$1.25
your homegrown newspaper July 26, 2023
Vol. 19, No. 45
Lake pg. 5
Powwow pg. 12
April Uhrich painted a depiction of the branching effects of meth use, located in Ronan Middle School outside the library.
Ronan students join ‘Paint the State’ education effort By Taylor Davison / Valley Journal
Cleanup pg. 18
BILL BECKER PHOTO
RONAN — Six Ronan Middle School students have tossed their hats into the ring for this year’s “Paint the State” art competition with each creating artwork with anti-meth messaging that’s displayed in various locations in Ronan. RMS teacher Bill Becker recruited Anaka Hardy, Anastasia
Hertz, Kailyn Marengo, Loren Olson, Rayna Tonasket and April Uhrich to join the competition as part of a new elective class he began teaching this year. “I’m a math teacher in Ronan and I have been for 13 years, so this is the first year I’ve ever taught an elective,” Becker commented. “Our whole theme was just basically ‘why not?’ Why not try everything we can try to
w w w.va l le yj our na l.net
make ourselves smarter, to showcase our talents and things like that … I’ve just been out there looking for things to challenge our best and brightest.” Paint the State is a program of the Montana Meth Project that engages Montanans of all ages in harnessing their passion and creativity and putting it toward on-the-ground drug prevention by inspiring drug-free lives. Re-
gional and statewide judging by a Paint the State panel has been underway this month and award announcements will come out in August. Popular voting is currently open for anyone to select their favorite entries. This year, over $100,000 will be awarded to winning participants, including three $10,000 grand prizes. “We actually didn’t even find
see page 2