Montana Legacy Lands News

Gov. Schweitzer To Promote MT Tourism on Letterman

Gwen — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 22:25:10 +0000

HELENA, Mont. — Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer has big plans for promoting a new direct flight from New York City to Bozeman.

Schweitzer says he is scheduled to be on the Late Show with David Letterman on April 25. Letterman owns a ranch north of Helena and is one of Montana’s most famous part time residents.

Schweitzer says he is going to take one downtown and give away Montana products like beef jerky and huckleberry jam, hoping to “cause a commotion.”
The governor says the state is placing murals of Montana attractions and wildlife on a dozen city delivery trucks.

Schweitzer says he is going to take one downtown and give away Montana products like beef jerky and huckleberry jam, hoping to “cause a commotion.”

The governor says Montana has never gotten cheaper advertising than it will get with his television appearance.

The new flights are scheduled to start in June and will be offered by United Airlines.

State names Mission Field Airport of the Year

Gwen — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 18:14:29 +0000

By Enterprise Staff

Mission Field Airport (Livingston) recently received the Airport of the Year award from the Montana Department of Transportation.Airport officials plan to present the award, which includes a sculpture, to the Park County Commission on Thursday.

Reprinted from “The Livingston Enterprise”.

Mission Field was one of a handful of airports nominated for the award in 2011, Montana Department of Transportation Aeronautics Division Administrator Debbie Alke said this week. There are 120 public use airports in the state, Alke said.

The airport, which was built in the 1950′s, underwent a $3.5 million renovation project last summer. The Federal Aviation Administration funded most of the project cost.

Twenty-five planes are based at the airport, and the runway services about 9,000 take-offs and landing per year, airport manager Russ Ferguson has said.

Livingston HealthCare uses the airport for about six to 10 emergency flights each year, and the National Park Service, National Forest Service, U.S. military and the Army Corps of Engineers als use the airport.

The Joint City-County Airport Board is scheduled to present the award to the commission at 2.p.m. Thursday.

Big Timber: The Little Town That Can

Gwen — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 21:12:35 +0000

Whether Clark’s Rivers Across, Dornix at the time of the old sawmill, or Big Timber when the railway left its own legacy, the area around the Boulder and Yellowstone rivers has always been characterized by enterprise and enduring beauty.

Sweet Grass County and Big Timber are today home to less than 4,000 residents, many attracted by the dual benefit of living in a place where small business is encouraged; and daily rewarded with incredible vistas and landscapes unmatched for living and recreational opportunities. In Big Timber these is room for most every pursuit, whether it be a business, world-class golf courses or an afternoon of fishing on the Yellowstone River. The local business people seem to have a common bond and connection to each other, born of odd diversity and a distinct common ground. According to Phillip Land, a local real estate broker, “People come here because they want to live here, not because they have to.”

Though the Sweet Grass Chamber of Commerce boasts some 68 members, the true level of small businesses and entrepreneurship runs much deeper that the hardware store, restaurants, or salons of main street business. There are two custom rifle companies, a substantial honeybee enterprise, a forge operation for specialized iron work, a large, grass-fed beef ranch, a company that does customer survey work worldwide and many “stealth” businesses like that of Ron McAdams, who is a self-styled “business advisor,” working with a company in San Francisco. “I live here because of the lifestyle,” says Ron. “I’ve got a good one.”

“Lifestyle,” is the common refrain among business owners in Big Timber, who seem to couple rugged, Western determinism with a strong desire to enjoy “the great outdoors” and fully appreciate the benefits of small town living. Any sense of isolation is readily buffered by the easy, one hour drive to the bustle of Bozeman or Billings, their cultural attractions and international airports. Not that Big Timber is lacking in any area. The Grand Hotel’s talented head chef, Amy Smith, has for 20 years served up some of the best dining in Montana, right in downtown Big Timber. She has prepared food for the likes of local residents Michael Keaton (a regular) and Tom Brokaw, and visitors like Jimmy Buffet, Robert Redford, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and retired Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, all of whom would likely respond “lifestyle” if asked why they now homestead or visit Sweet Grass County.

An unexpected surprise, fine businesses like the Grand Hotel are what make Big Timber so special. Within shooting distance of each other, C. Sharps Arms and Shiloh Riffles offer their worldwide clientele the finest quality in custom-made, single shot rifles. According to owner, John Schoffstall, custom rifles from C. Sharps Arms have been in great demand since he set up shop in 1975.

