Henry Real Bird Is the Real Deal BY DAVID S. LEWIS Moments ago, I walked with Henry Real Bird on Living-ston’s 9th Street Island, along a sandy bank of the Yellowstone’s far channel. Earlier, he had spotted the location from the highway. The Absarokas rise there against the southeastern sky, and Henry wanted it that way, so that the mountains named after his people would be … [Read more...]
Mark Twain’s Big Sky Tour
Twain’s Mastery Delighted Audiences, Disarmed Soldiers, Condemned the Corrupt BY GEORGE EVERETT Long after his stints as a newspaperman in the gold and silver camps of Virginia City, Nevada, Samuel L. Clemens was a nationally famous writer and speaker known as Mark Twain. Even as he continued to write during his most prolific period, in the 1880s and 1890s he began to … [Read more...]
Muslims in Montana
Hailing from Illinois to Indonesia BY CAROL SCHMIDT The 29-year-old electrical engineering major from Cicero, Illinois, likes to camp and hunt, has an extraordinarily firm handshake and answers questions with a crisp "Yes, ma'am." He's divorced yet passionate about being a good father to his young daughter, is unrelentingly patriotic and has a love affair with his new home … [Read more...]
Harry Rutter Was a Cowboy
He Drove Cattle to Montana, Put Away Outlaws, and Got the Girl BY PAT HILL Though his 2009 induction into the Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame simply states Harry Rutter was a cowboy, long-deceased friends and surviving family members agree that Rutter was quite a man out of the saddle as well. JoAnn Russell of Bozeman is Rutter's granddaughter. She has assembled a collection … [Read more...]
Henry Real Bird—Crow Indian, Working Cowboy, Poet Laureate
Crow Culture Survives and Merges with the Modern World through Montana’s Poet Laureate BY PAT HILL Montana's Poet Laureate Henry Real Bird is a traditional Crow Indian who made his bones in the literary world writing cowboy poetry. “It's an honor I'm lucky to get…I appreciate it,” said Real Bird, who was selected last September as the Treasure State's third Poet Laureate … [Read more...]