Explore Big Sky Virtual Town Hall, April 27, 2020

I am Eric Gladwell bringing you the fifth installment of our Big Sky virtual town hall. This town hall is brought to you by Outlaw Partners, and I want to give special thanks to two of our sponsors who helped make this happen: First Security Bank and the Big Sky Chamber of Commerce. They've both been fundamental in helping us underwrite this platform, and we are grateful for all that they've done in helping us bring this. So once again, I want to welcome you to the fifth installment of this Town Hall. This town hall was born during this recent pandemic, and it only feels appropriate that we're broadcasting live from Big Sky, the home and the town that Chet Huntley loved. Chet was an incredible NBC newscaster, and I can only imagine the critical role that he would have played during the past eight weeks, helping share and network information, ask smart questions, and drive for results. Today we were once again blessed to have a great panel to not only help address questions regarding the COVID pandemic but also important community topics that we can't forget about as we branch out and start a road to recovery. This past weekend it was exciting to see so many people outside and join Mother Nature, and even though the fish were a little slow on the rise on the Madison, the sun felt great, and watching the elk graze on the open hillsides of the Madison Valley brought a nice sense of normalcy to an otherwise chaotic time. This week we are very grateful to have Senator Daines join us, as well as the CEO of Northwestern Energy, Bob Rowe, and the Vice President of Northwestern Energy, Bobbi Schroeppel. We're all so grateful to have two amazing panelists from Big Sky to talk about local topics close to home: Kaylee Burns and the famed Brian Stone. Today, to help me conduct the Town Hall and address some of your questions, is Outlaw Partners Editor-in-Chief Joe O'Connor. Joe and his team publish over 11 different media publications out of our office here in Big Sky, including the Explorer, named Big Sky newspaper. This latest edition came out this past Friday, and I'd encourage you to pick it up. A lot of great stories in here. So let's get started. Format today, like the last couple weeks, will spend about 15 minutes doing question and answer with each panelist, and then we'll open it up to some audience questions. If you've got questions, you're welcome to submit them on Facebook or through the Zoom platform, and we'll do our best to address your questions. If we don't get to them today, we'll do our best over the next week to go back to them. So with that, I'd like to welcome our great senator representing the amazing state of Montana, Senator Daines. Thank you for joining us.

Good to be with you, Eric. And I agree about this amazing state, doing this for sharing this information for the people of Montana, for the Big Sky community. It's terrific. And I tell you, this is a lot of the home turf. I think about my growing up years. I went to kindergarten through college in Bozeman, and the fact we taught our four kids to ski at Big Sky way back when. I was skiing at Big Sky in '73 when it first opened up. I was a Bridger Bowl rat, skiing a lot, loved it then. I heard about this new place called Big Sky and had a chance to test it out, and I was pre-Challenger and pre-tram days. But I tell you what, we've got to love skiing up there, and they have so many great memories. In fact, my dad, way back in the '60s, I was in grade school at Longfellow School. My dad was trying to sell paper products, like Dunder Mifflin back in those days, like The Office. His boss in Billings said my dad has Southwest Montana, says go up to that Lone Mountain Guest Ranch, see if they're selling some paper products. So Dad jumped in his vehicle and drove up 191. You want to back then, it was only a dirt road, of course. Lone Mountain Guest Ranch, that's all that was up there. He pulls into the parking lot, and there was a Cadillac there, and there was a guy driving and a guy riding shotgun. The guy driving dropped his cigarettes, he came out of the car. Well, the guy driving was Chet Huntley, just as you mentioned there, Eric, and the guy riding shotgun was Arnold Palmer, and they were talking about maybe someday we'll build a golf course up here. And the vision. So again, when I think about Big Sky, it's really very personal for me, a lot of memories of growing up. Tony Martell and Mark Gary and I were good buddies, and Tony and Mark had lift tickets one and two when Big Sky opened up in December of '73, literally. And those were my Longfellow buddies. Anyway, enough of the old-time stories. But it is an honor to be with you here this afternoon, talk about what's going on from a DC perspective. I'm back home in the Gallatin Valley. So I flew back to Montana on March 26, the day after we passed that $2.2 trillion CARES package. I jumped on a plane, and Delta was already starting to cancel flights by then. I got a flight from Dulles to Salt Lake on Delta, and then I flew that Salt Lake to Bozeman flight, a beautiful 737-800 aircraft. There were eight people on it. That was on March 26th. I got off, and of course I know the Delta agents there, I do that flight every week back and forth to DC, and I said there were only eight people on that airplane. And she said, Steve, this morning on the outbound, the morning outbound to Salt Lake, 737, there was one person on that plane, and that was a Delta non-rev passenger commuting to Salt Lake. So just kind of really hit home around what we're seeing going on in our state, in our country, just the devastating economic crisis that's hit us across the board, these layoffs, as we have been fighting this healthcare emergency in the coronavirus, new COVID-19 disease. So a couple of things. We've passed some important provisions that are helping people get through this very difficult time. Starting on the healthcare front, passing legislation that funds the PPE, that funds more testing, more ventilators, these critical pieces here in terms of addressing the medical crisis, which is the healthcare epidemic. And on the other side of this is the unemployment and the economic crisis. Looking at the latest numbers, over 80,000 Montanans have lost their jobs. At least 80,000 Montanans. It's a mind-blowing number. You think about the national numbers, 22 million Americans have lost their jobs. To put that in perspective, those four kids I told you about, we taught how to ski at Big Sky years ago, they're now all graduates, three of them from Montana State, and on their own. But I talked the other night, I said the all-time record unemployment number in our nation's history, the people losing their jobs in any one week, was back in 1982, and it was 695,000 Americans lost their job in one week. 605,000. We saw 6.6 million Americans lose their jobs in one week over the course of this last 30 days. And so 22 million unemployed nationally, over 80,000 unemployed right here in Montana. We've got this two-front battle: we've got the healthcare and the COVID-19 battle, and we've got this economic crisis. What our team has been doing virtually non-stop, and I'm just very proud of my team, work every day, they're working these 12 to 14 hours to take care of Montana. That's what we are here to do. Get information out. How does that unemployment insurance system work? What do we have to do to file for unemployment? What do we have to do to get these PPP loans and grants, these Paycheck Protection Program grants and loans? And by the way, that first tranche that we had of the PPP, of course it ran out over the course of a few weeks. But here in Montana alone, we processed over $1.4 billion, that's with a B, and over 13,000 different small businesses received relief through the PPP program. Now it ran out, so Congress moved, it replenished it last week, the president signed it on Friday, and this morning at 8:30 a.m. Mountain Time, we're back in business to start processing more of these PPP loans and grants. Now we've been battling on behalf of Montanans. A lot of the guidelines to make sure they fit Montana's. I'll give an example: taverns. Taverns across Montana and many more were excluded from the initial guidelines. And I tell you, I've been very happy to see the responses I'm getting from the leaders back in DC. Steve Mnuchin and I will text back and forth, we'll call back and forth. I said, Steve, I said our tavern owners, many of them are excluded from the PPP because the gaming revenues as a percentage of revenues exceed certain thresholds that SBA put in place. Well, the good news is we got two different rulings that expanded that, so now all taverns across Montana, as an example, there's about 2,400 of them, they employ over 30,000 Montanans, by the way, are now eligible for PPP. On seasonal employees, and this would be very relevant for what's going on at Big Sky, we just got this news, this came about two hours ago: they changed the way to calculate average monthly payroll by incorporating the peak season in Montana, at least for the summertime. Now of course wintertime is a different issue, but coming in the summer months, they now can use May 1 of '19 to September 15th of '19, a look back, take their top 12-week period. So I think if you're in Montana, it's gonna be June 15 to September 15th most likely. We now can take that peak number versus taking an average number over the year. That's going to help our seasonal employees here and seasonal businesses. And thinking about those in the guiding business, anybody who's got a summertime operation, you know it's a short summer in Montana, and we're really pleased to get that win here for seasonal employees just today. I was working with Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan in Alaska. Do you think Montana summers are short? You look at Alaska, they've got short seasons as well, and we got some good relief there. Lastly, and then I'll open up here for questions, also working hard on getting the vaccines and the drugs, the therapeutics needed to make sure that we are safe coming into the summer and the fall. So there's really a two-prong attack as it relates to ensuring that we are safe coming into the fall. Once tested, we've got to have much more testing. We've got to stop thinking about hundreds of tests and thousands of tests, start thinking about millions of tests. And part of that package we just passed in Congress on Friday, the president signed it, it includes $16 million for Montana alone only for testing. So we've got to translate that in terms of number of tests and so forth, but we've got to be thinking again in terms of hundreds of thousands and millions of tests. That can be a very important part of getting people comfortable and feeling safe and secure, especially for our seniors as they think about re-engaging this economy. On the drugs and therapeutics and vaccines side, I was able to get $10 billion, that's with a B, in that $2.2 trillion package. What that does is it focuses on the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development group, that they focus on accelerating these vaccines and these drugs and these therapeutics to the market. We think we're going to shave four to six months off the timeline because of that. I was on the phone last night with Steve Hahn, Dr. Steve Hahn, he's the head of the FDA. I've been going back and forth. Sometimes you'll see him appear with Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci. He's the bald guy. He was an MD Anderson oncology radiology doc that came to DC to head the FDA. Great guy, very firm with Montana, loves the outdoors. And we're working together to get the very best and brightest in government, our scientists, with the best and brightest on the private sector side to come together here to accelerate getting these important vaccines. And lastly, and then I'll open up for whatever comments or questions, I was at the University of Montana just last Thursday. It's the first time I got out of Bozeman in a month. We jumped in my pickup, we drove to Missoula, where my dad went to school. True confession: my dad's a Grizzly, I'm a Bobcat. But we visited the University of Montana with Seth Bodnar there, president, and the amazing work going on there on finding a vaccine for COVID-19. It's not getting a lot of press yet, but I'll tell you what, if you look at the history of Montana, the Rocky Mountain Labs, they're in the Bitterroot, that goes back to the spotted fever from the ticks way back, and they came out to Montana to figure out what was going on. Well, those scientists stayed because they liked the fly rod in their hand. And then GlaxoSmithKline put a manufacturing plant right down there in Hamilton, Montana, that's grown to be a world-class facility. They do the Ebola research, does amazing things. Well, anyway, those scientists came up, enjoying the University of Montana faculty. They're doing some great work on COVID-19 vaccines. And would it be exciting if Montana was really a key part of the breakthrough here to get a vaccine to keep us all safe going forward? So Eric, there's so much to talk about. I'm gonna be quiet, and I'll just say we are here to help. Daines.senate.gov or website, please let us know what we can do to help navigate through some of these bureaucracies and answer any questions that I can. Eric, but again, thanks for doing this. So honored to be with you here this evening.

