LOCAL HEROES · Nominated as a Local Hero, Gri th said she really did not war - rant special...

LOCAL HEROESLOCAL HEROESHonoring community champions during pandemic

LOCAL HEROES

2 | BUTTE’S LOCAL HEROES | THURSDAY, AUGUST 13, 2020 THE MONTANA STANDARD

When it comes to the community he loves, Father Patrick Beretta is never short of ideas.

As Butte’s response to the pandemic has played out, the parish priest at Immaculate Conception and St. Patrick churches was struck by the courageous, selfl ess e� orts of so many of the town’s essential workers.

Soon, he proposed to other leaders that the community fi nd a way to honor some of its unsung heroes who exemplify the bravery and generosity of spirit that he was seeing.

The idea was enthusiastically received. Beretta, Stephanie Sorini, executive director of the Butte Chamber of Commerce, Ron Davis of KBOW and KOPR and David McCumber of The Montana Standard formed a working group and began to solicit both additional sponsors and nominations from the public.

It was clear as nominations began to come in how many great candidates there would be — people who have calmly and courageously helped all of us through the time of quarantine, lockdown and isolation.

Glacier Bank, Janice, Jenna and Leo McCarthy Family, Butte Catholic Community North, The Montana Standard, KBOW and KOPR Radio, and a generous anonymous donor have made the program possible.

The 12 people chosen and profi led in this section will each be rewarded with a $1,000 prize, to be spent locally. They are exemplary, but by no means alone, as the many other “heroes” nominated show. This section is a great opportunity to recognize them, and in recognition that so many other unsung heroes make Butte home, it is hoped that the Local Heroes program can be

continued in future years.

HONORING LOCAL HEROES

A few of the people who have served us — and inspired us — during the pandemic

Beretta

To our LocaL HEroES!

SHoP LocaL-EaT LocaL–SPEND LocaL-ENJoY LocaL

Congratulations

1000 George St. • Butte,MT 59701

(406) 723-3177www.buttechamber.orgwww.butteelevated.com

Thank you for making Butte a better place to live,work and play through your community dedication and

involvement.

The MonTana STandard Thursday, augusT 13, 2020 | BUTTE’S LOCAL HEROES | 3

DAVID [email protected]

Shawna Yates couldn’t have foreseen a bigger challenge in her leader-ship role at Southwest Montana Community

Health Center.Yates has held the role of medi-

cal director at Community Health since 2007. Then, in mid-pan-demic, she assumed the role of interim CEO.

For her, leading “our amazing team” at the health center during the time of the virus is both chal-lenge and inspiration.

Early on in the pandemic, Yates, as part of Butte-Silver Bow’s Uni-fied Health Command, realized that there was a pretty specific role for the health center to play — in addition to taking care of its more than 13,000 patients.

She began mobilizing and orga-nizing to become the community’s testing center.

“We are mission-driven, and we have a part to play in collaborating with St. James Healthcare, Butte-Silver Bow and other healthcare resources in Butte,” she said. “The hospital had to prepare to treat se-riously ill COVID patients. It was clear they couldn’t also be the testing center. We were able to assume that role.”

Gov. Steve Bullock worked with the Montana Primary Care Asso-ciation to make community health centers across the state centers for testing, and the congressional delegation has secured funds to help facilitate testing at the health centers.

Yates, who was born in Butte, spent her childhood moving around small towns in Mon-tana as her father worked as a small-district superintendent of schools. She graduated from high school in Plains, Montana, and went to MSU, where she got her undergraduate degree in sociology and biochemistry, and a master’s

degree in exercise, wellness and health promotion.

Then, she went to medical school at the Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, California, and was awarded a doctor of osteopathy degree.

She was thrilled to be able to pursue her career in Butte, which she has always considered home.

“My grandparents were born and raised in Butte and we always returned here for family celebra-tions,” she says.

While her first work as a doctor at the center ran the gamut of fam-

ily medicine, she was particularly interested in geriatrics and has spent much of her clinical career working in geriatric care including hospice and palliative care. Even now, with her expanded adminis-trative responsibilities, Yates still finds time to see patients.

She has worked within the health infrastructure to help geri-atric long-term care and assisted living facilities here with COVID-related needs.

