BOZEMAN – Doriane Keiser came to Montana State University planning to return one day to the Fork Peck Indian Reservation where she grew up. She hopes to improve the community’s mental health services and resources – a goal the faculty members who know her are certain she will achieve.

“During my first conversation with Doriane, I could tell she was passionate about transforming mental and emotional well-being and support back home,” said Steven Davis, who works with Keiser in his roles as assistant dean of the MSU Honors Collegeand director of its Honor Bound program.

Keiser, a Presidential Scholar who is finishing her junior year majoring in psychology and community health with minors in sociology and human development, came one step closer to her goal this month when she was named one of 55 Udall Undergraduate Scholarship winners nationwide. The scholarship, worth up to $7,000, recognizes students who demonstrate exceptional leadership, community service and involvement in the fields of health care, environment or public policy surrounding American Indian and Alaska Native communities and issues.

Keiser ultimately plans to become a clinical psychologist. She wants to work both with individuals and within institutions, such as schools and law enforcement agencies, to ensure that effective mental health interventions and referrals for people in crisis are available in the Fort Peck community. She first learned about careers in the field when taking online psychology and criminology classes in high school while watching many young people, including her younger sister, struggle with mental health issues without finding help to deal with them.

“There was a lot of suicide on the reservation – I saw it over and over again in middle school and high school,” she said, adding that the situation was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Aside from occasional short programs presented to students in schools, Keiser said, “we never really got an education on it.” To her knowledge, few in the community were equipped to help students develop suicide prevention safety plans.

She said that when an acquaintance of hers attempted suicide, he was sent to juvenile detention instead of being referred for mental health help. Then, when Keiser was a high school senior, her sister died by suicide.

“Growing up seeing examples of how mental health issues can affect an individual ended up leading me to want to pursue an education in the mental health realm,” she said. “Losing my sister just solidified my passion and drive to gain the ability to help other individuals who are struggling like my little sister.”

To acquire the necessary skills to achieve her goals, Keiser plans to earn a doctorate in clinical psychology. In the meantime, she has found ways to connect with Indigenous communities, including a project that has taken her back to Fort Peck with the MSU chapter of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society to teach engineering and  programming skills to fifth- and sixth-graders while flying miniature drones.

“Before I came to MSU, I never knew engineering was a thing, so making such a huge impact on these students’ lives through this activity was very nice,” said Keiser, who is the current president of MSU’s AISES chapter.

Nicholas Stadie, the chapter’s faculty adviser and an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, said the outreach project is becoming an annual tradition and is just one example of Keiser’s passion for fostering connections between communities and exchange of goodwill.

“Doriane is proud of her identity and engages with a wide range of Indigenous initiatives, tackling issues like food sovereignty, stress and youth mentorship,” Stadie said. “She clearly has a natural talent for and tendency toward public policy and a strong connection to her home community.”

Among her other activities at MSU, Keiser has served as a research assistant to Neha John-Henderson, associate professor of psychology, who is leading a study on the relationship between social connectedness, health and stress on the Blackfeet Reservation; bundled seeds bound for Indigenous communities with the Buffalo Nations Food System Initiative, a project of the Department of Native American Studies and the College of Education, Health and Human Development; traveled with the Honor Bound program to learn aquaponic farming techniques from Indigenous Hawaiians; worked with MSU’s McNair Scholars program to explore the impact of cultural exchanges on Native American and Alaska Native students at MSU; and served as a senator in student government representing the College of Letters and Science during her sophomore year.

“Her vast potential and future accomplishments will be limited only by the hours in her day,” said Davis, who predicts Keiser will go on to make a generational impact through her profession. “She’s going to transform people’s lives at both the individual and community level, not just as a clinical practitioner but as a scholar and researcher. I really believe the best is yet to come.”

HELENA – Anyone training bird dogs using game birds not raised in captivity needs to hold a bird dog training license, whether on private or public land. If you are training dogs with captive-reared birds, a license is not required.

The Fish and Wildlife Commission requires anyone purchasing a bird dog training license intending to train on public land to designate the number of dogs being trained.  

