Grizzly Riders International
Grizzly Riders International
P. O. Box 3176
Missoula, MT 59806-3176
ph: (406) 550-3349
GrizzlyR
GRANTS & PROJECTS
1904 "Champion of the World" Native American Dress
The 1903 Fort Shaw Indian School Basketball Team in native dress are (front row, from left) Emma Sansaver, Gertude LaRance and Rose LaRose; (Back row, from left) Nettie Wirth, Gennie Butch, Josephine Langley, Belle Johnson, Minnie Burton and Sarah Mitchell. Photo courtesy Montana State University News Service.
The Grizzly Riders International presented The University of Montana College of Arts and Sciences with a $15,000 grant to facilitate the generous donation of an historic hand-stitched native dress worn by a member of the 1904 girls' World Champion basketball team from the Fort Shaw, Montana Indian Boarding School.
The century-old handmade leather dress requires specific conservation due to its delicate nature and intricate design. The funds will be used to help conserve and display the dress in a specially constructed display case in The Payne Family Native American Center located on The University of Montana campus.
When basketball was new, a progressive principal of the Fort Shaw, Montana Indian Boarding School taught the game to his female students. They picked it up quickly and well, barnstorming across Montana and defeating all comers. Local club teams, high school teams, college teams all fell to the ladies from Fort Shaw. Their speed and teamwork were simply overwhelming.
In 1904 the young ladies from the Fort Shaw Government Indian Boarding School, located in Montana’s Sun River Valley, attended the Model Indian School at the St. Louis World's Fair. The school was, in fact, part of the Federal government's "anthropological exhibit" of America's indigenous peoples. While at the Fair, the girls played exhibition games twice a week taking on all comers and emerging victorious. When off the basketball court, they were giving musical and literary presentations about their home.
For their efforts, the team received a trophy commemorating their achievements, declaring them World's Fair champions. Upon their return to Montana, they were hailed as “Champions of the World.”
The dress and its history exemplify the strength and pride of Native American culture, and its story about courage, culture, and team spirit. The Grizzly Riders International is proud to participate in conserving and placing on display to the public this historic and valuable piece of Montana Native American culture.
Rembrandt Exhibition 
Grizzly Rider's International provided a grant to Montana Museum of Art and Culture at The University of Montana in 2006 to bring the National Museum Tour of Sordid and Sacred: The Beggars in Rembrandt's Etchings from the John Villarino Collection, to the UM campus in March and April of 2008.
The exhibition features 35 rare etchings by Harmensz van Rijn Rembrandt (1606-1669) executed between 1629 and 1654. Widely recognized as the greatest practitioner of the etching technique in the history of art, Rembrandt created 300 prints that constitute a body of work unparalleled in richness and beauty. 2006, is the anniversary of Rembrandt's 400th birthday.
The Museum is providing a private showing of this exhibition and cocktail reception to Grizzly Riders and their guests.
The TRIO Book Program
Thanks to a generous donation from Grizzly Riders International, TRIO SSS was able to start a book loan program in 2007-08. Continuing financial support by the Grizzly Riders and its individual members has allowed the TRIO Book Program to expand both the number of books available and the number of students served each semester. At present, the project has over 200 text books in its inventory, most of them books needed for typical freshmen/sophomore General Education and other high enrollment courses. The program serves over 75 students per semester by allowing them to borrow one to three books for the semester, thus saving them the cost of purchasing them.
Montana Museum of Art and Culture Art Restoration Grant
Grizzly Riders International awarded a $20,000 grant to the Montana Museum of Art and Culture at The University of Montana to preserve, to restore and repair many of the more than 9,000 works in its Permanent Collection. This grant is one of two grants received by the Montana Museum to be used to clean and restore more than 140
of the museum’s most important and highly valued artworks and to preserve works in the Permanent Collection such as a Spanish altar panel by the Master of St. Gregory, circa 1490. The grants also will support costs associated with archival materials, display systems
and shipping, as well as ongoing efforts to fully catalogue the sizeable collection.
"We are thrilled at this highly significant support by the Chutney Foundation and Grizzly Riders International. Their generous gifts enable us to reach a new level of preserving historical and contemporary treasures within the Permanent Collection, making available many works never before seen by the public." Barbara Koostra, Director MMAC
Example of Art Work Conservation Funded by the Grizzly Riders International
Before After
Impacts of Beaver on Invasive Ecology of Brook Trout
In 2007, the Grizzly Riders International awarded a grant
to Dr. Lisa Eby, an Assistant Professor of Aquatic Vertebrate Ecology at The University of Montana and Magnus McCaffery, a Ph.D. Student in UMs Wildlife Biology Program for a research project on the linkages associated with beaver and invasive species impacts and cross-system nutrient subsidies.
