The local Masonic Lodge in Stevensville has once again sponsored its annual Bikes for Books program in Stevensville and Lone Rock Schools. The program awards new bicycles to the top readers in the elementary schools. The top five readers in second to sixth grades were determined by the Accelerated Reader program monitored by Mrs. Jette at Stevensville Elementary School. The bikes were awarded at a special assembly held on April 16.

Boyd Mason, from Stevensville Masonic Lodge #28, was on hand to make the awards with his assistant, Monte, mascot for the University of Montana Grizzlies. According to Mason, Masonic Lodges throughout the state have awarded over $40,000 to promote reading in the schools.

“It’s a drop in the bucket if it gets you guys to read,” Mason told the students gathered at the assembly. Monte, always a crowd pleaser, drove the kids into a frenzy with his antics.

Also on hand to make the individual awards were the top five academic seniors from the high school: Brianna Beller, Will Nalls, Kerry Roebke, Lindsey McGee, and Jackie McNulty.

Winners in Stevensville Elementary this year were second grader Thomas Trangmoe and runner-up Lilli Osler, both from Mrs. Davis’ class; 3rd grader Lane Lewis and runner-up Baylin Craythorn, both from Mrs. Gallik’s class; 4th grader John Edwards from Mrs. Cassidy’s class, and runner-up Quade Renstrom from Mrs. Bradshaw’s class; 5th grader Holly Lewis from Mr. Lewis’ class and runner-up Carly Sebastian from Mrs. Meyer’s class; and 6th grader Damian Chaplin, from Mrs. Round’s class and runner-up Kendra Pratt from Mrs. Miller’s class.

Winners at Lone Rock School this year included kindergartener Easen Barard, 3rd grader Lance Nelson, 6th grader Jarrett Beckner, and 7th grader Mickelle Stevens.

Call for used art and jewelry

Wanted: Your used art and jewelry for the annual Used Art & Jewelry Sale which will be held May 2 and 3 in downtown Stevensville. All proceeds benefit the Stevensville Historical Museum. A Pre-Sale Party exclusively for donors will be held Thursday, May 1, with attendees getting the first chance to buy the donated art and jewelry. Consider donating the art that you no longer display on your walls, and the jewelry you no longer wear. Many treasures have been discovered at this popular event and this year the volunteers are starting fresh with no art held over from last year! Donations can be dropped off at the Bitterroot Star office, 215 Main, Stevensville. For more information contact Victoria Howell, 777-3928.

Peggy Steffes – potter, mason, artist, hostess

By Gretchen L. Langton

Sixty-year-old female stonemasons are not a dime a dozen and there is surely only one Peggy Steffes. This woman exhibits both tenacity and artistry. Mix these traits with vision and a strong back and the combination is an art form all its own.

Peggy didn’t begin her long affair with art as a mason. After getting a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin, Peggy thought she would either make jewelry or pottery. "I just can’t be standing around in a dress. I’m real practical. I like functional things… whatever’s dirty and heavy," Peggy explains her passion for first, pottery, and then, masonry.

Peggy attended a conference in Missouri, after getting her MFA, where she met some folks interested in starting a yoga retreat in Montana. She liked the sound of this, so in 1973, at the age of twenty-five, Peggy moved to the Bitterroot.

"The yoga group fizzled right away," Peggy recalls, leaving her to figure out the next step. The property up Fred Burr had a rickety, old log cabin on it with a dirt floor and one window. Peggy remembers fixing this up on a limited budget. "I scoured the alleys of Missoula for scrap wood. The whole building cost six hundred dollars to fix up. I didn’t know what I was doing," she admits half-bemused and half-stalwart.

What she did know was how to make pottery. She set to work building a business. After bringing eight pick-up loads of especially heavy bricks (nine pounds apiece), 3,000 in all, from Troy, Idaho, Peggy built a wood-fired kiln. "We worked on it for months and months because I was only bringing the bricks one pick-up load at a time." This kiln was just the beginning of the work for Peggy.