Well, thank you. Thank you, and thank you for fighting for small businesses and rural areas. I know they're near and dear to your heart, and that means a lot. And also thank you for your work on the FDA front. I mean, I think that that's a huge part. First question I have for a senator is, being a small business owner, and a lot of my businesses that are Outlaw clients, got about 120 small businesses in southwest Montana that are our clients. One of the common things we hear from people that did get money from the PPP is they're very grateful for it, first off. It was amazing that those checks showed up. I still am astonished that it happened as fast as it did. But it kind of feels like it's set up a little bit of a false bottom, because what happens after eight weeks? I mean, there's no crystal ball, but it's bringing payrolls back up, but then what?

Yeah, well, first of all, as you mentioned, there's this back end, there's some uncertainty. And when the legislation was crafted, you know, there was a snapshot in time taken back in March in terms of trying to predict what's going to happen here going out in the next eight to twelve weeks. And one thing we pushed Steve Mnuchin on was you need to move with the speed of business, not with the speed of government. We need to get this out in the hands of the people quickly. As I told Steve, this is not a stimulus package. Stimulus implies you're stimulating a strong business. I said this is hardly even a rescue package. Rescue implies you've got somebody living. This is a recovery package. I said it's not a matter of throwing a life raft out to the business right now. It's like a victim drowning a hundred feet at the bottom of the lake. We got to bring them up, start administering CPR. And that was the case of many small businesses that had already made door-shutting decisions and layoff decisions and so on. This back end you talked about here, we have to go back to Treasury and look for what makes sense in terms of intent. What we're trying to do here is ensure that we've got payroll and we've got people coming back on the payroll by a certain date. But the reality is, I think it's gonna take longer, especially I think some of our restaurant owners and others to get this thing ramped up. I think it's gonna be a little slower uptake than probably anticipated. So that is some work continued with Secretary Mnuchin and SBA on that back end. It's not solved yet, but I can tell you many of us are vocal in that regard on the small business side. And more to come on that.

Okay, well, thank you for that. And I'm glad that's being recognized, because I get it as a small business owner. That money, you know, you're spending it right now, but you're already thinking about what's going to happen. You don't want to have to go through everything again.

Oh, and you want that to be a grant, not a loan, right? I mean, that's the goal here for these small businesses to meet that criteria, because if they meet that criteria, then that's a grant, it won't be a payback on it. And that's what we want to get people to. We're gonna keep working on that.