“There have been lots of con-versations about what the needs are, how to help,” she says.

“Things like whether they have enough PPE, do we have an effi-cient process to get people tested, and how to isolate people if we do have positive tests.”

Similarly, the center has worked with those helping to serve the homeless population, and also the area’s first responders.

She gives Bullock and B-SB Health Officer Karen Sullivan much credit for the way they have handled the crisis. “Hats off to both of them for working so quickly and making the tough decisions,” she says.

Her biggest praise, though, is reserved for the healthcare work-ers at the health center and across the community.

She says that the crisis has ba-sically demanded that healthcare workers sacrifice their lives to their profession. “People have had to put their lives on hold, do-ing their jobs and then minimizing any other contact and movement,” she said. “Our amazing team loves what they do when they come to work every day.

“And we have to stay strong. This is not going away soon.”

Shawna YatesGUIDING COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTER’S RESPONSE TO THE VIRUS

MEAGAN THOMPSON, THE MONTANA STANDARD

dr. shawna yates, a family medicine doctor and current interim director of southwest Montana Community health Center, is photographed in a room where she still sees patients at the Butte healthcare facility. yates says her heart explodes when she thinks of all the hard work her colleagues have done throughout this pandemic.

4 | BUTTE’S LOCAL HEROES | Thursday, augusT 13, 2020 The MonTana STandard

KRISTINE DE [email protected]

One of many ripple ef-fects of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the growing number of people facing food in-

security.To help ensure Butte residents

in need don’t go hungry, Kathy Griffith and her team of volun-teers at the Butte Emergency Food Bank have ramped up their efforts the last few months.

From Monday through Friday, Griffith and her team of volun-teers would prepare and distribute food boxes to families all across the Mining City, from 8 a.m. to noon. For those who couldn’t pick up a box, a volunteer would delivery the food to a person’s door.

As the pandemic broke out, Griffith saw an increase in people and families asking for help.

“There was a lot of need out there,” she said. “We’ve added 150 families to our list since COVID got here … We now service more than 250 individuals and families across the county.”

Since March, Griffith and her volunteers have been putting to-gether boxes filled with food items, such as non-perishables, fruit, vegetable, meat, dairy and per-sonal care items.

“There should be no soul that’s going hungry in Butte right now,” she said.

While food banks across the country faced shortages in sup-plies, Griffith said Butte’s food bank rarely had any issues.

“The community has been amazing. A lot of the restaurants handed out gift cards and donated extra food ... We’ve had several farmers and ranchers donate pro-duce and meat,” she said. “We’ve been very blessed. Our clients have been totally overwhelmed from what they have been receiving.”

One of the challenges Griffith faced, however, was maintaining

her volunteer workforce.“Most of my volunteers are at an

age where they are very suscepti-ble to the virus, and their families worried about them being around a lot of people,” she said. “The ones that have been able to help out have been doing a tremendous job.”

Nominated as a Local Hero, Griffith said she really did not war-rant special recognition.

“There are plenty of other peo-ple more deserving,” she said.

The individual who nominated

Griffith as a Local Hero wrote:“I would like to nominate Kathy

Griffith and all of the incredible volunteers at the Butte Food Bank. Many worked through the first wave of COVID-19 to assure those who were food insecure would not go without food. They have also taken on the Farmers to Families food boxes to supply boxes to all community members. They are an incredible resource to our com-munity.”

Griffith, born and raised in Butte,

has indeed built a strong record of giving back to her community.

While the food bank takes cen-ter stage, she also dedicates time and effort to the Butte commu-nity.

She serves on the board of the local nonprofit Career Futures Inc., as well as on the committee for Butte’s Continuum of Care Co-alition. Griffith also helps with the annual Empty Bowls dinner event supporting the food bank’s Back-pack Program, which distributes

food-filled backpacks to chroni-cally hungry students.

Griffith said while she is involved with the community, she is just one of a large number of people who strive to make Butte a great place to live.

“We are surrounded by a lot of people in this community who like to give,” she said.

Her wish list for Butte? “That all residents are fed and there’s no more need for a food bank,” she said.

Kathy GriffithSTEPPING UP TO FEED BUTTE RESIDENTS IN NEED


Kathy griffith, the director of the Butte Emergency Food Bank, is photographed in the shopping area of the Butte food bank. griffith said the pandemic has brought an increased demand for the service.