The project investigates (i) how beaver ponds influence both brook trout distributions within watersheds, (ii) species interactions between westslope cutthroat and brook trout, and (iii) how beaver disturbance changes nutrient subsidies across the aquatic-terrestrial boundary
Dr. Lisa Eby received her B.S. in Zoology and M.S. in Limnology and Oceanography from the University of Wisconsin in Madison and Ph.D. in Aquatic Ecology from Duke University. After working briefly as a postdoctoral researcher at Arizona State University, she was hired by the College of Forestry and Conservation here in Montana.
Magnus McCaffery graduated with a BSc (honours) in Marine Biology from the University of Stirling in Scotland, followed by an MSc in Wildlife Biology and Conservation from Napier University, Edinburgh.
Historical School of Forestry Shorty Shope Murals Restored
Art Conseraton bachelor's degree graduate Jose Lazarte cleaning and treating one of three murals produced by Shorty Shope under the Works Progress Administration and three companion murals completed by the same artist nearly twenty years later.
The rich history of The University of Montana’s College of Forestry and Conservation and of forestry across the West is depicted in six large murals that have greeted visitors to the forestry building for more than a half-century.
Painted by native Montanan Irvin "Shorty" Shope—a 1933 graduate of the university with a degree in fine arts and history—the murals document the traditions and innovations seen in forestry over the past century. It is believed that the forestry club at the forestry school commissioned the stunning murals and their portrayal of forestry traditions.
But as with so many things touched by time, the murals have steadily deteriorated in the intervening years since Shope painted them—the first three in 1934 and the rest during the years of 1950, 1955 and 1957. Their condition had declined so much in recent years that one could hardly make out the stories Shope told in his careful brushstrokes.
Thanks to the financial support of Grizzly Riders International, Marilyn Shope Peterson and Dr. Keith Peterson, members of the Shope family and several alumni and friends of the College of Forestry and Conservation, the murals have finally received the attention they deserve. Over the summer, professional conservator Carmen Bria and two summer interns from the University of Delaware painstakingly brought the eight-foot by five-foot images back to life.
On Sept. 10th, 2010, the College of Forestry and Conservation held a dedication event for the Shorty Shope forestry murals. There, the donors who made the restoration possible were publicly thanked for their generous support. The recognition was held in the atrium at the west entrance to the forestry building.
Third-year WUDPAC Fellow Gwen Manthey spent the summer of 2010 at the Western Center for the Conservation of Fine art treating the murals painted by Shorty Shope that depict the history of forestry.
University of Montana Wildlife Biology Graduate Student Scholarships
In keeping with the Grizzly Riders’ interest in the West, wilderness and wildlife, members designated their support to wildlife biology by granting scholarships to University of Montana graduate students Stephanie Gripne and Brendan Moynahan.
Gripne helped write a proposal for the Bitterroot Watershed Partnership, a community-based collaboration, for the Large-Scale Watershed Restoration Project, which she will use as a case study for her dissertation on community-based natural resource management efforts.
Moynahan’s research deals with effects of habitat quality on the sage grouse population in eastern Montana.
Both are students of Jack Ward Thomas, UM’s Boone and Crockett Professor of Wildlife Biology and former chief of the U.S. Forest Service.
http://www.umt.edu/comm/f01/foundation.html
Lewis & Clark Mapping Project
Professor Harry Fritz Department of History, The University of Montana
10,000 Montana students have a greater understanding of the Lewis & Clark “Corps of Discovery” journey thanks to a $7,000 Grizzly Riders, International grant to University of Montana professor Dr. Harry Fritz.
Before this project, no single map illustrated the entire journey of the Corps of Discovery across North America from the true starting point in Philadelphia, down to St. Louis and across the continent to the Pacific Ocean.
Dr. Fritz said that even though Lewis and Clark left detailed journals of their expedition, there are no decent maps to show this journey. With the 2000 Grizzly Rider grant, Fritz and his colleagues created a poster-sized, detailed map of the expedition.
Dr. Fritz, with the help of Brian Thornton of the UC Bookstore and David Sloty, a UM Graduate student, mailed the completed 32” X 48” map to 912 Montana schools in the Fall of 2004.
The public may purchase maps at the UC Bookstore for $12.95. All proceeds from the map will go to the Grizzly Riders, International.
You may see Dr. Fritz’ writings on the Expedition at the Web site www.lewis-clark.org
Clark Fork River Basin Symposium 
Through a grant from the Grizzly Riders Endowment Fund, The Grizzly Riders helped sponsor the 2005 Clark Fork Symposium held March 31-April 2 in Missoula at the University of Montana University Center.
Started in 1985, the symposium is an ongoing conference on the science and policy aimed at the conservation, preservation and restoration of the Clark Fork River Basin.
A symposium is held every 5 years to allow scientists and citizens to come together to discuss how science can inform the conservation of the basin.
The Clark Fork basin is home to 1/3 of Montana’s population Montana’s wilderness areas and national parks.
Grizzly Riders International
P. O. Box 3176
Missoula, MT 59806-3176
ph: (406) 550-3349
GrizzlyR