This week's guests are the folks who created a beautiful new book, A History of Montana in 101 Places, Christine Brown, Kirby Lambert and Martha Kohl. This book is a production of the Montana Historical Society and is dedicated to the late Ellen Baumler, a beloved member of the author team.In this conversation, the guests discuss the beginnings of the book, which included gleaning a lot of information from creating interpretive signs and writing placards for the National Register of Historic Places. Guests discuss this new book as a natural progression from their first, A History of Montana in 101 Objects, and how difficult it was to nail down just 101 places.

This week’s guest is Sean Patrick Higgins, founder and CEO of Story House, a world-class film production facility located in Missoula, Montana. Sean and his colleagues at Story House are making the case that Montana should be considered a premiere location for all aspects of film production.In this conversation, Sean explains Story House’s goals of addressing housing affordability, economic development and film production in Missoula. He talks about the “bloat” in the film industry and the opportunity that Story House has to address that excess in a more cost-effective way. Sean also gets into the Montana Media Act, passed after the 2023 legislative session, which seeks to support Montana-based filmmakers and directors.

This week Justin is talking with Megan Torgerson, creator and host of Reframing Rural, a podcast celebrating rural people and their stories. Megan and her team recently launched their fourth season, Succession Stories.In this conversation, Megan talks about growing up on her family’s ranch and how she came upon the idea of Reframing Rural. Megan talks about the difference between a “living” and a “dying” town and Justin asks what is it about succession that has everyone talking.

We're switching things up this week.Justin interviewed Megan Torgerson of the podcast Reframing Rural this week for Montana Public Radio. For our Substack feed, we're giving you an episode of Reframing Rural to sample. If you're interested in more, find Reframing Rural here. And, make sure to listen to Justin's conversation with Megan on MTPR on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. or here on Substack.

This week is the March edition of Incentives & Instincts, a recurring series in which Justin speaks with economist and friend Bryce Ward about some of the broader challenges facing our society. It’s also pledge week at Montana Public Radio and in that vein, Justin and Bryce figured they would explore the concept of: How do we as a society come to know w…

This week we bring you a live recording of Justin’s conversation with Whatnot Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Logan Head. Whatnot is the largest live stream shopping platform in the country and beyond. Logan visited the University of Montana to give the annual Gilkey Lecture at the College of Business.In this episode, Logan talks about his entrepreneurial background and how Whatnot came to be. He touches on the company’s culture and hiring practices, and future plans for Whatnot, including whether the company will go public. Logan talks about his experience attending UM and gives advice to professors on what students should get out of business school.The conversation wraps with a Q&A session with Logan and audience members attending the lecture.

This week is the first edition of The Ripple Effect, a quarterly series in which Justin speaks with grantees of the Headwaters Foundation. Today’s guest is Alice Boyer, executive director of Forward Montana, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building political power for young people. Alice has held a variety of leadership positions in her young career, all focused on getting more people engaged in our democracy.In this episode, Alice talks about how she got involved in political engagement and her path to Forward Montana. She describes different barriers youth have to political participation but emphasizes Forward Montana’s initiatives to connect young people and reiterates that young people do care about politics. And, she answers Justin’s new closing question: When is the last time you changed your mind?

This week’s guest is Bobby Hauck, who recently retired after his second long tenure as head football coach at the University of Montana. Justin was interested in Coach Hauck’s thoughts on the state of collegiate athletics and football in particular. After his retirement from UM, Coach Hauck was named defensive coordinator at the University of Illinois.In this episode, Coach Hauck talks about his decision to leave UM and reflects on the good and less good parts of the job. Justin and Coach Hauck talk about the changing landscape of college football, but Coach Hauck maintains that college football isn’t going anywhere.