By Bill Muhlenfeld and Phillip Land\Reprinted from Farm and Ranch West – Volume 45

Click here for full article (Pages 16-18)

U.S. Farmers Reclaim Land From Developers

Gwen — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 19:08:14 +0000

By Robbie Whelen

Five years into a brutal national housing downturn, raw land destined for residential development has fallen so far in value that thousands of acres across the country are being used again for agriculture. During the fast-moving days of the housing boom, real-estate speculators in California, Arizona, Florida and other states paid top dollar to buy land from farmers and convert it from citrus groves and cotton fields to potential subdivisions.
Now, with crop prices soaring and housing in a deep slump, the economics of land investment have turned upside down. Farmers and investors are buying land that had been slated for development and using it for agriculture. And they are paying a small fracture of what housing developers paid for the same land before the recession.
The trend, if it continues, could represent a historic shift away from development in the far reaches of metropolitan areas. These properties had fueled much of the housting industry’s bubble last decade.
In September, the Vanderweys, an Arizona dairy farming family, paid $8 million for a 760-acre alfalfa and cotton field that had fallen into foreclosure in Buckeye, AZ., about 30 miles west of Phoenix. That same parcel have been sold to real-estate speculators in 2005 for $40.8 million. The Vanderweys want to plant hay.
“These prices are becoming the new normal,” said Nick Vanderwey, one of four brothers who purchased the famrland. “Everything in this area is coming back into farmers’ hands.”

Reprinted from the Wall Street Journal – November 14, 2011

Click here to read full article

10 Small Towns with huge backyards

Gwen — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 21:28:57 +0000

USA Today by Kathy Baruffi

“They weren’t lying when they named this place Paradise Valley,” Tuff says. “Livingston is an Eden along the Yellowstone River, just 52 miles north of Yellowstone National Park. Galleries share space with bars, gear shops and breakfast spots in the historic downtown. Anglers have the Yellowstone or nearby Gallatin and Madison rivers, which teem with thousands of fish per mile. Some 2,000 miles of trails beckon backpackers and bikers to the Gallatin National Forest.” 406-222-0850; livingston-chamber.com

Click here to view article

Welcome to Yellowstone, land of firsts

Gwen — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 22:26:24 +0000

Billings Gazette – May 26, 2011

It was the first. It’s the most diverse in wildlife and geological features. And it continues to draw the most attention. Welcome to Yellowstone National Park, which will celebrate its 140th anniversary in 2012.

Creation of the park has been called one of the United States’ greatest contributions to the world since it marked the first setting aside of a national park for the public and protection of a special area in its natural form.

Even if your stay here is a couple of days, it will, undoubtedly, be an experience of a lifetime.

In a matter of a few days, you can tour the 2-million-acre park and see the world’s largest concentration of hydrothermal features, including Old Faithful geyser, which provides a spectacular show about every 80 minutes.

It was the first. It’s the most diverse in wildlife and geological features. And it continues to draw the most attention.

Welcome to Yellowstone National Park, which will celebrate its 140th anniversary in 2012.

Even if your stay here is a couple of days, it will, undoubtedly, be an experience of a lifetime.

Click Here to View Article

The Seller’s Guide To Success

Gwen — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 17:28:38 +0000

By Brittany Cremer

Billings Gazette -Sunday, March 27, 2011

Sentimentality is the home seller’s worst enemy. The Time-Life plate collection – deal breaker. The college of family portraits – too distracting. The “Stars and Stripes Forever” – themed room with red walls, blue bedspread and glow-in-dark orbs dangling from the ceiling – forget about it. In the realm of home selling prep work, less is best and beige is king.

“The difficulty in home selling is prepping your house to prospective buyers can see past your bleongings and envision their own,” said Twyla Best, realtor with Granite Realty in Billings…..

The truth is, most buyers have an idea in their mind of the house they are searching for. Sometimes following all the rules still won’t get your house sold because it’s not what the buyer is looking for, Best said. Your home should still be at its tip-topiest at the time you list, sparkling, beaming and eagerly waiting to be adopted.

