Stories from Montana's Enduring Frontier by John Clayton

Author:John Clayton [Clayton, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, State & Local, West (AK; CA; CO; HI; ID; MT; NV; UT; WY)
ISBN: 9781540208385
Google: EWljswEACAAJ
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing (SC)
Published: 2013-04-09T04:58:24+00:00

ONE PERSON WHO disagrees about that legacy grew up playing basketball in a gym in Libby, Montana. The gym had been built largely through the efforts of the Greater Libby Association, an outgrowth of the study. The young basketball player carried his debt of gratitude into middle age and into his job as governor. In fact, Marc Racicot told me in a telephone interview, “I’m not sure that any reflection of history has had more impact on me, in terms of both historical lessons and inspiration.” It was so important to him that he urged all members of his top management team to read Small Town Renaissance. “While we manage the state’s daily affairs, which is no small task,” he said, “we also need to look beyond tomorrow. The lessons of The Montana Study are that we must be willing to take those risks and must have faith that people are innately good and will act for the benefit of the community.”

Libby is an interesting case study—and not only because of who grew up there. The Greater Libby Association attempted one of the study’s most ambitious goals. In addition to institutional buildings, its focus became a sixty-year sustained-yield agreement under which the local mill would turn over management of its timber lands to the government in exchange for a guaranteed yearly cut. “It represented remarkable potential trust among these entities: private business, labor, local, state, and federal governments,” Racicot said. “We might today think their numbers were slightly off, but it was a far-reaching, insightful analysis. Today, you couldn’t try something like that, with the various political pressures. But Libby might have been better off, both economically and environmentally, if that sustained-yield agreement had come together.”

It did not come together, Racicot believes, because there was no urgency. The future was too far away. This is a theme that he and many other of the study’s supporters continually return to: planning for the future. Amid the turmoil of your everyday life, to envision your community twenty years from now requires great courage; to act on that vision requires great wisdom; to complete those actions…well, it’s hardly ever done. But the legacy of The Montana Study, supporters suggest, is an example of coming damn close.

Chronicle of Community, 1997

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