Leavitt Great West Insurance, with office locations across Montana and an affiliate of the national brokerage firm, Leavitt Group announced a recent role transition at their Helena office.  Shelby Dangerfield, who has been with Leavitt Great West for over a year recently transitioned into the new role of commercial insurance advisor.

Doralyn Rossmann, a longtime faculty member in the Montana State University Library who has been serving as the library’s interim dean since August 2022, has been selected as the library’s new dean after a national search.

Montana has submitted an application to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for funding to build a sixth cottage at the Southwest Montana Veterans Home (SWMVH) in Butte. The SWMVH is a licensed and certified skilled nursing facility with five, 12-bedroom cottages currently home to 44 veterans and their spouses. A sixth cottage will increase the facility’s maximum capacity to 72 veterans. In its application to the VA State Home Construction Grant Program, DPHHS requested the sixth cottage, estimated at $5.7 million, be paid for with 65% federal funds and 35% state dollars. The governor secured $2 million in state dollars for the project.

The University of Montana Western was recently recognized as the #1 best college in Montana by BestColleges.com. The rankings take into account affordability, enrollment, retention, and graduation rates.

Bozeman Health has named Billings physician Dr. Chris Spoja as the health care system’s new chief medical officer. A Helena native Spoja currently serves as the chief medical officer of Inpatient Services at Intermountain Healthcare in Billings. In his new role Spoja will facilitate clinical affairs with physician and lead administrative leadership across the health system. Spoja will begin his new role on Jan. 2, 2024.

 Curt Rasmussen of Conrad was named the Northern Rodeo Association’s Announcer of the Year for 2023 recently. Rasmussen is the third generation of his family to become an award-winning rodeo announcer, following in the footsteps of his father, Will Rasmussen now of Salmon, Idaho, and his grandfather, Stan Rasmussen of Choteau. Curt Rasmussen lives and works in Conrad as a truck driver.

Teton County’s unemployment rate as of Sept. 30 stood at just 2.6% with 2,677 workers in the county, which lost 32 jobs over the past year, according to the Montana Department of Labor and Industry. Teton County ranked 32nd among the state’s 56 counties for its unemployment rate, tying with Flathead, Pondera and Ravalli counties. Gianforte recently announced that Montana reached its 23rd consecutive month of unemployment below 3%.

Among other things, the EPA is critizing the clean up plan for the Clark Fork River by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and the state’s Natural Resource Damage Program. The EPA found fault with plans to leave more wastes in place along the river because of budget constraints.

The Missoula Valley Winter Market opened in the Southgate Mall on Saturday, Nov. 11. near the indoor entrance to Scheels. The market’s hours are 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. through Dec. 30. There will be over 40 local vendors selling food, beverages, arts and crafts.

 A new Mexican restaurant is in the process of opening at Missoula’s Southgate Mall. The team from the Pangea restaurant in downtown Missoula plans to open the new restaurant, called Elote, in the old Red Robin restaurant space. Opening  is scheduled for March of 2024. They’re hiring both full- and part-time employees.

A Norwegian battery materials company that secured local tax breaks. The company has announced  that it could be months longer before it chooses Butte, or a city in Washington state or Oregon as the site of its factory. Butte-Silver Bow commissioners approved millions of dollars in tax abatements for Cenate in June. Cenate — pronounced Sin-NAH-Tah — is developing silicon-based materials for higher-density batteries with faster and longer-lasting charges. Cenate says it would employ 100 to 250 people here and county officials estimate annual pay for the first 100 jobs at about $70,000, based on the job mix and average wages for such positions in southwest Montana.

The median home in Cascade County listed for $404,000 in October, down 10.2% from the previous month’s $450,000. Compared to October 2022, the median home list price decreased 7.2% from $435,500. These statistics pertain to houses listed for sale in Cascade County, not houses that were sold.

When the pandemic hit, Andrew Fountain began looking for a project he could do from home.  Fountain began counting glaciers. Fountain, a geology professor emeritus at Portland State University, and research assistant Bryce Glenn have released a revised inventory of glaciers in the American West that will soon be added to the U.S. Geological Survey’s national map. The new inventory by Fountain and Glenn shows that 52 of the 612 officially named glaciers are no longer glaciers because they are either too small, no longer moving or have disappeared altogether. In Montana, six named glaciers have been added to the “missing” list.

Fountain said their effort focused on the named glaciers across the western half of the continental United States because those were the most culturally significant. However, their inventory found that since the mid-20th century — about the time the USGS first started mapping the entire country — about 360 glaciers have either disappeared or become permanent snowfields. Fountain said the disappearance of glaciers shows just how much climate change is impacting the landscape across the American West.

Bozeman, home of Montana State University, has been named the No. 3 college town in America, according to the website BestColleges.com. The ranking points to the growth in the city’s population and the campus enrollment in recent years, “which means a bustling downtown and campus.” The ranking also notes the nearby natural amenities as key to making Bozeman a “paradise for outdoorsy students.” MSU’s enrollment set an all-time record this fall at 16,978, making it the largest university in Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas. Its incoming class was the third largest in history at 3,634.

Montana ranks #7 in the nation for interest in homeschooling (1.58 per 100,000 residents), according to Age of Learning. are