direc tions to prepare th e salmon. When it’s cooked through, brea k it apart. Lightly gr ill the taco shells in a small pan or on a fla t top grill or can wa rm in the microwave for about 15 second s. Top each taco sh ell with a portion of salmon and a dollop of Pico de Gallo.

Now enjoy by serving your tacos with the prepared rice and slaw allowing for th ree tacos per person.

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*THIS OFFER: DOES NOT APPLY TO ONLINE ORDERS SCHEDULED FOR DELIVERY AFTER THE OFFER EXPIRATION DATE OR TO ORDERS FULFILLED BY INSTACART. Offer expires 12/31/2022. Minimum purchase amount is calculated based on subtotal of all qualified items at checkout after deduction of all other coupons, savings, discounts, taxes/fees and excludes alcoholic beverages, tobacco, and fluid dairy products. Offer in coupon gallery must be added to your account prior to purchase. Online orders require a minimum purchase. VALID FOR 1ST TIME ONLINE GROCERY ORDER. LIMIT 1 PER HOUSEHOLD. May not be combined with other offers and other restrictions may apply. We reserve the right to modify or cancel offers/orders and/or to correct typographical, pictorial, and other ad or pricing errors.

ALL ORDERS: Service available in select areas. In some areas, service may be provided by another Albertsons Companies store banner (that banner’s product availability, pricing and promotions will apply) or a third-party service provider; or independently by Instacart (Instacart’s terms and conditions, account registration, fees, product availability, pricing and promotions apply). Online orders require a minimum purchase. Online promotions, discounts and offers may differ from those in our physical stores. Clearance, single-store, and in-store only specials or promotions may not be available for an online order. Prices for products you order online are based on the price catalog in use at the store that prepares your order. The time of day that price updates occur may differ between the store preparing your order and online. You will pay the prices, fees, and other charges, and receive the promotions, offers, discounts, and savings applicable to your order on the day and time that your order is prepared and processed for final payment, which may be different from those shown in the Estimated Total when you place your order online. Any negative balance/credit amount shown resulting from Promo Codes, coupons, or other discounts and offers will be adjusted to $0. Full terms available at albertsonscompanies.com/about-us/our-policies/terms-of-use.html and delivery.albertsons.com/terms.

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THE APPRENTICE

Kitchen & Bath Designer Megan Reed learned on the job and earned national honors

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HIGH STYLE

What’s New in Kitchen & Bath Design

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SPRING SHOWSTOPPER

Turn an old vase into a seasonal centerpiece

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A BRIGHTER PATH FOR THE FUTURE

Couple returns to their roots with a major home remodel MARCH/APRIL 2022

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The

Apprentice Apprentice KITCHEN & BATH DESIGNER MEGAN REED LEARNED ON THE JOB AND EARNED NATIONAL HONORS written by JULIE KOERBER photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN AND COLLABORATIVE DESIGN ARCHITECTS

WORKFORCE SHORTAGES and supply chain issues haven’t

been kind to the construction industry. Kristy and Debbi Ferguson, the mom and daughter duo who own Beyond the Box, a Billings kitchen and bath design business, have felt the pinch for years.

“We were all sitting around talking about the labor shortage,” Kristy says, remembering a Home Builder’s Association meeting back in 2018. “The Montana Department of Labor had already realized there was a shortage and they were working on apprenticeship programs.

Anyone interested could put their name on a list.” Kristy and Debbie added Beyond the Box to that list.

In the 80 years that the department has run its apprenticeship program, the trades — plumbers, electricians, carpenters, sheet metal workers — have typically taken on these types of programs. When it came to a kitchen and bath design apprentice, Beyond the Box had to design a program from the ground up.

“A portion of it was book training,” Kristy says. “Then, we paired that with boots on the ground training — everything from layout and design to going on deliveries and installs.”

They put an ad on a national job site asking for apprenticeship applicants. It didn’t take long for Megan Reed to apply.

