Spending time with family and talking Montana issues

I have spent the past month-and-a-half catching up with family.

My two brothers and I, who have not been together for over five years, were able to meet up in Oklahoma and had a great time. Our youngest brother flew in from Las Vegas and thought he was freezing to death at 35 degrees. I mention this not only because it was great to visit and tell stories with family, but to segue into the feral pig problem and overpopulation in Oklahoma. After seeing what the pigs can do, believe me, Montana wants to avoid encroachment of these animals into our state. We were hoping to go on a night-time hunt, but the weather did not cooperate. Though, we ventured out on a day hike into the hills just hoping to see a pig. They are mostly nocturnal so we were only able to observe the damage they can do to nature and the habitat in which they live.

For Thanksgiving, Judy and I met with three of our four kids and six of the 11 grandkids in Douglas, Wyoming, at our daughter’s home. We had fun playing with the grand kids and learned how tough it is to keep up. Two of our girls, a daughter in-law, and son in-law are educators, as was Judy prior to her retirement. Having come straight from an interim education meeting in Bozeman, we had lively discussions about special education, retention, numbers in classrooms, and other school subjects. At this time of year, especially, I want to thank our educators and school staff for their part in engaging and capturing our young people’s imagination, so they’ll grow up to be eager participants in civic discourse for our state.

We did have a great education interim committee meeting in Bozeman. Some highlights included a joint meeting with the Board of Regents, tours of a number of schools, presentations from Montana State University faculty, Center for Mental Health, and a visit to the Veteran’s Center at MSU. Subjects the faculty talked about were how students can learn to deal with debt and working with students to prepare for job recruiting. It was mentioned by both the regents and MSU faculty that there continues to be a problem with recruiting and retention in rural schools. I think after all this time, they are figuring out solutions and are working on programs to encourage folks to think about working in rural Montana schools. There is a grow-your-own program that MSU is looking at. It comes out of Chadron State College and includes a Special Education Apprenticeship Program for para-educators currently in schools who want to pursue a degree while working. The SEAP can be looked at on csc.edu.

Have a safe and merry Christmas.

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State Sen. Russ Tempel, R-Chester, can be emailed at [email protected].