"It took one and a half cords of wood per fire. It’s an eighteen-hour process… the last eight hours were just like labor," and she’s only half joking. Like labor, the firing process intensifies at the end because the fire must be perfectly maintained at a precise temperature, which requires "steady wood feeding."

The wood-fired kiln could hold a month’s worth of work, remembers Peggy, and of course the end result would not be known until the doors opened to reveal a multitude of reasons to rejoice or a mess over which to weep. At 2400 degrees, anything can happen and Peggy tells me that wind is particularly deadly to the firing process. An optimist even in the face of failure, she recalls that there were fires where over half the pieces didn’t come out right.

In the midst of the earthen carnage there were pockets of perfection, pieces that were for some unexplainable reason spared from the disaster. She focused her mind and energy on those successes and studied the variables in order to reduce them. While wood firing inspires a one-of-a-kind sheen, wood firing was one reason for erratic results, as well as being an incredible amount of work.

When she switched to a propane system, Peggy built a 20-by-20 stone kiln. "The rocks were free and plentiful. I had a friend who knew how to do rock work."

Barry Chandler taught Peggy how to put rocks in the right order. He was a product of "the old country" and had knowledge of the European style of fashioning long lasting structures out of rock. She took his style and mixed it with what she has learned from publications on the subject and from e-mails from friends who send her tips and design ideas. First and foremost, Peggy has a determined nature, which has led her to try whatever her heart and experience deem productive. And it doesn’t hurt to know the right people. Peggy credits another mason who has worked on nearly all her personal building projects, Kelly Fowler, for helping her achieve the level of skill she now employs.

Peggy began her passionate relationship with rock when she lived on the Fred Burr property, which was eventually purchased by Hoyt Axton. This home morphed into a house and shop and barn, created from rock that came from all over the area.

"Before I had plumbing, I went to Sleeping Child twice a week to bathe. I picked up rocks on the way home from the slides up that canyon," Peggy exclaims, "Now, I don’t know if that was legal—" she chuckles. Legal or not the effort at the time was likely appreciated by the county that had to continually move rock off the road in order to make this area passable to traffic. Peggy was hell bent on making something happen with the resources she could tap at a time when her finances were limited.

Now living on the east side of the valley, she has been able to use stone that is either on the property or nearby for her building projects. "The rock on the east side is 50 million years old, igneous, and sedimentary. But they aren’t perfect." They are easier to stack because they are more linear than the rounded granite rocks that are found on the west side.

Peggy’s talents are not limited by the shape of the rocks, however, because she has built structures with both round and more linear rock. The shape of the rocks simply changes the puzzle pieces for this gifted craftsperson. When I ask her if she can look at an existing structure and picture how rock could be added, she simply says, "Yes." In her mind’s eye she envisions how the rocks will be placed, then she sketches it out, then she calls Jay Seppel, her "brilliant carpenter friend,” to sit down with her over the drawings.

The first thing you will see when driving up to Peggy’s most recent masterpiece is the garden arch and garden walls, some sixty-five tons of stones neatly stacked as if they fell from the sky in place, they are so perfect. The combination of the fence and her Border Collie cruisng the perimeter used to be enough to protect her peach, nectarine, plum, pear, and apple trees, along with a collection of annual garden produce, from the hungry deer. But now that her guard dog is aging she is contemplating a wire extension to the existing rock boundary.

The house, sporting its thirty-three foot turret, looks nothing short of a scaled down castle. It is equally impervious to wind and weather and time, just not quite as gargantuan as the castles of Europe that inspire Disney animators. The entrance, where four stone arches elegantly meet at the hand-made door with a pink, round, stained glass Bitterroot blooming perpetually at eye-level, lacks the formidability of the stoic manors. And when the door opens into a round, fireplace-warmed living space, any residual castle coolness takes on an entirely different shape and warmth. The elegantly sloping staircase with its naturally curved wooden hand rail beckons me, against my desire to cuddle close to the stone fireplace with its 1000-pound hearth rock (put in before the walls went up because it would not fit through the door).