Wonderful. Yeah, we have on the FDA front, and it's been really, honestly, I would use the word inspiring to see how you have all been able to try to cut through some of that red tape and streamline not only drugs for COVID, but potentially stuff for maybe other illnesses out there that need attention. And I guess, what's another learning point that you've had in this process about maybe being able to streamline life-saving drugs? And I'll give an example in a little pitch: we have a dear friend, Eric Stephens, who's suffering from ALS, horrible disease out there in Big Sky. It's hit us a couple times. There's a drug that's been in the FDA for years. Is there potential that this might open up other opportunities for things to speed up for other life-saving drugs?

Yeah, no, it's a great question, Eric. And in fact, it's been probably a year ago we passed a bill and the president signed it called Right to Try. The idea of Right to Try. And I'll tell you, one of the heart-wrenching parts of the job I get to do on behalf of the American people, on behalf of Montanans, is when you meet the different advocacy groups and you get to learn about all these horrible diseases. Now every year we get the pancreatic cancer folks come back, ALS folks come back, muscular dystrophy. And you oftentimes you're meeting Montanans who are afflicted with these horrible, horrible diseases. And it's one of the reasons, and I'm a fiscal conservative trying to bring some sanity to Washington on spending versus revenues, but one area I am all in is to invest in National Institutes of Health or research to solve the problems and to solve these diseases. And as relates to the Right to Try, that is a way to streamline getting these drugs in the hands of frankly desperate families who are looking for hope. You know, a stage four cancer patient, an ALS patient. I mean, I've had just some tearful conversations with families that they talk about where they're at. Missing all we want to do is be able to try it. And that was called Right to Try. It passed with good bipartisan support, so that was a positive step. And that was really streamlined at the FDA, allowing a little more flexibility when you're kind of out of options. By the way, Dr. Steve Hahn, the FDA Commissioner, I mean he's an oncology radiologist at MD Anderson in Houston, the great Cancer Center, so he gets all that. Now on COVID-19, similarly, we're streamlining that. I've already put a gun to their head for a Montana group on the convalescent plasma emergency use authorization to get the FDA to go a little faster here. And it's an all-hands-on-deck event. It's like the Manhattan Project right now. There's a race, or maybe it's a better way to say a race to put somebody on the moon. It's an all-hands-on-deck moment for us to cut through the red tape. But you can't compromise efficacy and safety. You can't. And so, but you can run in parallel paths. And that's what we're doing at the moment. You can start manufacturing earlier, waiting for the test results to come in. If the test results are positive, well, we've already paid our money down the supply chain and producing that. We can get to market four to six months sooner. And that's kind of the emphasis.

That's wonderful. Thank you for that. And switching gears and talking football, as you said, Cat-Griz, there's this wonderful rivalry that we all love. When do you think we'll be back to as a society being back in public settings like that, in gatherings of concerts or amazing football games? I didn't know Missoula still had a football team, Eric. I'm glad to hear they're gonna come back and try again with a great game, by the way. But I was nearly born when my mom was pregnant with me, working at the Missoula Merc, putting my dad through school once upon a time back in 1962. So my dad's a die-hard Griz. In fact, I've got a Griz mask that I'm gonna give him. My dad's 81, and they're being very, very careful, as they should. But that's a really good question. I just don't know. It's a really good question. I was in conversation with somebody else today. Will the baseball season maybe be a half-time season, you know, coming after the Fourth, like the All-Star break for MLB? I don't think anybody knows at the moment. I think they're gonna let data drive these decisions. You know, thankfully our Montana numbers are coming down. Well, the president has a plan on reopening the economy nationally, but we've got to do this safely. Reopen it, make sure we take care of our seniors who are doing this. So I wish I had a good answer for you. I hope we're playing football well before the Cat-Griz game, which was always the last game of the season.

No, absolutely. Yeah, well, one last question, I'll let Joe bring in a couple from the audience. Senator, the term that I've heard a lot, and once again looking for some good news that could come out of this pandemic, is a lot of people are saying I hope it doesn't go back to the way it used to be. In a way, there's been this blessing of things seeing life slowed down a little bit, traffic go away, trailheads clear out, and all of a sudden it's like the whole world has just calmed down a little bit. And as a leader of our country and our state, what type of takeaways do you think might be sticky points moving forward as a society on ways to live a little more sustainably, or ourselves, the planet, or neighbors a little better?

Yeah, well, I think we've all had more time at home. You talk about a staycation, to put the stay back in staycation, hasn't it? I mean, it's really been interesting. I normally go back and forth each week to DC. I spend most of my weekends here in Montana. I commuted back on Delta every Monday morning out of Bozeman Airport, my normal routine. Well, I got there. There's something, if there's a silver lining on this dark COVID-19 cloud, I say there's something about waking up every morning next to my sweet wife Cindy, getting my coffee, seeing my three dogs, and doing work here through these virtual events. And the kids are doing distance learning at the moment. And I think it is calling into question the hustle and bustle we have every day of having to jump in the car and go back and forth to work. There's more opportunity perhaps to work at home in a way. This has been a very, very painful lesson to learn, though. I wouldn't want to have to repeat this in any way. But I think what's stuck with me is how Montanans come together as well. On Thursday, we saw that great work being done on the vaccine at the University of Montana. Sandy and I also went to the Hellgate Elementary School. That's a campus of 1,500 students, K through 8. They're shut down, of course. They're packing lunches every day. The staff are there for breakfast and for lunch, because those students, many of their students rely on the nutrition supplement that actually through a federal government program that I had to get a waiver for to allow them to keep delivering those lunches to the students to their door. So the school bus drivers drive the routes, and they literally, door to door, they are delivering the lunches and breakfasts to the students' doors. And the students wave at them, and they come up. It's pretty touching. They're yearning to get back to see their friends. But if there's something we've also learned, it's how Montanans do come together. The sense of community, even though we're distant in some ways, I've sensed in a way we've come together in a kind of strange way. And lastly, just the way I do my job. I thought, well, boy, I'm gonna be back in Montana. How can I continue to meet with people? I always do back in DC. We have Montanans come back to DC all the time. We have my day in DC, you spend most of it meeting with Montanans. And I thought, how can I keep that cadence going? Well, here's what I found out. When I'm back in DC, an advocacy group might send two or three people back for that meeting because it's expensive. Airfare is expensive, meals are expensive, hotels are expensive. It's an expensive and time-consuming miss. We're doing those same meetings now back in Montana with Montana groups. And now instead of having three or four people face-to-face in DC, it's 50 people face-to-face in Montana via Zoom. And we're actually more engaged in a more face-to-face time, if you will, using technology. So I think it's an important part of going forward. In Montana, I was a software business for 12 years in Montana, building a cloud computing company. And what we found is that technology removed geography as a constraint. We might, growing up like I did in the '60s and '70s in Bozeman, we were a long ways from anywhere. Bozeman was not the cool town back then, by the way. You know, when Brad Pitt came and put a flyer on the sand, we started to get cool in the mid-'90s. But back in the '60s and '70s, I had a Brian Browning Silaflex rod, an automatic reel, and a wicker creel, like A River Runs Through It. The fly-fishing wasn't that cool back then. I thought it was cool, my grandpa, my dad, and I did. But the point is, we were a long ways from anywhere, and that made Montana pretty special. But it was the technology and connectivity. Now people can live and also play on the weekends here, and we're demonstrating that. I think what's going on at the moment is we really can use technology to stay connected. So anyway, that's just a few thoughts, Eric. And I wouldn't want to repeat this in any way. Silver linings on this dark cloud.