These licenses can be purchased online through the FWP Online License Service, any FWP regional office or any license provider. The license is $5 for residents ages 18 and over and $10 for nonresidents 18 and over. For residents and nonresidents ages 12 to 17, the license is free.

Bird dog training season with wild birds on public lands for residents runs from Aug. 1 to March 31, 2025; for nonresidents the season runs from Sept. 1 to March 31, 2025. 

For those commercially training bird dogs on state trust land, a special recreational use license (SRUL) is required from the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. 

A coral reef in French Polynesia where MSU scientists conducted collaborative research examining the importance of sea cucumbers to coral health. Photo courtesy of Zoe Pratte.

BOZEMAN – Montana may not have any coral reefs of its own, but a team of scientists in Montana State University’s Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology is studying a surprising partnership that may offer insight into keeping the world’s reefs healthy.

Associate professor Frank Stewart (Bozeman Magazine's May 2024 Cover Artist) and research assistant professor Zoe Pratte are part of a multi-institutional team that recently published a paper in the prestigious journal Nature Communications examining the importance of sea cucumbers to the health of nearby coral. The paper, titled “Removal of detritivore sea cucumbers from reefs increases coral disease,” was authored alongside researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Sea cucumbers, Stewart said, are a part of the animal group known as detritivores, meaning they clean the sediments that surround coral reefs, feeding on bacteria, algae and organic matter. Detritivores keep the environment clean and can help reduce the spread of pathogens that threaten coral.

“When you boil things down, it's a pretty straightforward interaction,” Stewart said. “Cucumbers, by cleaning sediment, seem to help corals. The mechanism by which that occurs is not so clear, and that's the next step. That's where more of the microbiome science comes in.”

Coral reefs are known to be in decline and are particularly threatened by disease, note the paper’s authors. Those diseases are commonly spread through the sediment in which corals grow – the very part of the environment kept clean by sea cucumbers. However, sea cucumbers have been harvested by humans for more than 100 years, Stewart said, and population recovery can take decades or can fail altogether. The paper’s authors estimate that at peak harvest, as many as a billion sea cucumbers are harvested annually.

To examine the direct interaction between sea cucumbers and corals, the team used open-water containers surrounding corals at a research station in French Polynesia. The containers allowed the environment to maintain natural water flow, and the team added or removed sea cucumbers to observe the impacts on nearby corals. The results were surprisingly stark.

In one of the coral species studied, removing sea cucumbers for 45 days increased tissue mortality by 370% over mortality levels when the cucumbers were present, said Stewart. The risk of overall coral colony mortality increased by as much as 1,500% in the same time frame.

“Sea cucumbers are so overlooked,” said Pratte. “I think it speaks to the importance of the entire ecosystem staying in balance, not just the things we think are pretty. Ecosystem balance depends on everything, even the creatures on the bottom of the ocean floor.”

With such dramatic results, Stewart said the study points to a potential, if logistically challenging, opportunity for remediation.

“I think the effect points to this idea of keeping the system as close to natural conditions as possible,” he said. “Sea cucumbers were a natural component of reefs for a very long time, and that speaks to an obvious strategy that could help corals. You try to keep the participants there that have that have a positive effect on the reef.”

Stewart said that next steps in this project include narrowing down the chain of microbial events that allows sea cucumbers to be so effective at keeping the environment clean and healthy for coral. But there are also ongoing projects closer to home that illustrate similar phenomena.

This work, said Stewart, highlights sea cucumbers as a touchstone species with outsized impacts on their local environment. When those species are disrupted, the downstream effects can be surprisingly large, and those types of critical species exist in all types of ecosystems, including Montana’s most spectacular landscapes. He highlighted an ongoing collaboration with scientists in MSU’s Department of Ecology exploring the environmental importance of caddisflies, a common sight on many Montana waterways.

“They're everywhere in our stream ecosystems and they're also known to have a disproportionately large effect on other species, including changing the water flow dynamics through the system, impacting things like the retention of nitrogen,” Stewart said. “It's the same idea here, in a very different system. We’re looking at participants with outsized effects and the mechanisms by which those effects exert themselves.”