Peggy credits her crew, including Blaise Devins and Sam Palmer, for their persistence with this massive undertaking. She laughs as she tells me about what Sam, who has now worked with her for seven years, first said when asking her for a job. "I just want a job where I can lift heavy things all day long," he told her (allegedly to stay in shape). Looking at what Peggy refers to as the Pepsi rock, a six hundred-pound bottle-shaped boulder at least three feet above the floor that is set in the north wall, I wonder if Sam wished he had simply joined a gym.

Before you follow the stairs up to the split level second floor, traveling to the right where a fantasy bathroom looking out on the stone barn and the race horse paddock can be viewed, you should know that each little detail has a story of its own. The hand rail for the stair case came from Dixon where Shannon Walters, a local logger, would "throw a curved log on the load every time he could." So, Peggy went to visit with her dimensions in mind and found the perfect pieces to fit her needs. Adam Piffner, who Peggy calls a "genius" with wood, created a joint where four logs that are not linear intersect perfectly.

Continuing to wind up the stairs, I find myself in a lovely bedroom with a south-facing balcony from which Rapunzel can toss her braid down into the backyard. As I look up the last flight of stairs, my eyes are wowed by a startling shade of blue on the sky-shaped, star-dotted ceiling of this magical space at the top of Peggy’s turret. She says the bluebirds in the area are drawn to this space and its color; she calls this the “bird room.” An beautiful tile mosaic from Lebanon of some cranes punctuates the nickname at the top of the stairs. This room has a padded bench that follows the curve of the north wall and offers an incredible panoramic view of the garden, the barn and the sagebrush-covered hills all around. Another balcony, this one facing the Sapphires, graces this space as does a wagon wheel imbedded behind glass above the balcony door. The wagon wheel has become a sort of signature for Peggy and there are wagon wheels in the walls of all three of the stone barns she has built for herself.

Rock now runs in the family. Peggy’s thirty-year-old son Kas Carlson, who Peggy remembers having in the front pack while she was working on her Fred Burr house, is continuing the tradition of masonry. He lives in Hawaii and is expecting his first child who may also get to be inducted (in the front pack) into this stone-minded tradition. Peggy tells me how proud she was to be able to work with her son on a project in Hawaii.

She has plenty of her own projects brewing here in Montana, too. Her latest rock job was to reconstruct two hundred-year-old rock pillars at a property entry that were wiped out by a drunk driver. She reports that in some ways this type of construction is even more rigorous than building a new pillar because it is difficult to recreate the original form and make it look natural.

And if her continuing masonry projects aren’t enough, this self-professed "Scorpio, workaholic" is about to embark on a new chapter in her working life as a hostess. With the help of her builder/friend Seppel, she has recently constructed an addition to her stone magnum opus. It’s an office and separate exterior entrance that will allow her to accept guests for long-term stays, for the time being, with the hopes of becoming a licensed bed and breakfast later on. She says the response from a simple notice on Craig’s list has already drawn clients and interest.

In the meantime, Peggy continues to pursue her masonry business (Stone Arch Masonry) and create functional works of art. I asked her why she likes to work with stone. "I just love rocks. I go into a sort of Zen state when I am working with them. I love their immortality and permanence."

If you have a project for Peggy or are interested in rates to stay in her dreamy home, call 777-5353.

Head Start applications available

Do you have a child who will be 3 by September 10, 2008, or is 4 but isn't yet eligible for kindergarten? Ravalli Head Start is a cost-free pre-school serving low Income families in Ravalli County. Enrollment is limited, so now is the time to apply for Fall 2008. Call Anne at 363-1217, ext. 14 for more information and an application.