Well, yeah, you have to look for them somewhere. Yeah, thank you for that. And I didn't know you were Brad Pitt's double. In A River Runs Through It, it was not Brad Pitt. All right, Joe, is there a couple questions we can do?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Senator Daines, great to see you again, and welcome. Thank you for coming on the show. You mentioned that 80,000 Montanans have filed for unemployment at this stage, and it's early days yet. But has the staged reopening of businesses and the economy been a successful process so far? And what is your position on balancing the re-engagement of the economy with keeping Montanans healthy and safe?

You know, I think that is the question, isn't it? About how you strike that balance. And there's criteria laid out. You want to see consecutive declines in the COVID-19 positive cases, which we're seeing. But one of the areas that we've got to start opening up, because we think about our businesses, is actually the business of health care. Give an example. I just checked the numbers here this morning. We have 1,600 plus open hospital beds empty across Montana. Now take the Kalispell hospital as an example. I was on the phone with some of their leaders here two weeks ago. They furloughed 600 doctors, nurses, medical technicians, and clerical staff. 600 at the Kalispell hospital. Why? Because they have a 300-bed hospital, 200 beds are empty, and they had one COVID-19 patient. So what we were doing was we're working to make sure we had enough capacity in our hospitals. That was one of the very important criteria in terms of trying to bend this curve, to flatten the curve, so we didn't overwhelm the medical staff. And thankfully, here in Montana, we were not New York. And that's why I think it's really important that I don't want to see a top-down driven approach from the federal government. They can give some guidelines. I want the states to make that decision, even drive that down further at the county level. About half of our counties in Montana did not have a single COVID-19 positive test result. So what goes on in Carter County and some of the counties in places where they're a long ways away, maybe not in the surrounding county, COVID-19 perhaps is a different approach than some of these hotter places that we've seen, like in Gallatin County. Sure, got a look at right now. Our hospitals, thankfully, we've got plenty of capacity, and that's a good news story for us. And our hospitals financially are facing some very, very challenging times. We just passed a $100 billion relief package here for our hospitals. But here's the biggest hardship: we have Montanans who want elective procedures that haven't been able to get them now for the last six weeks. And so you've got people who need to see a doctor. And that's another place I think we can start opening up again in our hospitals. I think they will exactly strike that right balance. Safety first, but also we need to start taking care of people now with these empty beds that we have.

Sure, sure. Thanks for that. Yeah, I have a question for you. We've talked to a couple different businesses that are concerned that they're having employees go on unemployment and not coming back to work because of the high level of pay that they're getting through unemployment. Any comments on that?

Yeah, well, the federal component on the unemployment was pretty generous. Here's a way to think about it. In Montana, our average wage, median wage in Montana, is $43,000, $44,000 a year. The way the state unemployment system works is they take a percentage, around 53%, 54% of your wage, and that becomes your state unemployment benefit. So if you take that median Montana wage and break it down by week, it's about, I'm using round math here, about $450 a week. The federal government added $600 a week on top of that. So depending on where your wage level is, you can create a situation where you actually can make more money being on unemployment insurance than you can staying on the payroll. And that has created a problem for some of our employers and with employees. Now, if you're offered the job, the way that the laws work on that is you can't keep taking unemployment if you have your job to go back to. I think we just have to strike that right balance, and we've got to get the employers there. When their rates start opening up again, we want them to go back on the payroll, because that's the goal here. The unemployment benefit was there to be a benefit to help. By no fault of their own, they lost their jobs. So nobody to blame there. There's no small business owner to blame, there's no employee to blame. The fact is we had this Black Swan event that came in and just cold-cocked us, right? To stop this economy just about out of the blue. Everything was looking good in January, looking good in February. Now look over at... Yeah, we're gonna get through this. But I think that's the balance on it. And it's time to start moving folks, as they start opening up these businesses, moving from unemployment back to these small businesses.

Sure, absolutely. And we've got one last one from the audience here from a local business. Since Big Sky is 100% a tourist-driven economy, what's being done at the national level to get interstate travel going? And to follow up, is testing air travelers being considered so their destinations will welcome them?

Yeah, well, there's not a lot of air travelers out there right now. If you've been to an airport lately, we took some lunches, we bought lunch and took them with the National Guard who are up there taking temperatures of inbound passengers. And I mean, I welled up with tears just looking at that Bozeman Airport, who's usually the most vibrant airports in the country in terms of per capita. We were the busiest airport in Montana. When I was a kid, the Bozeman airport was a sleepy little stagecoach place. Now it's the busiest airport in Montana. It's vibrant. That parking lot was empty. And they said they were seeing like 60 or 70 people a day in total coming through the exit. Talking to the National Guard, of course now they're taking temperatures of everybody coming in. But that's gonna be also a state decision, because right now there's still a quarantine policy in place. If you come into the state, you quarantine for 14 days. You can't leave your hotel room, you can't leave your home, you quarantine for 14 days. So I think we start looking at it. When is the right point to start loosening that up? Because of course you think about Montana, we're very dependent on those tourism dollars and that travel. But I think that's gonna be decisions to be up to the state of Montana. When is the right time to loosen that up? Sure, looking at Washington data very carefully. I know the concerns, of course, is not loosening up too quickly. I know our gateway communities, I was chatting with members in Gardiner and West Yellowstone, places like Cooke City. They were concerned about Yellowstone National Park having international visitors or visitors from around the country coming in and possibly creating a hotspot there. And that would kill the summer season if they had a hotspot there during the shoulder, this April, May time frame. And so that's why they were supportive of Secretary Bernhardt. And I talked to David Bernhardt. I chair the National Park Subcommittee in the US Senate, by the way. It's my favorite committee that I get to chair, and it's very personal to me. As we're looking at what do we do about our national parks, and I know David's gonna yield to the will of the local communities. He will. Those local communities are balancing the risk of possible COVID-19 cases as well as the risk to their balance sheet, liquidity, as well as insolvency, which they're all facing right now. So it's a tough call. But I'm hopeful, optimistic, as we turn the corner here in the next month or so, you know, let's hope we start to see our parks open up again, starting to see people come into Montana. But we've got to look at the data.