“I didn’t have high hopes,” Megan says with a laugh. After all, she says, she knew nothing about kitchen and bath design. Her prior career was working as a veterinary technician.

“The moment I walked through these doors, that’s when I knew I had to work here,” Megan says. “It’s such a warm and inviting environment.”

After a series of interviews, she landed the apprenticeship. By day, she learned the ins and outs of the program needed to draw up the detailed design of a room. By night, she’d crack open the manuals provided by the National Kitchen and Bath Association to work on her certification. At the end of the two-year program, besides earning her Associate Kitchen and Bath Designer certification, she received accreditation from the Montana Department of Labor.

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DESIGN IS VERY MUCH IN THEORY AND TO PUT IT IN THE REAL WORLD IS SOMETHING QUITE DIFFERENT. — Kristy Ferguson

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“The first three months was just non-stop — trying to digest as much knowledge as I could. It was very overwhelming,” Megan says. “I would do a lot of the backend work at home.

That’s when I would research design. Kristy always jokes that I would text her at midnight and ask, ‘How does this work?’”

“Design is very much in theory,” Kristy says, “and to put it in the real world is something quite different.” Debbie adds, “It’s learning on the job.”

After making the push in recent years to increase awareness, Beyond the Box wasn’t the only business to take the Department of Labor up on creating an apprenticeship program.

“Right now, we have 130 apprenticeship-able occupations, and they range from brewing beer to leather working,” says Glen Disque, who is a registered apprenticeship specialist with the department. He works directly with employers to craft these programs, consulting on everything from a graduated pay scale to what that program should teach.

“With Megan, there really isn’t a college that you can go to to learn what Megan had to learn. At the end of the program, Kristy had developed an employee with all of the requisite skills,” Glen says.

If you ask Debbie and Kristy, not only did Megan rise to the occasion, she rose above. It’s why Kristy nominated Megan for the National Kitchen and Bath Association’s 30 Under 30. The program selects and recognizes the rising stars in the kitchen and bath industry. Last fall, Megan found out she made that illustrious list.

“That’s a pretty big achievement over a relatively short period of time,” Kristy says.

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Graduation is no time to learn you Graduation is no time to learn you haven’t saved enough for college. haven’t saved enough for college.

I THINK WHAT I AM MOST PROUD OF IS – THERE ARE PROJECTS THAT YEARS LATER THESE CLIENTS ARE STILL A HUGE ADVOCATE OF MINE. THAT’S MY FAVORITE THING, BUILDING THOSE RELATIONSHIPS ALONG THE WAY.

When itForcomes a free, personalized college cost For a free, personalized college cost contact your Edward Jones to report, yourreport, to-do contact your Edward Jones financial advisor today. financial advisor today. list, put your future first.

— Megan Reed

As a part of the recognition, both Kristy and Megan were asked to speak at the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show this past February in Orlando, Florida. They were able to share just how impactful an apprenticeship program can be on the industry.

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

“She went from being an entry-level employee to having a full-blown career with a higher earning potential,” Kristy says. “I have a lot more opportunity where I am at now than I ever did before,” Megan adds, saying there’s no ceiling to her potential here.

EDS-1927G-A

EDS-1927G-A

On any given day, you’ll find this upand-coming designer overseeing anywhere from 20 to 50 projects. Some might be at the first consultation stage, others might be close to being buttoned up. With each, Megan gets to flex her creative muscles and show off her love for modern farmhouse and mountain modern design.

Morgan A Reif, AAMS® Morgan A Reif, AAMS® Financial Advisor

edwardjones.com Financial Advisor Member SIPC 1480 17th St W edwardjones.com Member SIPC 1480 17th Billings, St W MT 59102-2908 Billings, MT 59102-2908 406-702-1304 406-702-1304

“I think what I am most proud of is – there are projects that years later these clients are still a huge advocate of mine,” Megan says. “They still refer my name and they still love the work that we did together. That’s my favorite thing, building those relationships along the way.”