Bitter Root Days vendor spaces available

Applications for Bitter Root Days Expanded Farmers Market on June 7th are now available. Email Ravalli County Museum at rcmuseum@qwestoffice.net or call 363-3338 to receive an application.

Local volunteers to aid tornado victims

A group of more than 20 volunteers from Grace Lutheran Church, backed by their congregation, will be showing their faith in Christ with hammers in hands or folded in prayer, by dedicating a week to help rebuild the town of Greensburg, KS. On the night of May 4, 2007, an EF5 tornado, nearly two miles wide, literally wiped out this once-thriving farming community, completely destroying 95% of the homes and businesses of this town of 1500.

After many months of cleanup, utilities are nearly restored and a new water tower has just been completed. The resolve of the people of this community, the willingness of volunteers, and the use of innovative structural designs will be featured on Discovery Channel’s new network Planet Green later this year, highlighting the effort to rebuild the town in an economical and ecological manner that will save the community from future environmental catastrophes.

Local fund raising efforts have included a garage sale along with donations to assist the volunteers with travel costs and supplies they may use. Tools and support are needed in all facets of construction from concrete to framing, from sheet rocking and floor-laying to painting, as well as for “go-fers” for general support and cleanup.

A special donation has been offered that will reward the highest bidder with a week’s vacation at the Gold Crown Pend Orielle Resort near Sandpoint, Idaho (www.posresort.com). This relaxing week is from July 11-18, 2008 and is valued at $1600. Bids may be placed at the church office by calling 363-1924 weekdays until April 27 and any donations, including the winning bid, are tax deductible and will be matched by Thrivent Financial to double the effort.

Streamside planning help offered to communities

With residential development requests on the increase in Montana, a state task force is offering local officials, planning boards and others a chance to learn how streamside planning can help to conserve local values, protect private property, guard builders and local governments against lawsuits, and boost economies.

The presentation, sponsored by Governor’s Task Force for Riparian Protection, is aimed at helping local governments and business better understand the role and function of natural areas and floodplains. It also addresses legal responsibilities as communities attempt to balance development opportunities with efforts to maintain the Montana lifestyle.

To schedule a presentation, call Mary Vandenbosch or Jeff Erickson, Headwaters Policy and Planning Partnership, at 406-449-3229, or email headwaters@q.com.

The Governor’s Task Force for Riparian Protection is an interagency group convened to provide information about responsible development along Montana’s riparian corridors. For more information, visit http://water.montana.edu/setback.

Building going up at Victor

By Jean Schurman

It started as a one-page letter, outlining the needs of the music department at Victor School. Victor Schools Foundation member Lois Dobberstein sent the letter to the Mary Stuart Rogers Foundation with the hopes of obtaining some funds to help upgrade the music program. What she got instead was a letter; dated April 26, 2001; outlining a proposal that would, if met, build a new auditorium, band room and science room. It was a ‘Million Dollar Challenge’ or a dollar-for-dollar match up to one million dollars.

The Foundation and community rallied around the cause, matching the grant and in addition, passing a 3.6 million dollar bond in 2006 to add more classrooms and upgrade the existing high school and gymnasium. This week, the building will arrive, a visible tribute to the hard work of the community.

Phase I of the project involves an auditorium, band room, science room and science lab. In addition, four classrooms including the high school computer lab will be housed in this building. After many countless hours of planning by the school board, the staff, community members and the Victor Schools Foundation, the decision was made to use a metal building which was built off site in California. After making the journey north via five semi trucks, the building will be reassembled and the rooms constructed inside. Superintendent Orville Getz estimates Phase I will be completed sometime in the fall of the 2009.

The auditorium will seat 274 and will be used for concerts, plays and lectures. The room can be divided into smaller units for smaller lectures. The band room will not only have the traditional music stands, risers, piano and drums but will also feature computer stations so that budding musicians can compose their own music. The science lab will also have computers and monitors so the students can observe even the smallest laboratory experiment on monitors.