Well, thank you, senator, very much. Great time.

Yeah, thank you for being with you all.

Thank you, senator. And I have to give a shout out. You probably get a lot of thank-yous, and we did get a listener. They just sent a thank-you in. They want to thank you for your leadership in co-sponsoring the Great American Outdoors Act. So she's a very reputable local here and said thank you for your work there.

Well, thanks. Just a commercial for that, so everybody knows what that is. It does two things. It addresses the backlog maintenance in the national parks, which is about $12 billion. Get in there and catch up. Our national parks are fraying at the edges in so many places. So that's one thing. But the other part is it fully funds, at $900 million, the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Makes it mandatory funding, fully funds it, $900 million a year for the four, forever on that. And that's great news. And I hope we get that passed soon. President Trump has said he'll sign it. He said, get it on my desk, I'll sign it. So we got that part sealed with him. Now it's got to get through Congress. I think we've got good bipartisan support. So anyway, thank you.

Well, thank you for your work there, and thank you for your time. Very generous, and appreciate it. And hope to see you at that football game this fall. There's only one team to root for.

All righty, and I spent it all the Grizzlies. I know that. But that's good. Thank you for your time.

Yeah, wonderful. Shifting gears to another anchor of our community in our state and our region, we have two great representatives from the company Northwestern Energy joining us, including the CEO Bob Rowe and the Vice President Bobbi Schroeppel. Thank you for joining us today. I'm gonna start off with a question for Bob. Bob, can you just help our listeners understand maybe the size and scope of your company? I'm sure that could be something we could spend an hour talking about all the things you do, but just so people understand the leadership position that you're in with your team.

Sure. Well, first, thank you very much for doing this. It was great to hear what Senator Daines had to say and what he's doing. You mentioned Chuckling at the start. I gotta tell a quick Chet Huntley story too. My wife and I were cleaning out boxes of papers and photographs yesterday, and I ran across my dad's Whitehall High School yearbook. And he was just a couple of years ahead of Chet Huntley in high school. He has some great stories from that period. So it is interesting to think what Chet Huntley would be doing and thinking and saying if he were watching this right now. Northwestern is actually, depending on what measurement you look at, by geography it is one of the largest electric and gas companies in the United States. If, on the other hand, you look at it as an enterprise from market capitalization, one of the very smallest. We serve parts of Nebraska in natural gas, South Dakota with electricity and natural gas, Montana with electricity and natural gas. And then, as Senator Daines said, Yellowstone Park is a very special place, and we're privileged to serve most of the park as well. In Montana, we're responsible for actually now over $5 billion of critical infrastructure. And when I think about our company's role, it is a provider of the basic infrastructure, the arteries, the veins, both on the electric side and the natural gas side. So provider of critical infrastructure, but also a steward of critical infrastructure and a provider of essential service. The third area that means a whole bunch to me is the opportunity we have to be partners to our customers and to our communities. That includes communities certainly Big Sky, but all across Montana. So as we approach the COVID-19 situation, that has really all been top of mind for myself and all the folks we work with.

Wonderful. Wow, that's amazing stats. I learn something every time I read up or hear something about your company, but that's fascinating. Can you tell us what's been some of the more memorable adjustments that you've had to make the last eight weeks?

Yeah, let me say just a couple of things about how we plan for events like this. And if it's okay, I'm going to toss the hot potato to Bobbi. We have business continuity plans. We do tabletop exercises, we do live exercises, we do exercises on a regular basis, for example around dam safety for the Hebgen and Madison dams and other facilities we own. And those turned out to be very, very valuable. We stood up our incident command structure in response to the virus just about 10 years ago. What's been different in this situation is the geographic scope. It's touched every community that we serve. It's touched the whole globe. The duration, we're well now into the second month, although we've been looking at it, anticipating it for longer than that. And then the complexity. You think about all the different aspects of our lives that it's touched. We do what we call our enterprise risk management process, and virtually every one of the factors on that list has in some way been affected by COVID. So we now, six weeks ago, formally stood up our incident command structure. Some basic steps involve moving as many people as we could to remote locations so the other people could work in facilities. And then our crews, who are responsible for building and maintaining critical infrastructure, moved into a pod structure. We now have our customer service reps helping our customers from home. So all that's worked actually surprisingly well. We've been incredibly fortunate not to have any employees ill. We've had a couple of situations where we had to go in and sterilize facilities. And then as the process became more stable for us, we were able to reach out. For example, our community affairs leaders, every day what they're talking about is how can we help the communities that we serve. So I'd like to toss the hot potato over to Bobbi, and she can talk a little bit more about what she's doing.

Oh, that's great. Well, congratulations on that pivot. I'm sure that took some ingenuity. I think one of the things that's impressed me living in Montana the last 20 years is seeing your company's commitment to communities. I know it's kind of a loaded question, but maybe I don't know who to throw this to. Some of your community programs that have evolved because of the COVID situation, in ways that you're not only supporting local communities but giving back during this time.

Stark, and again hands it off to Bobby. She's very, very deep in all of this. That's one of the things I love about Northwestern Energy. I get to live in a state I care about. Now I've come to love South Dakota and Nebraska as well. I get to do important work and get to do it with great people. So the community engagement that we have is critical. The basic thing is again infrastructure and service. If we're not doing our job, then the heroes in health care or the folks who are keeping the grocery stores open, nobody can do their job. So that is basic. That's why you see our employees out doing their job safely. In addition to that, though, we've always had a very strong community commitment. That's something I would love to have folks go take a look at. Our annual community report is hot off the virtual presses this week. The address for that is just to go to northwesternenergy.com/2020communityreport. Literally, it is coming out just this week. That tells the story of all the things we do at the community level. It's a couple million dollars around the service territory of sponsorships and charitable activity. More than that, it's the engagement of our employees in all kinds of things: working at community kitchens, doing streambed projects, on and on and on. Those continue. But on top of that base, we made the early decision to not terminate anyone. We're going into the end of the heating moratorium. Instead, Bobby's got her folks calling up customers, trying to work with them, and just make sure everybody has access to the resources that might be there. We also set aside an additional $300,000 to work with our customers, residential and small business, to make small business support available before Congress could act. Actually, I appreciate the Senator's comment about speed of business as opposed to the speed of government. We tried to do that. Now what we're really looking for is ways to continue supporting the groups we've always worked with, continue to work with the local business community, particularly small businesses. It's the portrait of them that is really community by community. They come up with community-appropriate strategies for reopening. It's good to see businesses in Big Sky looking at that as well. Bobby, hot potato off to you.