“Starting with the exterior, be sure the grass is lush, green and mowed regurlalryl,” Thom said. “Adding plants and hanging flower pots can also be a nice touch.”

Click Here for Article

Need a zero-down mortgage? Look Outside the City

Gwen — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 21:20:29 +0000

By Michele Lerner

If your home is in a designated rural area, and you meet income requirements, you may qualify for a loan with no down payment.

The zero-down mortgage is still alive through the Agriculture Department’s rural-development housing program.

People buy houses without down payments or mortgage insurance with USDA loans. The catch? The property must be in a designated rural area. The surprise? Some eligible properties are in places that most people would not consider rural. (Bing: What is mortgage insurance?)

“The terms of eligibility for a USDA loan are twofold, because not only does the borrower need to qualify, but so does the property,” says Tommy Xintaris, a senior mortgage banker with Envoy Mortgage in Houston, which lends throughout Texas. “It’s a small box that borrowers have to fit into, but it’s a great program if they do.”

Click Here for Full Article

Do you qualify?
First, to be eligible, the property must be in a designated rural area. The USDA website lists counties designated as rural. But some properties are eligible for USDA loans in counties that are not designated rural, Xintaris says. There are eligible homes on the outskirts of Austin, Texas, for example.

“The best way to find out about property eligibility is to enter an exact address (on the USDA site),” Xintaris says.

After the home’s location is deemed eligible, the borrower must meet income and credit standards.

“Borrowers must have a low to moderate income and yet be able to afford the payments on the property,” says Paul Defngin, a mortgage planner with Apex Home Loans in Rockville, Md. “USDA has established income limits. Borrowers can enter their ZIP code, income and number of members of the household and will know immediately if they qualify for the program.”

Click Here for Article

Agriculture Was Green Before Green Was Cool

Gwen — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 21:24:54 +0000

Amanda Radke

The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) has promised to stop the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). AFBF President Bob Stallman told its members, “Our message to the new Congress is clear: It is time to stop the EPA. This pressure is a clear and present danger to American agriculture, and it’s coming from one major source.”

According to Stallman, greenhouse gas regulations, new rules on dust, and expansive new rules for water are some of the regulations that endanger agriculture. Read more about it here. I’m incredibly pleased with this strong message AFBF is sending, and I think one thing we can do to help this mission is to spread the positive word about agriculture and the environment.
After all, for cattlemen, every day is Earth Day, and we are the truly the first environmentalists. Here are a few talking points we can share today via Facebook, Twitter, email and one-on-one conversations about how green farming and ranching really is:
1. More than two-thirds of land used for grazing in the U.S. is not suitable for raising crops or urbanization.

2. More than 97% of U.S. beef cattle farms and ranches are classified as family farms.

3. Today’s American farmer feeds about 144 people worldwide.

4. If 1955 technology were used to produce the amount of beef raised today, 165 million more acres of land would be needed—that’s about the size of Texas!

5. According to the EPA, the entire U.S. agricultural sector accounts for only 4% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).

6. Methane from livestock accounts for only 2.6% of total U.S. GHG emissions.

Click Here to Read Full Article

Rodeo Drive: Rich Urban Cowboys on Fine Horses Best Ranch Hands

Gwen — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 22:49:53 +0000

By KEVIN HELLIKER

Kansas City, Mo.

When he was a titan of Wall Street, Thomas H. Bailey didn’t even know how to mount a horse. Yet since retiring as chief executive of Janus Capital Group Inc. in 2002, Mr. Bailey has become a rising star in the cowboy sport of cutting.

During a competition here last month, Mr. Bailey and his teammate—a gelding named Kits Lil Pepto—separated, or “cut,” a steer from a small group of cattle, then dashed from side to side to prevent the animal from rejoining its herd. Throughout the wild ride, Mr. Bailey stayed balanced in the saddle, showing why he has earned nearly $90,000 in the sport.

“Tom’s good,” said Matt Gaines, a champion cutter with winnings of $5.7 million, as he watched Mr. Bailey perform.

Mr. Bailey, 73 years old, represents a new force in the corral: the urban cowboy who can’t be laughed off.

Long mocked as a fake, the would-be Westerner these days isn’t riding mechanical bulls or visiting dude ranches. He’s competing respectably in an Old West sport that measures the ability to handle horses and cows.