Because of the ongoing needs of the students, Phase II will be done at the same time as Phase I. Phase II includes updating electrical needs of the school, removing the ‘tunnel’ which currently connects the high school to the gym and classrooms in that building which was constructed in 1975. The gym will be upgraded. Classrooms that are currently on the south side of the gym will be removed and new seating will be put in on both sides of the floor. There will be seating for 600 and will feature traditional bleachers instead of the wooden seats now on the north side of the gym. These will comply with the Americans with Disability Act. In addition to the seating, two new locker rooms will be constructed. Getz said the gym will be done by the beginning of the fall sport season but he wasn’t sure when the other locker rooms would be done.

The library will also receive a facelift. There will be larger work areas, more counter space, and an office for the librarian. A commons area for the students will also be worked into the library area. This too, is expected to be completed by this fall.

The multipurpose room will be more energy efficient with a possibility of new windows and more insulation. Another increase in energy efficiency will be the addition of thermostats in each room. Getz said that after all of that is completed and there is any money remaining, work would be done in the kitchen. The biomass heating system that the school already has in place was made large enough to handle the new addition.

Even with all the building and improvements being made to Victor School, Getz is not sure it will be enough in the future.

“Growth will continue,” he said. “Unfortunately, more (building) will be needed down the road.”

“It’s been a slow, slow process,” said Getz of the building project. “Satisfying the school board, the Foundation and the community, all with different needs, has taken time but we are seeing the results now.”

Births

Liam Harvey

Ernie and Jen Harvey of Victor are the proud parents of a baby boy, Liam, born December 4, 2007 at home. Liam weighed in at 9 lbs., 14 oz. he joins a sister, Isabel. The Harveys own the Lifeline Cheese Factory, located next to the Victor Merc.

Births at Marcus Daly Hospital, Hamilton

3-6-08

Boy, 6 lbs., 14 oz., 21 inches, to Mariah and Jared Cochran, Stevensville

Boy, 7 lbs., 8 oz., 20 inches, to Amber Saunders and Tim Stephens, Sula

3-8-08

Girl, 8 lbs., 15 oz., 20 inches, to Falisha Schwehr and Timothy Portell, Hamilton

3-11-08

Girl, 8 lbs., 1 oz., 20 inches, to Jilian and Kenneth Martens, Salmon

3-14-08

Girl, 6 lbs., 11 oz., 19-1/2 inches, to Trieste and Eli Johnson, Hamilton.

3-19-08

Girl, 6 lbs., 15.7 oz., 20-1/2 inches, to Mary and Lowell Cerise, Salmon, ID

3-20-08

Girl, 7 lbs., 9 oz., 20 inches, to Jamie and Bill Powell, Stevensville

Girl, 6 lbs., 10 oz., 20 inches, to Jennifer Gillespie, Darby

3-22-08

Boy, 7 lbs., 7 oz., 20-1/2 inches, to Kellie Cartmell and Dave Peterson, Victor

Boy, 6 lbs., 4 oz., 19 inches, to Liz Merwin and Adam Lilly, Hamilton

3-21-08

Boy, 6 lbs., 19 inches, to Lorene Johnson, Salmon, ID.

4-2-08

Boy, 6 lbs., 19 inches, to Dusty Mattern and Charles Gentry, Hamilton

Boy, 7 lbs., 13 oz., 19-1/2 inches, to Dayna and Floyd Eakle, Hamilton.

4-15-08

Girl, 8 lbs., 4 oz., 21.5 inches, to Robin Benson and Jamie Adair, Hamilton.

Obituaries

Gertrude S. Armstrong
1917-2008

Gertrude S. (Moss) Hughes Armstrong died peacefully at her home in Stevensville on February 11, 2008 at the age of 90 years. Gertie was the second of nine children born to Willard and Mabel (Harmon) Moss in Ucon, Idaho. The Moss family moved to Conrad, MT while Gertie was in grade school.