LUKE [email protected]

About two years ago, Emily Aginiga made the choice to relocate with her family from her hometown in Ne-

vada to this historic town strad-dling the Continental Divide.

Butte has been better off for it.Aginiga, the invariably upbeat

general manager of Butte’s lone Taco Bell on Harrison Avenue, helped orchestrate the delivery of hundreds of meals to essential workers across the county as the coronavirus pandemic brought life in Butte — and much of the world — to a sudden halt in March. Her efforts helped fuel people who were still obligated to go to work even as much of the state was forced to remain at home.

About a week after Gov. Steve Bullock issued a statewide shel-ter-in-place order to combat the spread of COVID-19, Aginiga knew that she “had to do some-thing.”

Inspired by her team’s willing-ness to continue serving the pub-lic despite mounting awareness of the importance of social distanc-ing and spurred by the support of the franchise she works for, Aginiga began brainstorming for ways that her restaurant could make a difference as the commu-nity grappled with quarantined life.

“Not only was my team show-ing up day in and day out but we are kind of compelled just by the organization we work (MTB management),” Aginiga, 37, said. “They’re very big into helping the community. So we just kind of wanted to do something because we learned to give back.”

Despite a lingering cloud of uncertainty cast by the corona-virus outbreak, Aginiga and her team decided to begin providing meals to the frontline workers of

the ER at St. James Healthcare. Combined, Aginiga and her team put together about $400 worth of meals for the ER workers.

“We were just going to go to the ER because they were dealing with the brunt of everything,” Aginiga said.

But while the original plan was to just deliver to healthcare work-ers on the frontlines, they’re char-itable operation quickly grew and ended up providing some $1,600

worth of meals to dozens of essen-tial businesses in the Butte area.

It began with a Facebook post asking for recommendations for other businesses that could bene-fit from meals for its workers. The post was soon flooded with replies and Aginiga and her team ended up supplying meals for people in fields as varied as salon stylists, teachers, the Butte Fire Depart-ment and employees at Starbucks and City Brew.

All but a few of the meals were delivered in person by Aginiga or members of her crew.

“I love to make sure that every-one is good,” Aginiga said. “We’re not all rich or anything but my team showed up day in and day out.”

A native of Boulder City, Ne-vada, located about 20 minutes southwest of Las Vegas, Aginiga has worked for Taco Bell for 22 years and took the general man-

ager job in Butte in 2018. She’s also a wife, a mother of five — a daugh-ter, three sons and a stepdaugh-ter — and just recently became a grandmother.

She’s grown fond of Butte and the opportunity “to be able to slow down and enjoy life with the family.”

With the countless meals she helped supply during a time of crisis, it’s safe to say Butte has en-joyed having her in town as well.

Emily AginigaTACO BELL FEEDS ESSENTIAL WORKERS DURING LOCKDOWN


Emily aginiga, a manager at Taco Bell in Butte, wears a taco hat as she takes a break from her duties to talk about the work she did during the first part of the pandemic.


MIKE [email protected]

When COVID-19 started unfold-ing in Seattle, Brenna Anderson decided to lock

down Copper Ridge Health and Rehab in Butte.

It was the first nursing facility in Butte to prohibit inside visi-tors, and Anderson, executive di-rector at Copper Ridge, made the move before Gov. Steve Bullock or local health officials mandated such restrictions.

“We just felt it was the right thing to do to make sure every-one was safe,” Anderson said. “My concern was how fast it had spread. It is essentially some-thing that we can’t see. It is re-ally hard to prevent something you can’t see.”

Anderson is one of 12 people nominated by others who was chosen as a “local hero” in Butte for braving the coronavirus ev-ery day to keep the community as strong and healthy as possible.

Anderson was born and raised in Butte and has worked at Cop-per Ridge the past 13 years, the last three-and-a-half as direc-tor. The facility on Nettie Street in Butte provides skilled nursing and rehabilitation services as well as long-term care.

Anderson received several written nominations for the award, including one from a resident who praised her lock-down decision despite some early push-back.

“I have witnessed her getting yelled at by families, dealing with upset residents and employees,” the nomination said. “She looks exhausted but she has been at the nursing home every single day making certain everyone was safe.”