Wow, it's a lot of programs. Just one of their content to highlight the good work that the local community is doing. Senator Daines said this differently, but I've been thinking about it in terms of physical distance, but social solidarity. Certainly in Montana, or the part of the country that we serve, that's so possible. So many of you know Heather Bellamy, for example, our community leader in Bozeman and Big Sky. The work that she's doing in Big Sky in particular with the Community Relief Fund that's been stood up and how people are supporting that, that's just extraordinary. That, along with all the other wonderful reasons we live in Montana, that's why we're here. We're really proud to be part of that. Big Sky is a very resilient, united community. Bobby mentioned we're paying attention to the infrastructure that serves Big Sky. You're paying attention to other parts of the infrastructure. I'm just so impressed by the way the Big Sky community pulls together to get things done and get the right things done.

Well, thank you for that. And like I said, you guys have played a big role in that, and Heather does great work. One last question for you, Bob. You know, I always love asking CEOs, especially someone who's leading a company as big as you are, during these times, what's something that keeps you up at night? And I think a second part of that question is, what's something that you're grateful for?

Well, I am grateful for the people I work with. That is the absolute truth. That's the senior team, Bobby and the other folks that we spend every day online meeting with. We're all good friends. And it's true for the folks in the field who moved to working from home. I couldn't be happier about that. The things we worry about: number one, employee safety. We've now gone well over 200 days without a lost time incident, even as we've asked people to work in very, very different ways. Number two, community and customer safety, and being there to get the job done for our customers. I'm really pleased that we've been able to do that even with all of the disruption that we're suffering.

Wonderful. Well, thank you for sharing that. As I'm watching the questions come in, what's become obvious to me is, first off, I'm grateful for your time, but there are a lot of people wanting to dive into bigger topics like sustainability and some of the growth initiatives of your business. I think I've been inspired that maybe if you'd be willing to come back in a couple weeks or months, we could do a whole episode just talking about your company and how those arteries are going to continue to evolve in our region and for our town. So if you're up for that, maybe we'll invite you back.

Well, the one thing I would say on the sustainability front, we kicked off a community sustainability working group with a meeting at Big Sky in December. We have a staff member creating an internal position, a sustainability director. He's working on that full-time. He reports up to Bobby. Big Sky is an active participant in that group, as are Bozeman, Helena, and Missoula. That's an important part of where we're going as a company, so I'd love to spend more time talking about that.

Great. Well, that's great to hear. I will tell you that being here, and I know you both spend time here in Big Sky and love to have you up here as neighbors, but the word sustainability is really rising to the surface through this COVID pandemic. A lot of people, not only in life but in the way they live and the way they treat the earth, that word seems to become a kind of blanket. Having your support would be wonderful. So with that, if there's any other closing words from you, I'll thank you for your time and we'll shift it back locally here.

Thank you. Thank you. Bye.

All right. With each edition of the Big Sky Town Hall, we always love to have a health expert join us. So next up, we're going to shift gears and have Kaylee Burns from Big Sky Natural Health talk a little bit about her business, how she's adjusted from a small business perspective, but also on some alternative methods of making sure we all stay healthy and happy. Kaylee, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me and putting this on. I'm feeling very fortunate to be in this community at this time. I'm a Minnesota native, so it's great to be in some fresh air. I moved here in November, opened up in December. For those who don't know what naturopathic medicine is, essentially I'm trained in primary care. My focus is the whole person, very patient-centered. We have very unique relationships with our patients, always looking for the underlying cause. So I have the primary care background and then additional training in things like regenerative medicine, IV nutrient therapy. As a relatively new business, this was a very interesting turn of events for us. But our goal at this point is to stay connected to the community, to our patients, and to make sure that everyone knows that we're still here for them. As things are opening up, it's starting to pick up again a little bit more. I think this has been a bit of a wake-up call to some people in terms of realizing how important our health is, especially in times like these. The doctrines of naturopathic medicine—nutrition, movement, sleep, digestive health, social connections—all these are pretty key in determining how healthy our system is and our health outcomes. So we really work with people to make a very individualized plan for them, whatever their goals may be. It's great to be in such a health-oriented community. Everyone's pretty active up here, which is great. I think we can find comfort in the fact that we all can take some control in our health and the health of those that we care for—children, parents, things like that. A lot of us were going through life a little bit fatigued and rundown, and we've gotten used to this different rhythm of life at the moment. But that really signals that both our physical and our mental health are going to need to be resilient as we move forward. There are a number of ways to do so. The biggest thing to think about is we hear a lot about these populations that are predisposed, they have underlying comorbidities that maybe make them more susceptible. A lot of these are things that could be modifiable with lifestyle factors. So whether people are starting to think from a preventative standpoint or looking deeper into the underlying cause of what's going on, my goal is to help educate, empower, and provide some resources for people in terms of taking care of our bodies and our minds in a more sustainable way. I think a lot of people are starting to realize that, and there are some changes that can be made in their lives moving forward that are going to benefit their overall health. We definitely have to adhere to the public health measures. These are really important when we talk about population health. But as a naturopath, the power and efficacy really lies in helping individuals. That's what makes up our community. So we each have our own unique responsibilities moving forward here. I think we can learn a lot from this time. This is a great opportunity to focus on our health, focus on what unites us. Senator Daines was saying, I think Montanans are pretty amazing in their ability to work together, even from a distance. My patients are real people with real concerns and health barriers that all need to be addressed. Whether we're doing that through telemedicine or some essential in-office visits, we're here for patients, we're here for the community. I just hope everyone can play a responsible role in all this.

Wonderful. Well, welcome to Big Sky. Anyone that's willing to open up a small business in Big Sky, I'll speak on behalf of all the other business owners, welcome to the party. We all help each other out. Maybe give us a couple examples of some of the common threads you've seen the last eight weeks, either common things people are seeking advice from you on, or let's get into maybe sharing a couple examples of things that you'd share with the audience of advice that you've recently been given or would gift to people during these times.

Definitely. So my passion really lies in nutrition, which is something a lot of people have been talking about recently. I consider that to be our foundation for health. So whether we're taking supplements or medications or doing exercise and things on top of that, nutrition is really our foundation. We can't out-exercise a bad diet. We can't out-supplement poor nutrition. So it's definitely a place that I think a lot of us can focus on. I think often it gets overcomplicated. So just taking an honest look at where we're at: do we need to have some more fiber? Could we add some more healthy fats? Am I drinking enough water? That's a huge one. All of that's going to affect how well we sleep, our energy, our mental health. So a lot of things that people know, it's just a matter of finding the steps to get there, which is something that we've been helping a lot of people with. There are a number of things probably bouncing around the media about various vitamins. In the wonderful state of Montana, a lot of us are going to need some vitamin D. We're getting sunshine out now, so that's helpful. Vitamin C has been a big one. There's a Frontline COVID Task Force that's doing IV vitamin C in conjunction with other things like steroids and finding good results with that. We do IV vitamins in office, which has been pretty popular recently. A couple others would be zinc and selenium, just other immune boosters. We can get a lot of these from our food, which is good news. So I'm always talking about nutrition. The other would be stress. That's probably the biggest one that we're seeing. Sleep and stress. This is a pretty big change for a lot of our routines and our reality. So whether that's having someone to talk to, whether that's reaching out and connecting with people, working on our relationships, that's another one that we've found as a heavy focus in recent times.

