Hi-Line Living: New Idea Expo

The three-day New Idea Expo brought together presenters, films, filmmakers and vendors to share information and discuss ideas about ways of approaching life and business that might seem contrary to mainstream practices.

The expo is an evolution of Havre's annual film festival and is the brainchild of Yellow Bus Creations, a group of people who have been holding the film festival since 2006.

"This year we decided to do the whole expo thing to change it up," said Kris Shaw, one of Yellow Bus' founders and co-owner with her husband, David, of the Atrium Mall where the event is held each year.

The expo featured presentations ranging from health topics, such as yoga and holistic treatments, to farming topics, including transitioning a farm to organic production, permaculture and beekeeping. Film topics included teen parents on the Hi-Line, Nikola Tesla's secrets about electricity, manipulation of the public through media and the connection between math and God.

"We really wanted it to be a way for the community to come and learn new ideas about different ways of thinking and have a discussion," Kris Shaw said about the annual event. "It's never been about being radical."

This emphasis on open dialogue, the Shaws said, has been a cornerstone of the event from the beginning. One year, they said, the group had planned to show a film about the controversial practice of fracking in the oil industry, so they invited people from both sides of the issue to lead discussion among themselves and the public.

"When we did that, then we saw both sides of it," David Shaw said, "and then that way people can make up their own mind."

Friday night was a film-centered night with locally made and internationally acclaimed films. One of the highlights of the evening, Kris Shaw said, was awarding Big Sandy student Madison Reichelt the Innovation Award for her film "The Struggles and Triumphs of Teenage Parenting."

Reichelt's short film highlighted how teen pregnancy affects Hi-Line kids' lives. She said she interviewed local teenagers who were teen mothers and teenagers whose parents had become pregnant as teens. She entered her film in the festival competition two years ago, but part of the judging process included technical aspects, she said, so her film, which was created on the family video camera, wasn't one of the winners.

However, the organizers were so taken with the film's subject matter and Reichelt's treatment of it, even two years later, that they brought Madison and her film back for the 10th anniversary and gave her the award, Shaw said.

"It was pretty cool," Reichelt said. "It was two years ago and I haven't made a film since, so I had not been thinking about it much, and one day my dad got a call and it was exciting. It was a nice, unexpected surprise."

Presenters

While Saturday and Sunday also included films, primarily professionally made films, the bigger draw was to listen to presenters and take part in discussions.

Among the presenters was Big Sandy organic farmer Bob Quinn, who spoke about best practices for transitioning a farm from chemical fertilization and fallowing to a certified organic operation.

"I am a scientist by nature and by training," he said, and he liked the idea of growing his own fertilizer, getting healthy crops and soils through rotation and getting away from the sprays. And, he added, in the past 30 years he has averaged about two times the profit from organic crops than those from those grown conventionally in the area.

Recent consumer interest in organic foods has upped that profit to four to five times higher, Quinn said, and this year he has gotten several more calls than past years from farmers interested in making the change to organic farming.

Quinn said he advises people to start small, transitioning only a portion the farm to organic each year. He also recommended following three principles behind the conversion to organic farming: think diversity in crops because organic farming mimics nature which works by having several different plant types in an area; focus on soil building, including soil nutrients and micro organisms; and be flexible because weather and other factors influence what crop the soil needs.

Another agriculture-related speaker came from Great Falls to present on two topics, aquaponics and beekeeping. Brian Rogers, who teaches on the two subjects at Great Falls College Montana State University, said he initially learned about these farming practices through research and simply doing them.

Aquaponics, he said, interested him initially as it was being discussed as a possible solution for traveling to and colonizing Mars. But the farming practice is relevant on Earth right now, he added, to help combat water shortages, such as California has been experiencing in recent years, or to make productive land out of areas unsuitable for conventional farming practices.

"It's a closed loop system," he said, adding that aquaponics uses 90 to 95 percent less water than conventional farming.

Fish, or other edible aquatic creatures such as snails or prawns, are grown in water, their waste solids are used to fertilize plants, and these plants filter the water so it can be used again for the fish.

He said he has worked to create a system that is self-sustaining in that it needs water once a week, to make up for the 5 to 10 percent loss and very little balancing of such things as oxygen, minerals and pH.

On his second topic, he said bees are a natural element absolutely essential for plant growth and food production, and they also provide their own crop in the form of raw honey which he said is beneficial for people.

Honey is not only a healthy, natural sweetener but also, in its raw, unpasteurized form, it has many health-related uses including as a probiotic and a medicinal aide for helping heal difficult wounds, he said.

This dual emphasis on promoting healthy nature and healthy living, as well as holistic approaches to both, was echoed by other presenters, such as Kevin and Patrick Campbell, who showed people how to use massage for pain management; Dr. Jerry Taylor, who spoke on vaccination controversies, and Barbara Zuck, who talked about music as a form of therapy through vibroacoustics.

The various vendors displayed and expained products and services on this theme, too.

Vendors

Book Exchange-Emporium owner Sue Pollington displayed organic herb mixes and nongenetically modified, organic seeds for vegetables, herbs and flowers, along with cooking and gardening books and handouts.

Laura Malisani from Gary & Leo's Fresh Foods was on hand with samples of organic and healthy snack foods sold at the store.

Other booths displayed essential oils, crystal composites, called orgonites, and amethyst-filled biomats and pillows.

Pati Killebrew-Hall, who sells the biomats, said she prefers the holistic approach to wellness because it more effective than common, cookie-cutter treatment, whether looking at illness, addiction or other problems.

As an example she talked about her time working in probation programs and how drug addicts had their problem labeled, were given the prescribed treatment for that label, then sent back into society. The addicts would continually fall back into drug use, she said, leading to repeats in the legal system and, most times, prison because their individual problems were not addressed. They were not given the tools they needed to lead a healthy lifestyle. she added.

What has become the standard practice of dealing with addicts as criminals is overwhelming the courts and prisons, she said, but dealing with the problems holistically helps these people heal themselves.

Among the holistic treatments people could learn about, and try themselves, at the expo was therapeutic music.

Barbara Zuck's harp music filled the Atrium during the expo. She was there representing Mary Stevens, who teaches music and performs in public venues throughout the year.

Stevens is trained to use her music as a form of therapy, Zuck said, for such problems as soothing pain, stroke recovery and regaining memory loss.

She said Stevens and other harpists come together to play at Northern Montana Care Center each week, giving the musicians a chance to practice together while providing therapeutic music to the care center's patients.

"Playing the harp," Zuck said, "it's changed my life."

Even if a person plans only to play for themselves, Zuck said, the harp is an easy instrument to learn, and she gave people mini-lessons with a small beginner's harp, frequently encouraging their efforts with, "That was beautiful. It's almost impossible to make a harp sound bad."

Zuck, who started taking harp lessons from Stevens about one-and-a-half years ago, fell in love with the music and now plays harp as much as two hours a day, she said.

She added that she takes opportunities where she can to play in therapeutic situations and, during the expo, arranged to play for yoga demonstrator Bonnie Williams' weekly chair yoga class for people with limited mobility.

This spirit of community and finding ways to link with and aid one another was an underlying theme of the weekend.

Neither vendors nor the public were charged for participating and presenters volunteered their time and expertise. Donation jars were left out in case people wanted to help with expenses for advertising or the free food.

Kris Shaw, who can be found most weekdays at her shop, High Plains Gallery, said the group is planning to hold the expo again next year and encouraged people to ask them about participating.

"There are other people" with interests and knowledge to offer other, she said. "I know they're out there, and they are welcome to contact us for next year because we do want to do it again."