And while she’s not ready yet, one day, she’d love to pay it forward and mentor a future designer just like Kristy and Debbie did with her.

“I feel like I am still climbing. I feel like I am not ready to take on anything like that,” Megan says. “But, one day, I would like to give someone the same opportunity.” ✻

This year marks our 100th year in business and we’re celebrating by telling 100 stories, sharing 100 lessons, and giving 100 gifts.

TO LEARN MORE about the range

of apprenticeship programs in the state, visit apprenticeship.mt.gov.

Thank you for letting us serve you.

Here’s to the next 100 years.

MARCH/APRIL 2022

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high7

Style

WHAT’S NEW IN KITCHEN & BATH DESIGN written by JULIE KOERBER

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW what’s trending for kitchen and

bath spaces in 2022, there’s no better gauge than the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show that took center stage in Orlando this past February.

Kristy Ferguson and Megan Reed of Beyond the Box took in the sights and shared some of the top trends that — if you’re in the mood to renovate — you just might want to capture in your own home.

That’s where the top designers and more than 450 brands roll out their best and brightest for all in the industry to see.

1. OUTDOOR LIVING.

PHOTO COURTESY OF KALAMAZOO 86

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This trend has taken off in the last several years and appliance manufacturers are really stepping up to the plate with their offerings. Check out this outdoor kitchen from Kalamazoo, which offers what it calls its hybrid grill. It can be fueled by any combination of gas, wood or charcoal. The space also features refrigeration and storage drawers plus an icemaker all in an open-air entertainment space.

7

2 0 2 2 CO LO R TRENDS

2. A NOD TO NATURE. Bringing the serene greens inside your home is what Benjamin Moore’s color of the year is all about. October Mist, a silvery green, mimics spring leaves and provides just enough warmth to be the perfect complement to other colors in their trending shades, like Hint of Violet, Morning Dew, Wildflower, Pale Moon and Quiet Moments.

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3. CONTEMPORARY EDGE. Kitchens are taking on a mod and sleek look with the focus on slab doors with edge or channel pulls to put the focus on the door, rather than the hardware. Floating and component style cabinets in bathrooms and other living spaces are also making a splash in the design world.

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4. ROOMS WITH A VIEW. When it comes to window and door preferences, bigger is better.

Natural light is in demand and that’s why larger windows are making their mark on both residential and commercial projects.

5. POPS OF COLOR. PHOTO COURTESY TRUE RESIDENTIAL 88

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Color is finding its way back into appliances with cobalt blue, emerald green, saffron yellow and shades of sage. Sinks are also sharing the colorful spotlight with an anything goes trend that if you like it, flaunt your favorite hues here too.

6. GOING WITH THE GRAIN. While white and gray have been dominant forces in kitchen design for years, nature-inspired cabinets are making a comeback. Look for natural wood grains to start sprouting in kitchens and baths as well.

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written by RACHEL JENNINGS photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

LOOK W HAT WE FOU ND

Spring Showstopper

IN EVERY ISSUE 90

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TURN AN OLD VASE INTO A SEASONAL CENTERPIECE

WHEN SPRING ARRIVES, I love nothing more than

adding fresh flowers around the house to bring a little of the beautiful outdoors inside. Recently, I tackled a DIY that not only added a splash of color inside the vase but on the outside too. All it took was upgrading a standard thrift store vase into a showstopper that you can use again and again, season after season.

...

What you will need ht lines

• Vase withgustnraanigd glue sticks • H ot glueeenery • Faux gr

Instructions Start by finding your vase. We all have glass vases lying around, so why not use one for this project? If you’re at a loss, don’t forget to hit up your local thrift or dollar store to hunt for a good case for this project. For this project, a straighter vase without a lot of curves is best.

Next, grab some greenery. You might have this around the house as well. I found the right faux sprigs at my local craft store. There are so many choices that, oftentimes, it’s hard to choose. I ended up picking a faux fern leaf. I liked that it was plastic and that it wouldn’t get damaged if doused in water when filling the vase. The individual branches were pliable and easy to move around, and they looked fairly real.