No, absolutely. Well, once again, you look at it as having all the tools, right? Big Sky Medical Center plays its role in our health initiatives and upkeep, and then having a naturopath, more of a holistic approach like you're taking, is a really important tool. A lot of them are under our own control with some good leadership and advice like you've given. What other advice would you give during these times? We're getting into the warmer months, hopefully getting away from the cold and flu season. There's a transitional time of year. Is there a certain type of advice that you like to give people?

Yeah, so as we're moving into warmer months, I think hydration becomes even more important. But I think we're also really blessed here. We can get fresh air, we can get outside, we can be active, and that goes a long way with our health. Those are probably the two biggest ones. I think just taking a look at where you're at. We're coming up on allergy season. That might be kind of scary for some of us. It's going to be a little bit of, do I have the virus? Do I have allergies? What's happening here? Again, there are a number of things that we can do in terms of how we're eating. Sugar and dairy are probably two really big ones when we start to talk about allergies. Digestive health—I just can't avoid it. About 70% of our immune system is in our digestive system. So that's a huge one to pay attention to. A lot of people don't love talking about it, but it's really important for how robust our health responses and our immune system are. So if you're curious, if you have questions, it's always good to consult with somebody. Going back to Big Sky Medical Center, I'm super appreciative of everything they do. I just wanted to hone in that I think we can all work really well together, especially as part of a team. It's really important for patients to understand that you can work with both sides. You can have conventional care, and I'm happy to work together all the time. So I think it really benefits patients that we can have a team and a partnership, and the community benefits as well.

Absolutely. I guess one last question for you, and then I'll let you close out with some thoughts. Are you seeing patients right now? How are you doing that? What's been your COVID transition the past seven or eight weeks, and how are you looking moving into the next upcoming weeks?

Yeah, so right now what we're doing is probably about 50% telemedicine and then some in-office and a few house calls for people that we know are safe, quarantined, we feel comfortable with. Currently, I'm the only one in the office. I'm not allowing any other staff members to come in. We're screening patients before they're able to come in. We're encouraging people to call first as necessary for in-person visits, but we're also here to connect with anyone over the phone via telemedicine. Moving forward for this week, we're going to keep the same outline. We're spacing patients out about 30 minutes so we can sanitize and clean. I'm trying to reduce contact between patients as well. We're going to keep doing that for the time being. But we're here, we're open, we're seeing patients, and that includes weekends. So we're doing some Saturdays and Sundays too, which is always fun. We're located in Big Sky Town Center, Big Sky Natural Health. Once again, welcome to Big Sky, Kaylee.

Any closing words of wisdom from the natural health expert of Big Sky?

I'm just grateful to this community. Very impressed with everybody. I think we're super fortunate to have the leadership, the resources, the health that we do, and of course the scenery. So thank you so much for this. Just happy to be here and help support any way we can.

Wonderful. Well, thank you for joining us once again. All right, let's close out the last town hall. I'm going to throw the baton over to Joe and let him close strong. He doesn't really need an introduction, but he's a legend in this community. We're going to have some fun with closing up this last town hall. So Joe, the stage is all yours.

Well, thank you, Eric, and thank you, Dr. Burns, for visiting with us as well. Turning to more local talent, let's welcome our final panelist for the evening. He's a musician and an Eagles fan, and remains one of the many strings that holds this Big Sky community together. Welcome, Brian.

I'm good. I'm good. So I wanted to touch base with you first. Not only are you a talented musician, of course, but you're also a king. I'd like to hear a little about your time as royalty.

I don't remember a whole lot of it. Pat King 2014. You know, you guys keep talking about community, and that's just one of the many things that makes this town so fun and special. The dirtbag tradition will never die, I'm here to tell you. The strength of the community has never been more evident than it has in the last month here.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, Dr. Burns talked a little about resilience from a health perspective. How can music help aid in resiliency and healing?

Well, one thing that I found is that bringing people together. I've been doing these Sunday live streams, and it's not that people are coming to hear my music. I'm well aware of that. People are coming together to socialize and to relive the apres-ski kind of experience where people are talking trash to one another out of love. The music is just a catalyst to bring people together. To piggyback on what Kaylee was talking about, positive mental health is such a big part of what keeps us going here. So I think music is a big part of that.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, this free music online on Facebook Live is called Stumpy Sundays. Another component of that, obviously community is a huge part of it, but for you personally, tell us about this pivot from live music to this platform and what it's meant to you.

Well, it's a tricky one. A big part of playing music is the energy from the crowd, being with people, getting a response, and getting it back and forth. You can do that a little bit with the chat room kind of thing, but only so much, and definitely not the energy to the extent that I would like it to be. So it's hard. It's been a true transition. Eric's been opening up these virtual town halls talking about how you guys are about to pivot and do some different things, and we all do. The music is the same way, trying to go about it in a different way. Thank God for technology. It's been a huge help.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, your show last night was sort of getting back to a little of the traditional format of live music in front of a modest, socially distanced crowd at Town Center Stage. But playing live music to crowds could very well be slow to return. How does a person who makes a living off performing adjust to this sort of new normal?

Well, first off, one of the saddest cancellations to come from this was Peak the Sky. I mean, Wilco and Sleater-Kinney were going to come here. Are you kidding me? I was so psyched. I see Eric shaking his head. Such a bummer. But what a girl, man, that was awesome when you announced that lineup. I know it's going to be back and it's going to be great, but we were just so stoked about that. Live music to me is obviously so important, but it's just so many of my friends. Live music, there's nothing like it. It was weird yesterday to have people clap when I finished a song. But yesterday was special in that, for one, getting to work with my songwriting partner Lauren, who's got an amazing voice which I do not have. We wanted to do something outside on a stage where we could be distanced because we don't want to set a bad example. We didn't invite anybody to come out. We didn't promote what we were trying to do, but we certainly weren't against people coming out as long as everyone kept their distance. We knew in that big field out there that could happen, that people could come out and be separate. So I'm glad it worked out. I'm glad it was successful. Just to be on stage looking out and seeing some friends I hadn't seen in so long, it felt so good. So we're working on it. Again, we're all pivoting. We're trying to make this work, and we're finding ways to do it.