Whether returning sea cucumbers to depleted environments can help coral reefs recover remains to be seen, but providing more knowledge about the health of delicate and threatened ecosystems can help scientists and managers make decisions about how to protect them, said Pratte.

Stewart said the collaborative project also highlights the interconnectedness of seemingly remote environments. While the species may not be the same around the world, many of the systems and processes are, and the more that is known about those processes, the more diverse species and their homes can be protected.

“This is a principle that’s likely operating in most ecosystems, whether it's an agricultural field or a forest,” he said. “There are likely to be animal and plant components of the system that have these really strong effects. If we can identify those participants and effects on the health of others in the system, we can figure out how it works.”

BOZEMAN — An exhibit marking the 50th anniversary of the publication “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” the influential bestseller penned by one-time Montana State University instructor Robert Pirsig, is now on display in the Montana State University Library.

Located on the second floor of the library near the entrance to Archives and Special Collections, the display is open to the public during library hours and will be up through this summer.

With his book, Pirsig motivated a generation to look inward to the "high country of the mind." Published in 1974 to wide acclaim, “Zen” was inspired in part by events that started between 1959 and 1961, when Pirsig was an English professor at what was then Montana State College, now MSU.

The library’s display includes biographical information about Pirsig, photographs, the briefcase that Pirsig carried while he taught at Montana State, maps of Pirsig-related places on the MSU campus and more. It also includes information about several collections in MSU’s Archives and Special Collections that are connected to Pirsig’s books and his time at MSU.

More information is available at https://guides.lib.montana.edu/c.php?g=1335017.

Why does a simple "hello" matter so much? In the bustling world of local businesses, the person greeting your customers—often a receptionist—plays a pivotal role not only in setting the tone of customer interactions but also in the broader success of your establishment.

Frontline of First Impressions
The receptionist is the first human touchpoint in your business. They're not just opening doors; they are opening opportunities with every greeting, every call handled, and every problem solved. The impact of their efficiency and warmth can be profound, often transforming a first-time visitor into a regular.

Skills That Define Success
Attention to detail, mastery of multitasking, and impeccable communication skills are the staples of a top-tier receptionist. Imagine a day filled with back-to-back client appointments, each requiring a personalized touch. The ability to manage this without a hitch not only keeps the day running smoothly but also elevates your business’s reputation for professionalism and reliability.

More Than Just Answering Calls
A receptionist’s role often goes unnoticed until you experience a bad one. Their day-to-day duties extend far beyond answering phones. They manage appointments, handle billing inquiries, resolve minor issues before they escalate, and maintain a calm, organized lobby area. Each task, performed well, knits a tighter, more successful business fabric.

Impact on Customer Service Excellence
The correlation between customer service and business success isn't new. However, the receptionist's role in mediating customer experiences is critical. They often act as the problem-solver, the information provider, and sometimes, the calm in a storm. Excellent customer service isn't just about meeting needs but also about making each interaction feel personal and valued.

Upskilling: A Path to Greater Impact
Investing in your receptionists through training and development isn't just beneficial; it's essential. Upskilling in areas such as CRM software, conflict resolution, and advanced communication techniques can transform good receptionists into great ones. For those looking to deepen their understanding of this career, a comprehensive job description template might offer insights into how to elevate their skills effectively.

Real-World Influence
Consider a local clinic where the receptionist not only greets patients but also ensures that their records are up to date and that they understand their post-visit instructions clearly. This not only improves patient satisfaction but also operational efficiency. Effective receptionists also build relationships, remembering client preferences and details, which enhances the personalized service that clients treasure.

A Sustainable Competitive Advantage
Ultimately, a well-trained, capable receptionist provides a competitive edge. They ensure that every customer interaction starts and ends on a high note, fostering loyalty and encouraging word-of-mouth promotion, which is invaluable for local businesses.