Others praised Anderson for keeping up with changing infor-mation and guidelines on COVID

and implementing steps to keep staff and residents safe.

Anderson said she heard about the “Local Heroes” effort and ac-tually nominated someone else but “certainly didn’t expect” to be nominated and chosen herself.

She acknowledged some early resistance to the lockdown but says it has dissipated, even though the visitor restrictions are still in place.

“I think part of it (at first) was the virus wasn’t really under-stood, and since we were the first one to lock down, I think the de-

cision was questioned if it was necessary,” Anderson said. “But my residents are always my first priority … so it was not even an option for me to do anything dif-ferent.”

There are currently 66 resi-dents at Copper Ridge and so far, none has tested positive for COVID and neither have any staff members. The lockdown isn’t the only precaution that’s been in play.

“We completed all baseline testing in June and we were 100-percent negative and right

now we are doing surveillance testing, so if anyone is symp-tomatic we are conducting those tests,” Anderson said.

“If we have staff that have trav-eled to a hot-spot area or they are symptomatic, we are requiring them to be tested before they can come back into the facility.”

Visits have changed because of the pandemic, but they have not stopped.

Small tents are set up outside so friends and loved ones can visit with residents through a window. They can often hear each

other but if not, cell phones are used. Visits are also made pos-sible through Skype, Facebook and Facetime.

The recent surge in COVID cases in Montana means the lockdown is still in place. Lifting it requires that all staff be tested weekly, Anderson said, but there currently aren’t enough test kits nor the processing capability to do that.

“We are kind of in a holding pattern, waiting on a little more direction from the state,” Ander-son said.

Brenna AndersonEARLY LOCKDOWN AT COPPER RIDGE RECOGNIZED


Brenna anderson, the executive director of Copper ridge health and rehab, is photographed in the lobby of the Butte facility.

LUKE [email protected]

The United States Postal Service creed lists an assortment of ob-stacles that will not deter the delivery of mail including snow, rain, heat and gloom of night.

But in March, another, less tangible, kind of hurdle was flung at the postal service — a global pandemic.

While COVID-19 cases surged across the country and in Montana compelled Gov. Steve Bullock to issue a stay-at-home or-der at the end of March, members of the Copper Hill Post Office continued to march forward, ensuring that customers could send and receive packages and had access to their PO boxes even as coronavirus brought many other aspects of life to a standstill.

Among those workers in the trenches was Kathy Vigurs, a Butte native with a big smile and cheerful attitude who has been working for the U.S. Postal Service for 35 years. She began as a mail sorter at the post office on Dewey Boulevard shortly after graduating from Butte High and now works as a retail sales and services associate.

“Before we were all just clerks, but over the years we got fancier names,” Vigurs said with a chuckle.

While her current job isn’t immune from the occasional cantankerous customer, she said that she’s glad to be in her current role, away from the heavy lifting that is better left to the young bucks.

“Working my way up this was the pre-mier job,” she said. “You worked yourself out of all that heavy work, unloading tracks

and sorting.” As businesses across Montana closed

their doors in the wake of the COVID out-break, the Copper Hill Post Office remained open as an essential business. With Butte quickly adapting to the new norm of so-cial distancing, the post office on Galena Street served as something of a middle man as people became increasingly dependent on mail services to send and acquire goods.

Much of Montana and the world may have been sheltering in place but for Vig-urs, it was business as usual.

“It’s just been busy. Just working more with prepaid packages, a lot of online or-dering,” Vigurs said. “Selling stamps and money orders. Nothing has really changed as far as my work goes.”

She noted that the postal service took swift action to ensure the safety of its workers, installing plexiglass shields around registers and distributing masks and gloves to its workers.

“They jumped in right way,” Vigurs said. Ask Vigurs what her favorite part of her

job is and she doesn’t have to ponder the answer for too long.

“The people, my customers,” she said. “I enjoy helping people get their packages sent.”

She may have 35 years of service on her resume, she still isn’t ready to contemplate retirement, saying that she’s “just always enjoyed” her job.

So, for the near future at least, expect to find Vigurs manning the counter and Cop-per Hill with a smile.

