Alumni News

The Centennial celebration kept us busy last fall with fun events, including a lecture by renowned environmental historian Char Miller and the events you read about on the previous page. The Montana Legislature approved the Forestry School in 1913, the first classes started in Sept. 1914. To learn more about the Centennial festivities or to read our two official school histories, visit the centennial page of our web site. One history was prepared by the Mansfield Library Archives & Special Collections to go along with the great display they hosted in the library last year (you can also view part of the exhibit online). Minie Smith compiled more of the school's history in her booklet "Montana's School of Forestry: Highlights of 100 Years."

We also honored four distinguished alumni this year during UM's Homecoming Week. Join us in congratulating Jim Durglo, Russell Graham, Peter Leech and Zane Smith.

Sue Vap, 1972 forestry grad and one of our distinguished alums, met up with Helen Bolle during the Centennial celebration last fall. Helen is the widow of legendary dean Arnold Bolle. Bolle served as dean from 1962 to 1972 and authored the influential report “A University View of the Forest Service,” better known as the Bolle Report. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the college's Bolle Center for People and Forests, founded in 1994 by a gift from the Art Ortenburg and Liz Claiborne Foundation to honor Bolle and support education and research on sustainable livelihoods, communities and forests. Learn more about the Bolle Center.

Who can resist a peek at someone else's report card? We discovered this from Kenneth Davis, who got his bachelor's of forestry here in 1928 and then served as Dean of the School of Forestry from 1945 to 1949.