They also had multiple stems that detached from the base stem easily. When choosing your greenery, it’s most important to pick something that is visually appealing to you.

Next, prep your vase by washing it and removing any mineral deposits or fingerprints. Dry it well, then set aside. Now it’s time to pick the branches or stems from your greenery that you want to use and, if necessary, use wire cutters to snip from the main branch. Once you have a few pulled, start looking for your pattern of placing stems around the vase. I chose the pattern of a large stem followed by a small stem all the way around the vase.

Finally, it was time to heat up the hot glue gun and get to work.

Once the gun was hot, I grabbed an individual stem and carefully applied glue to the stem of the greenery. I placed it on the vase gently tapping in place. I then dabbed small amounts of hot glue on the leaves and pressed them into place. When you are gluing your sprigs onto the vase, take note of how the real leaf would look in nature. Branches typically have a graceful bend and aren’t situated in a straight up-and-down fashion. Keep in mind, if you

make a mistake or don't like the placement, it is easily fixed by spraying a small amount of glass cleaner on the greenery. It helps the sprig come right off. Afterward, simply let the vase dry and try again.

What makes this vase a keeper is that it is commitment-free. You can easily remove any items hot glued to it and then change it out for each new season or holiday. Just spray with a little glass cleaner and you're on to the next holiday! The best part of this DIY was the price tag and time commitment. I spent a total of $15 and about 30 minutes working on it. With limitless options, set aside a little time for this project and help usher in a bit of spring to the inside of your home. ✻

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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A

brighter2 PATH FOR THE FUTURE COUPLE RETURNS TO THEIR ROOTS WITH A MAJOR HOME REMODEL written by STELLA FONG photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

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A BRIGHT FUTURE awaits John and Tracy Koski. In their newly remodeled home, light shines into this residence that was built 17 years ago.

The new home brought a homecoming. After John spent a handful of years in Casper, Wyoming, working as a geophysics consultant, he and Tracy decided to move back to the city where they’d raised their two daughters, Caitlin and Lindsay. John knew he could continue his consulting work here and eventually settle in toward retirement. The couple said goodbye to the town nicknamed “The Oil City” and moved back to Billings, “Montana’s Trailhead.”

The Koskis bought a home in Rimrock West with the vision of refashioning the space to fit their wants, with the kitchen being paramount. Though they enlisted the talents of contractor Steve Kienitz, and Sheri Bond, designer at Kitchens Plus, both Tracy and John rolled up their sleeves to help in the remodel. John joined in on the demolition while Tracy grabbed a paint roller to cover much of the home.

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“A lot of the work we were able to do by ourselves,” Tracy says.

“We had the time to do it.”

Tracy knew what she wanted in the remodel. “I have been so fortunate to have some very nice kitchens,” she says, having built two custom homes over the years.

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“We’ve just been in the kitchen nonstop,” Tracy says. There, in

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Once we have all the necessary information, we can provide a formal proposal with detailed costs and a timetable. If you are ready to move ahead with the project, we lock a slot in our calendar, then schedule a follow-up to discuss the creation and particulars of your project

Step Three: Order We present 3D rendering drawings, photos, and sample materials to you. When you are happy with the final design, we are ready to order.

Step Four: Delivery & Installation We work closely with our trusted installers to communicate and execute the design as planned. All installation is done by trained craftsmen who make sure installation is done precisely.

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IT TAKES A LOT OF PEOPLE BEFORE IT ALL COMES TOGETHER. EVERYBODY WAS SPOT-ON AND KNEW WHAT TO DO AND WHEN TO DO IT. — Tracy Koski

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the heart of her home, centered with a six square-foot granite countertop, six people can be seated comfortably in bar chairs for face-to-face conversation or the breaking of bread. The swirl of grays and beiges mottled with blacks and browns in the stone complements beautifully with the frameless cherry wood cabinets taking on a “morning coffee” stain.