The Broader Scope of Influence
Beyond the immediate tasks at hand, receptionists play a crucial role in the marketing and branding of a business. They often control the flow of information, managing what new and returning customers see, hear, and experience from the moment they enter. This control makes them integral to brand consistency—ensuring that every interaction aligns with the business’s values and image.

Training for Excellence
Businesses that recognize the strategic role of receptionists invest heavily in their continuous training. Workshops on customer service, technical training on the latest office technology, and sessions on stress management are not just beneficial—they are crucial. This investment pays off in enhanced customer interactions, more efficient office management, and a happier workplace.

The Receptionist as a Catalyst for Growth
A dynamic receptionist doesn’t just keep your business running; they propel it forward. By efficiently handling logistical tasks, they free up other team members to focus on their core responsibilities. This efficiency boosts the overall productivity of the business, turning it into a well-oiled machine capable of growth and expansion.

In conclusion, the humble receptionist does more than answer calls and manage schedules. They create an atmosphere of welcome and efficiency that directly impacts customer retention and business success. It's clear that in the tapestry of local business success, the threads woven by a skilled receptionist are crucial. So, next time you pass by your reception desk, remember—the person behind it is not just part of your team; they are integral to your success. Their role is critical, and their contributions are vast, reinforcing why every local business needs to invest in empowering this key position.

On Saturday, May 4, 2024, Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport (BZN) in conjunction with Gallatin County Emergency Management will conduct a full-scale aircraft disaster exercise on airport grounds. 

This exercise will test on-scene coordination between the airport, airline, hospital and emergency response personnel from across the Gallatin Valley. It is another opportunity for these agencies to collaborate to improve emergency plans and response protocols, all for the benefit of our county’s residents and visitors. 

Multiple agencies, business and organizations partner with airport staff for this exercise, including Bozeman Health, Central Valley Fire District, Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office, Gallatin County 911, Hyalite Fire District, Salvation Army, Red Cross and numerous others.  

Due to this exercise, from 10 AM to 2 PM on May 4, folks will see an increased presence of emergency response vehicles at the airport. These will be for exercise purposes only and will not impact airline or air traffic at the airport. Please do not call 911 to report.  

“This exercise gives us the opportunity to test and revise our airport emergency plans as we continue to grow, not only as an airport, but also as a community,” said Jake Simpson, BZN Senior Director of Operations and Maintenance. “We rely heavily on our partnerships in Gallatin County when it comes to large scale emergencies and this exercise lets us strengthen those relationships.”  

Kevin Larsen, Gallatin County Emergency Management’s operations and training manager added: “Gallatin County Emergency Management strives to maintain a prepared and resistant community, and to support coordinated interagency responses to incidents and events throughout our county. This exercise is a great way to test plans, improve communications at numerous levels, build capability, and challenge assumptions. Collaboration with our emergency response partners builds community resiliency, and better prepares us to face a variety of disasters, both natural and man-made.”  

The exercise also meets the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requirement for the airport to conduct a full-scale emergency exercise every three years in addition to annual table-top drills. 

Anna Nemudraia, left, and Artem Nemudryi are lead authors on a new paper exploring the use of CRISPR technology to edit RNA genetic material. MSU photo by Adrian Sanchez-Gonzalez.

BOZEMAN – A team at Montana State University published research this week that shows how RNA, the close chemical cousin to DNA, can be edited using CRISPRs. The work reveals a new process in human cells that has potential for treating a wide variety of genetic diseases. 

Postdoctoral researchers Artem Nemudryi and Anna Nemudraia conducted the research alongside Blake Wiedenheft, professor in the Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology in MSU’s College of Agriculture. The paper, titled “Repair of CRISPR-guided RNA breaks enables site-specific RNA excision in human cells,” was published online Thursday in the journal Science and constitutes the latest advance in the team’s ongoing exploration of CRISPR applications for programmable genetic engineering.

CRISPR, which stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, is a type of immune system that bacteria use to recognize and fight off viruses. Wiedenheft, one of the nation’s leading CRISPR researchers, said that the system has been used for years to cut and edit DNA, but that applying similar technology to RNA is unprecedented. DNA editing uses a CRISPR-associated protein called Cas9, while editing RNA requires the use of a different CRISPR system, called type-III.