Kathy VigursSERVES USPS CUSTOMERS WITH A SMILE

Kathy Vigurs, of the United States Postal Service, is photographed after her shift at the Copper Hill Station located on Galena Street in Uptown Butte.MEAGAN THOMPSON, THE MONTANA STANDARD

The MonTana STandard THUrSday, aUGUST 13, 2020 | BUTTE’S LOCAL HEROES | 7

ST PATRICK/IMMACULATECONCEPTION PARISH AND MONTANATECH CATHOLIC CAMPUS MINISTRYARE PROUD SPONSORS OF GLOBAL

CRISIS-LOCAL HEROES.

Congratulations to ourEssential WorkersAward Winners!!

We are so grateful for yourContribution to Making ourwhole Community Better.The Great Butte RenewalHas Begun With You!!!



School nutrition workers don’t wear capes, but they’re heroes nonethe-less.

Kurt Marthaller, who oversees school nutrition and cen-tral services for the Butte School District, did not slow down when schools closed under a state order to help stem the tide of COVID-19.

If anything, Marthaller and his staff were busier.

“When schools closed in the spring, we had to figure out how to keep feeding our kids,” he said. “And we had to this all within a week.”

Marthaller reached out to the local nonprofit Action Inc., which runs summer lunch programs for the Butte School District, and they worked out a plan to keep students fed as they learned from home.

The district initially set up six locations across Butte to give out breakfast and lunch, Mon-day through Friday, to anyone 18 and younger. But Marthaller said many parents and kids couldn’t make it out to the locations to pick up the food.

So, Marthaller decided to do something about it.

He teamed up with the district’s transportation department and got the administration’s approval to use 12 school buses to deliver meals across Butte and Ramsay.

“We needed to reach more kids, and we were able to make that hap-pen,” he said. “We served a lot of kids in a short period of time.”

Marthaller said the food deliv-ery team grew to include school district staff, who helped with the distributions each week.

The individual who nominated Marthaller as a Local Hero wrote:

“Because of Kurt’s work, his dedicated staff and a very support-ive School District Administration and staff over 107,000 meals were provided to kids from March 23rd

through June 3rd. Kurt’s team pro-vided on average over 2,022 break-fasts and lunches each day to the kids of Butte.”

“Because of the work Kurt Mar-thaller and his team did to feed kids and the partnership Action Inc. has with the School District it made it easier to transition the program and continue to feed kids.”

He is quick to point out that the meals program isn’t about him. In fact, he is uncomfortable in the spotlight and prefers if his actions

were recognized as part of a greater collaborative effort.

Before working for Butte public schools, he oversaw food services at the Montana State Prison for 18 years as the food service director for the Department of Correc-tions. But he wanted to get more involved in his town and be closer to his family.

“When my kids were younger and going through school, I applied for this job at the district but didn’t get it,” he said.

When the position opened again in 2004, he put in his application and got the job.

“This was my dream job, and I feel fortunate enough to get it,” he said.

As the district’s central services director, Marthaller wears many hats. On top of making sure all the schools have enough food to feed their students during the school year, he’s also responsible for the schools’ inventory of supplies from janitorial needs to food.

Marthaller said the success of the school meal delivery program isn’t about him.

“It was really about the com-munity and coming together for the greater good,” he said.

Marthaller said he couldn’t do it without his warehouse staff, kitchen staff, bus staff and the rest of the district, who all pitched in to help the students.

“I want to spend the $1,000 on all the people who helped out. They deserve a treat,” he said.

Kurt MarthallerREACHING AND FEEDING KIDS DURING SCHOOL CLOSURE


Kurt Marthaller, the director of nutrition and central services for Butte school district No. 1, is photographed in the warehouse where food for Butte’s school children is kept.


MIKE [email protected]

Holly Hanson not only keeps ev-erything in the emergency room at St. James

Healthcare immaculately clean, she lifts spirits on a daily basis.

Even in these days of CO-VID-19, she wears a mask with a “ridiculous smile” on it, says Bill Andersen, a security officer at St. James and also a Butte-Silver Bow commissioner.

“You can see her (true) smile beyond the mask,” he said. “You can see it in her eyes.”

Hanson is one of 12 peo-ple nominated by others who was chosen as a “local hero” in Butte for braving the coronavirus every day to keep the community as strong and healthy as pos-sible.

