After hearing about how the Remington fire had devastated ranchers in Rosebud, Big Horn and Powder River County, Carter County ranchers decided to help.
Ekalaka Public Schools Superintendent James Kapptie talks about the need felt by the community to assist fellow ranchers impacted by the fire which burned more than 196,000 acres.
“It was pretty amazing what started to happen when the first pictures started to be posted on social media, and people saw other ranchers’ livestock…the true desperate nature of what was happening with those animals, people started saying ‘What can we do?’”
Tandi and Cassidy Jesperson of the Bar T7 ranch in Carter County contacted the school and offered to donate beef to raffle off. Kapptie said that within a day Abbey and Ryan Bruski volunteered to give a pig to the fundraiser and do all the necessary processing for the meat.
Next James Kapptie got in touch with the Plentywood school district and asked if the community in northeastern Montana would be interested in helping to sell raffle tickets.
“We knew that we were having our opening football game against Plentywood, and so I reached out to Plentywood and called their superintendent and their AD and said ‘You guys have been watching this as much as us, do you want to join in? We’ve got the donations we’ll send you tickets, you guys can sell them up there in the week leading up to the game.’ And so that’s what happened.”
Together the communities of Ekalaka and Plentywood raised 8,942 dollars from the raffle tickets and on Thursday September 12th presented the money to Stockman Bank who pledged an equivalent donation. In total the schools and Stockman Bank raised 17,884 dollars for ranchers impacted by the Remington Fire.
Kapptie said that this donation represents the compassionate nature of our western lifestyle. “Cowboys also lend a helping hand…we want our kids to know that it could be us [needing help] the fire could be here next year. And so that idea of lending a helping hand, that’s what makes the mantra of being in the west. That’s what it’s all about.”
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Northern Ag Network