“In our previous work, we used type-III CRISPRs to edit viral RNA in a test tube,” said Nemudryi. “But we wondered, can we program manipulation of RNA in a living human cell?”

To explore that question, the team programmed type-III CRISPR proteins to cut RNA containing a mutation that causes cystic fibrosis, restoring cell function.

“We were confident that we could use these CRISPR systems to cut RNA in a programmable manner, but we were all surprised when we sequenced the RNA and realized that the cell had stitched the RNA back together in a way that removed the mutation,” said Wiedenheft.

Nemudryi noted that RNA is transient within the cell; it is constantly being destroyed and replaced.

“The general belief is that there’s not much point in repairing RNA,” he said. “We speculated that RNA would be repaired in living human cells, and it turned out to be true." 

Wiedenheft has mentored the two postdoctoral researchers since their arrival at MSU nearly six years ago, and said that the impact of their scientific contributions will lead to significant and continued advancements. 

“The work done by Artem and Anna suggests that RNA repair might be a fundamental aspect of biology and that harnessing this activity may lead to new lifesaving cures,” said Wiedenheft. “Artem and Anna are two of the most brilliant scientists I have ever encountered, and I’m confident that their work is going to have a lasting impact on humanity.”

RNA editing has important applications in the search for treatments of genetic diseases, Nemudryi said. RNA is a temporary copy of a cell’s DNA, which serves as a template. Manipulating the template by editing DNA could cause unwanted and potentially irreversible collateral changes, but because RNA is a temporary copy, he said, edits made are essentially reversible and carry far less risk. 

“People used Cas9 to break DNA and study how cells repair these breaks. Then, based on these patterns, they improved Cas9 editors,” said Nemudraia. “Here, we hope the same will happen with RNA editing. We created a tool that allows us to study how the cells repair their RNA, and we hope to use this knowledge to make RNA editors more efficient.”

In the new publication, the team shows that a mutation causing cystic fibrosis can be successfully removed from the RNA. But this is only one of thousands of known mutations that cause disease. The question of how many of them could be addressed with this new RNA editing technology will guide future work for Nemudryi and Nemudraia as they finish their postdoctoral training at MSU and prepare for faculty positions at the University of Florida this fall. Both credited Wiedenheft as a life-changing mentor.

“Blake taught us not to be afraid of testing any ideas,” said Nemudraia. “As a scientist, you should be brave and not be afraid to fail. RNA editing and repair is the terra incognita. It’s scary but also exciting. You feel you’re working on the edge of science, pushing the limits to where nobody has been before." 

HELENA – This year’s Montana paddlefish season kicks off on May 1 with the opening of the Upper Missouri River section from Fort Benton downstream to Fort Peck Dam. Anglers must have a White Harvest Tag to participate in catching and keeping a paddlefish from this section of the river. These tags are issued through a lottery system. FWP mails these tags to successful applicants. 

Unsuccessful paddlefish drawing applicants will be issued a snag-and-release only license for the Upper Missouri River. Others may also purchase snag-and-release tags for this fishery, even if they are not part of the lottery. 

The paddlefish season on the Missouri River below Fort Peck Dam and in the Yellowstone River below the mouth of the Bighorn River opens May 15, and the archery fishing season for paddlefish in the Fort Peck Dredge Cuts below Fort Peck Dam opens July 1. As in the past, anglers may only select one area to fish for paddlefish in Montana: Upper Missouri River (White Harvest Tag), Yellowstone River and Missouri River downstream of Fort Peck Dam (Yellow Harvest Tag) and the Fort Peck Dredge Cut archery-only season (Blue Harvest Tag). 

All harvested paddlefish must be immediately tagged and reported within 48 hours. Reporting options include: on-site where fish were harvested (at check points like Intake Fishing Access Site or roving creel staff along the Missouri), on the phone hotline at 1-877-FWP-WILD (877-397-9453) or 406-444-0356, or online at MyFWP at fwp.mt.gov.