Traditionally the pastime of ranch hands, cutting is luring a growing number of urbanites, many of them former captains of finance and industry, who are debunking the notion that real cowboys exist only on the range.

“These business leaders are showing that if they work hard, they can succeed at a cowboy sport,” says Glory Ann Kurtz, a cowgirl journalist who writes a blog called All About Cutting.

Many old timers find all this troubling. A common complaint is that technology has created a super breed of cutting horse so talented that cowboy skills matter less than the money needed to purchase such an animal.

“The average cowboy can’t afford to play no more, horse prices rising so high,” says Pat Jacobs, a 73-year-old Texas rancher and legend of the sport. “Pedigree, I wonder if it hasn’t taken the cowboy almost out of it.”

As evidence that success can be bought, some cowboys point to Jon Winkelried, who last year resigned as the 49-year-old co-president of Goldman Sachs, where he had earned as much as $53 million a year. A native of suburban New Jersey, Mr. Winkelried early this year made news for adding to his cutting-horse stable a $460,000 stallion named I Sho Spensive. “Winkelried’s 219 Wins Amateur Classic,” a cutting-horse newsletter reported in July, after he nabbed first place in a competition with a score of 219. This year, Mr. Winkelried, who declined to return calls for this story, has more than doubled his total earnings as a rider, to nearly $50,000.

Lovers of the Old West lament that the sport features more and more horses and riders that have never worked on the open range. “What used to be a sport among cowboys on ranches has become an urban sport” among the wealthy, says Thomas McGuane, 70, the novelist who is a Montana rancher and a member of the cutters’ hall of fame.

Other old-timers welcome the change. “Sure, money people getting involved has pushed up the cost of everything needed for cowboying—hats, boots, horses,” says Buster Welch, an 82-year-old Texan widely regarded as the greatest cutter ever. “But to compete on any horse takes tremendous talent and dedication, and in my view these businessmen are raising the I.Q. of the sport, and that’s a good thing.”

Since 2000, membership in the National Cutting Horse Association—a requirement for competing at its shows—has risen 50% to more than 20,000. And that growth isn’t coming from lowly cowhands, according to a recent NCHA survey: The average member boasts a seven-figure net worth and annual income of $177,000, while 56% are top executives.

Newcomer riches have also boosted purses at NCHA events to more than $40 million, a 50% jump over the past decade. At the championship of cutting—an event called the NCHA Futurity, the finals of which concluded last week in Fort Worth, Texas—the total purse now exceeds $4 million, up 50% from a decade ago.

Competing beside lifelong cowboys at the Kansas City show was a house builder, a shopping-mall magnate, a heavy construction tycoon, several lawyers and small-business owners—virtually all of them late-life cowboys.

Only after selling his automotive dealership and retiring did Kansas Citian Denny Vest realize his lifelong dream of becoming a cowboy. Seated atop his mount at last month’s show, Mr. Vest looked across a crowded corral and said, “All those executives who disappeared from the golf course? This is where they went.”

Newcomers to the sport say nothing compares with the thrill of riding a spectacular equine athlete. “The first time I did it, I said to myself: I will do this for the rest of my life,” says Jim Bower, owner of an Indiana-based commodities firm called Bower Trading.

Compared with rodeo stunts like bull riding and bronco breaking, cutting is safe, slow and an acquired taste to watch. Winning requires a sixth sense about where the horse will turn next, so that the rider can relax into turns and avoid penalty points. Just as often, a cutter’s hopes are crushed by a suddenly unresponsive horse or a cow that turns out to be athletically gifted.

Once, the sport offered talented cowhands a way of bettering themselves, as evidenced by Mr. Welch, the champion cutter. After running away from home at age 14 to join a ranch crew, Mr. Welch earned more than a million dollars in cutting prizes in the 1950s and 1960s, riding horses he typically had bought, broken and trained himself. That prize money enabled him to buy a large Texas ranch.

By all accounts, ranch hands today couldn’t replicate that success on an ordinary mount.

“If your horse isn’t bred for cutting, you may as well go bird hunting with a Chihuahua,” says George Ward, an 80-year-old Kansas City real-estate developer who has won about $90,000 on cutting horses he purchased, some for prices in the high five figures.

Read the article in the Wall Street Journal