Yeah, I don't think everyone's really appreciating it, and everyone is being forced into a complicated situation. Brian, you've been part of the Big Sky community for about 15 years now. I'd love to hear some community actions that have impressed you over the last seven or eight weeks.

It's been incredible, man. So many people. I've been able to expose to social media, but staying in touch with so many people, we're all sharing ideas. More than ever, maybe not so much the political side, but on social media, so much positivity. It's almost like I've seen social media at its very best recently. People are staying in touch, checking in on each other, sending positive messages. In this small town, it's even more so. We all know each other. We know what you're up to, we know your kids, what they're doing. It's been so great. So many people have reached out and offered meals, food, and all these other things. It's incredible. I think if we all didn't communicate like we do, this town would be very different. It's so special. What's so funny about this town is we're also different. I have friends from 21 to 50 and beyond in this town, all from different backgrounds, with different occupations and goals and passions. The skiing and the mountains are what brings us together, but we're also different. We haven't lost communication. We're all reaching out, checking in on each other. My girlfriend Karen and I keep talking about how much we're just so lucky to be here, how much we love our friends. This town is special because of the people.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, just back to your music and your career right now. Anything you'd like to tell your fans out there, the community? Other ways to help you out? You play Stumpy Sundays each weekend, and those have been fantastic and gotten a lot of traction. How can the community help out musicians that they love to hear but are not often able to hear live right now?

It's been... look, if you're asking me what I want to say to people that have been tuning in, thank you, thank you, thank you. It's been unbelievable just how generous people have been, whether it's giving a Venmo, whether it's reaching out and offering dinner, or leaving a snack on the doorstep. I'm getting overwhelmed just thinking about it. People have been so unbelievably generous. It's been fun to see how much music means to people on a huge scale, more than just Big Sky. So many live streams have been happening, and seeing a lot of people tuning in, a lot of people donating to the cause. It's a nice reminder how much the arts and music really matters to people. I know we were talking earlier about the new normal and what the silver linings of this whole thing are. I know Eric was saying we kind of get back to our roots. For me, obviously music and the arts are so important, but I think it's important to everybody. These last couple weeks have really shown that.

So we really appreciate having you, Brian. Everybody's doing their part right now in the community. I just had one last quick question for you. You went to Penn State, and you're a huge Philadelphia Eagles fan. We asked Senator Daines... you're not going to make me choose between categories, are you?

No, okay. So this is a little bit different. I was about to sign off for a second. Do you think the Eagles can stand a chance against my Washington Redskins?

The Redskins? Joe, what I love about you is your sense of humor. I do want to take a second. I want to be so honest and serious right here for a second, Joe. I'm so happy you're here right now. I mean that. For those of you that don't know Joe, he lived here in Big Sky for a couple years and then, like a dummy, he moved back to the coasts. Now you and Emily are back. We're so happy you're here. I know you've been working your butt off. It's been great. You're a real journalist, and you've been busting your hump to give us the information that we need. Joe, I can't thank you enough for your hard work.

Thank you, Brian. Thank you, man. It takes a whole community, and everybody's doing their part. This is how we all get through it. So thank you.

Some closing words for you all. Thank you for joining us. Thanks to our panelists. But first off, I wanted to say thank you to our underwriters for this fifth session of the EBS Virtual Town Hall: First Security Bank and the Big Sky Chamber of Commerce. We couldn't make these happen without you, so thank you. Over the past five weeks, we've mentioned the word 'pivot' relating to the COVID-19 pandemic on these town halls. Our outlaw partners and our publications have pivoted our platforms to include this town hall format based on our belief that you all deserve information and you deserve strong local journalism. We've pivoted in other ways too. In addition to our Explore Big Sky print publication, we've shifted our model to include daily digital news coverage on explorebigsky.com. You can also sign up for our online app and our daily e-newsletter, the EBS Town Crier. Live at 5 Friday afternoon club streams live music on the EBS Facebook page every Friday. We're still printing Mountain Outlaw and Explore Big Sky magazines. If you have any news or information, email us at [email protected]. Also, if you just want to talk, give us a call. I'm working in the office solo and could always use good conversation. Whether we're working remotely or in the same office, we've got a great squad here. Our reporters are working tirelessly to bring you what you need to know, and our entire Outlaw Partners team is stepping up and impressing us on a daily basis with their ingenuity and grit. Big Sky, you're stepping up. The community has come together in a whole new way. It's hard out there right now, but let's remember to back each other up. As I've noticed a thread through this entire conversation in this town hall, I'll leave you with a few words from the late, great Chet Huntley. At the risk of sounding presumptuous, I would say to all of you: be patient and have courage, for there will be better and happier news one day if we work at it. Thank you all for watching. Let's send it back to Brian Stump to close us out.

Thanks, Brian. All right, thank you for that. That's great. Can hear the guitar. All right, well, I close out a lot of my shows with what I call the greatest song ever written of all time. For the most part, I believe that very strongly. This is a tune from the Monty Python crew: 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,' which I encourage you all to do.

When some things in life are bad, they can really make you mad. Other things just make you swear and curse. When you're chewing on life's gristle, don't grumble, give a whistle. This will help things turn out for the best. Always look on the bright side of life. Always look on the bright side of life. If life seems jolly rotten, there's something you've forgotten: that's to laugh and dance and smile and sing. When you're feeling in the dumps, don't be silly chumps. Just purse your lips and whistle, that's the thing. Always look on the bright side of life. Always look on the bright side of life. Life is quite absurd, and death's the final word. You must always face the curtain with a bow. Forget about your sin, give the audience a grin. Enjoy it, it's your last chance anyhow. Always look on the bright side of life. Always look on the bright side of life. When you look at it, life's a laugh and a joke, it's true. You'll see it's all a show. Keep 'em laughing as you go. Just remember that the last laugh is on you. Always look on the bright side of life. Always look on the bright side of life. Always look on the bright side of life. Always look on the bright side of life. Hey, thank you all so much for having me. Stay happy, stay healthy, everybody. Thank you so much. Hey, and we'll see you on Sunday. Go to Big Sky Live Music on Facebook, follow along. Thanks everybody, have a great night. We'll see you next time.

Next week, some great panelists. We have people from Lone Mountain Ranch joining us. Tod Wilkinson, amazing journalist, will be joining us next week. Amazing. We got representation from the Hungry Moose joining us next week. So have a great panel next week. Thanks again to everyone that joined us. Next week, special thanks to the Senator for being so generous with his time, and Northwestern Energy. You are the veins that keep us rolling. And Kaylee, great advice. Let's take care of ourselves in our mind. And I always look on the bright side of life. Have a great night, everybody.