Congratulations ON YOUR BEAUTIFUL REMODEL

“I was not going to put in granite, but I found the perfect piece,” Tracy says—slabs of rock called Nevaska at Magic City Granite.

“We love to entertain,” Tracy says. “Holidays are a big deal.

We just love spending time in the kitchen.” The project that began in the spring of 2021 finished in time for her to enjoy Thanksgiving with her family.

Having two KitchenAid wall ovens provides the firepower to cook up the Koskis’ traditional prime rib dinner along with stuffing and pies. The space previously occupied by the cook top was refashioned into a long counter, allowing Tracy’s mother to make pecan and pumpkin pies, and create timeless memories, with her granddaughters.

Tracy strategically placed a refuse drawer at one end of the counter for easy cleanup. With the pull of a drawer, a garbage can comes out from under the counter to readily receive the brush of unused flour or scraps of food. “I wanted a workstation,” she says.

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Ken O’Neil, Owner/Master Plumber 406.671.2537 • oneil.plmb1@gmail.com When not used for rolling out dough or cutting up vegetables, the surface can hold all the prepared ingredients for cooking.

The five-burner KitchenAid gas top is a step behind the counter. By just turning around, the stovetop and prep service are within comfortable reach. Simmer options on the stove and a high heat larger center portal make for a range of cooking options.

Below the gas top are two drawers that smoothly slide out, holding all the pots and pans for creating culinary magic.

To the side are two pull-out cabinets with racks for spices, allowing for quick access while cooking. Several steps to the one side of the cooktop is the corner sink by a window, with Moen touchless faucet, and on the other side, the pantry and KitchenAid refrigerator. The bronze-colored Karran quartz sink with a lower divider organizes dishwashing, and when filled to the top with water, allows for more room for washing larger items.

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Along the wall where the refrigerator is located is a counter with a wine refrigerator below, and an open single layer wine rack above. Below the rack, under the cabinetry, Tracy installed linear LED lighting. Open shelving displays the glasses and vessels for wine and cocktails.

Natural light spills easily into this space, with large windows nearby, and the wall the color of fog mist bringing on a cheerful glow. The three-foot-square Bedrosians porcelain tile in whites and grays, mimic the look of travertine or limestone, almost making the room shine from below.

“It’s refreshing to work with someone like Tracy,” says designer Sheri Bond from Kitchens Plus. “She really knew what she wanted. I measured the space and laid it out.”

Tracy coordinated and communicated the progress by keeping tabs on each part of the project.

“It takes a lot of people before it all comes together,” including plumbers, electricians, tilers and others involved in the remodel project. “Everybody was spot-on and knew what to do and when to do it,” Tracy says.

“When we did have an obstacle, it became a group effort,” Bond says. Kitchen Plus also provided the frameless vanities with taller heights for the master bath, main bath and the two basement bathrooms sourced from Superior Cabinetry.

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HOME LOAN SOLUTIONS • Purchasing • Refinancing • Building • Remodeling

Call Sam for your Real Estate Needs!

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248-1127 www.billingsfcu.org 1516 Main St • 2522 4th Ave N • 990 Grand Ave • 32nd & King Ave W MARCH/APRIL 2022

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Spring is here and buyers are looking for homes with fenced yards for their fur babies. . .

MCHATTON MAKES IT HAPPEN!

RESIDENTIAL / COMMERCIAL / FARM & RANCH

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“We love the house,” Tracy says, even though not all the work is complete and the furniture is not all in place.

gives me space for what I want to do. We love to entertain. We love spending time in the kitchen.”

The home, now with old carpet and tile removed and replaced with warm wood floors in the main living area, has been repainted in shades of gray and ceilings filled with can lights and new light fixtures.

The Koskis now revel in their whole house remodel. It’s nearly complete and the pair is looking forward to enjoying every square inch. ✻

As for the completed kitchen, “I do cook all the time,” Tracy admits.

“The size of this space is perfect for entertaining and holidays. It

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new listing

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