It was there she met and married James M. Hughes, July 1934. They worked in the Shelby area before moving to the Fairfield-Choteau area in 1943. They had one son and four daughters, Jim passed away in 1961. Herb Armstrong and Gertie were married in 1966-1969.

In the early 70’s having not finished high school before marriage, she completed course work to receive her GED and attended Eastern Montana College for two years. She held many jobs, learning new skills with many of them. The most challenging job and most enjoyable was as a Montana State Land Appraiser in Jefferson County.

After retirement she moved to the Bitterroot Valley, her spare time was spent as a livestock brand inspector and lots of visiting with new friends.

Gertie enjoyed reading, sewing, baking cinnamon rolls, working with her horses and helping others to learn the same enjoyment. She felt her mission was to share with anyone who was interested her love of horses and riding. Many young people benefited from her attention. They kept her up to date on their activities via mail and pictures. Later in life her biggest enjoyment was visiting with all family and extended family over the phone. As an active sports person, she followed sports activities of family and friends, especially basketball and rodeo.

Rodeos were a great part of her life, having spent time when first married working for the Turk and Alice Greenough Rodeo Company and later working for Oral and Mae Zumwalt KO Rodeo Company. As her daughters became involved with high school rodeo, Gertie timed, was secretary and served on various boards of the State High School Rodeo Association.

Through her brother Rex Moss, a WWII Veteran, Gertie was involved with the VFW Auxiliary. She served all offices including State President. As an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, she enjoyed the friendship of everyone. Gertie never met a stranger, just a new friend.

Her parents, siblings, both husbands and her two-and-a-half-year-old son Joseph Bert Hughes preceded her in death.

Survivors include her daughters: Iris “Dolly” Hughes, Fern (Hugh) Hegle, Rose (LeRoy) Yeager, Ronnie (James) Anderson; eight grandchildren: James Hegle, Linda Hegle, Nola Mays, Boone Yeager, J.B. Yeager, Jim Yeager, Jamie Harberts and Lisa Anderson; 11 great grandchildren and six great great grandchildren, and numerous nieces and nephews.

Memorial services honoring Gertie’s life will be Saturday, May 10, 2008 at 12:30 p.m. at the Stevensville LDS Church. A lunch will be served.

The Whitesitt Funeral Home of Stevensville is in charge of arrangements.

Charles V. Brockett
1921-2008

Charles V. Brockett, 86, of Stevensville, died at the Bitterroot Valley Living Center Sunday, March 30, 2008.

He was born on May 14, 1921 in Eldorado, Illinois. Charles entered the US Army in 1943 and was discharged in 1946.

Survivors include his wife Geraldine, Stevensville; sons Eric (Sherril) Brockett of Victor and Charles (Chuck) Brockett, Jr. of California and a daughter Cyndi Brockett, California; grandchildren Kevin, Ryan, Jason and Lindsey, and great grandchildren Dalton and Iliana.

No services are planned at this time. His ashes will be taken to California. The Whitesitt Funeral Home in Stevensville is in charge of cremation arrangements.

Robert P. ‘Bob’ Templeton
1926-2008

Robert P. “Bob” Templeton, 81 of Florence, died at his home on Tuesday, April 8, 2008. He was born on December 31, 1926 at Oak Park, Illinois. Bob entered the US Army in 1945 and was honorably discharged in 1946. He married Lorene Hendrickson, 1962. Survivors include his wife Lorene, Florence, brother Clarence, Clearwater, Florida and a son Tom of Billings. At Bob’s request, no services will be held. The Whitesitt Funeral Home in Stevensville is in charge of arrangements.

Page One •	Valley News •	Op/Ed •	Sports •	Calendar •	Classifieds •	Links •	About Us •	Back Issues •	Email Us •	Home
©2008 Bitterroot Star This site was Done By Dooney