Hanson moved from Ka-lispell to Butte in 2018 and started working at St. James as an environmental ser-vices aide that November, joining a team of folks who keep the hospital clean. She was a natural.

“I’m a bit OCD so when I applied to work at St. James it was like a perfect match,” Hanson said. “I look for-ward to going to work each day. I haven’t had a day when I wanted to stay in bed and not go.”

Colleagues, including one who nominated Hanson for the recognition, can vouch for that.

“Every day Holly shows up with a smile on her face and will do any task needed to ensure the St. James Emergency Department

is a safe and clean area for employees, patients and pa-tients’ families,” that writ-ten nomination said.

Staff is always excited to see her walk in, it said, “because they know the department will be cleaned appropriately and every de-tail tended to.”

Hanson used to keep the four operating rooms at St. James spotless but when COVID first hit, surger-ies dropped significantly because only emergency procedures were done. One of the bigger needs was the emergency room, so Hanson volunteered for that duty.

“They moved me over there temporarily to help out and I fell in love with everybody over there,” she said. “It was a match made in heaven for me. Everyone over there is like family to me now.”

The “emergency room” is actually 15 rooms and Hanson gets to them all. She starts her shift each afternoon making sure the restrooms are clean and supplied, then moves to the other rooms.

She cleans each bed from top to bottom, washes the walls, empties the garbage cans, and gets to everything, including electrical cords. Her attention to detail is amazing, Andersen said.

“She doesn’t take short-cuts with anything,” he said. “You never see her take a shortcut.”

Hanson has to act quickly at times, hitting a room right after a patient leaves because a new one is often right behind.

“I get in there as fast as I can to get everything done,”

she said.Cleanliness is vital at ev-

ery hospital, of course, but the coronavirus has taken the need to an even higher level. She’s cognizant of that and is constantly wip-ing down handles and chairs and anything else patients and staff touch.

Hanson likes what she does and loves her emer-gency room colleagues.

“Everyone there helps one another out,” she said. “That is a big part of my go-ing into work every day.”

Holly HansonATTENTION TO DETAIL IN HOSPITAL CLEANING QUEST


holly hanson wears protective gear to clean a room in the emergency room at st. James healthcare in Butte. she said the gear she wears is hot and the shield regularly gets foggy but she loves her job. “honestly I’m just really grateful for this job,” she said.

CONGRATULATIONS

1805 Meadowlark Lane

723-3239

“We Care”“We Care”

BUTTe hAS mANy heROeS ANdwe ARe pROUd Of yOU ALL.ThANk yOU fOR CARING fOR OUR COmmUNITy


EVAN [email protected]

You can only do so much by yourself.

This is what John Rolich, Environmen-tal Health Division

director at the Butte-Silver Bow Health Department, repeatedly emphasizes. In a battle against a pandemic, the Mining City’s strength and safety is only en-sured by working together.

That essential teamwork is ex-actly what Rolich and the various officials and employees of the health department have done. While difficult and stressful, the objective of keeping Butte safe from COVID-19 is worth it.

“I want to emphasize that it was a great team effort,” Rolich said. “From our health officer Karen Sullivan and our public health nurse Karen Maloughney and our entire health department. In the beginning we saw what was hap-pening, and saw that the CDC was determining that we were having a pandemic.”

When the pandemic first ar-rived in Butte, during the Class B State Basketball Tournament, Rolich and the rest of the health department had to act fast. One of the main points of action?

Education and information.“We focused on educating peo-

ple on what exactly is happening,” Rolich said. “Getting education in place and getting contact tracing in place and getting our emer-gency response plan in place.”

The quick response included having to take immediate action to prevent an early outbreak, which included the cancellation of one of Butte’s biggest events.

“The teamwork was tremen-dous at the county level,” Rolich said. “The biggest call was call-ing off St. Patrick’s Day with our board of health’s approval. It was great teamwork. That was the be-

ginning of this: how do we try to prevent any type of outbreak? It was really successful.”

The response kept Butte’s cases to just 11 total, and was a big rea-son why the county did not report a case from March 28 to June 25.

However, while Rolich knows his work was important to that ef-fort, the No. 1 reason for the city’s successful response in the fall was the teamwork from not just the health department, but the city’s residents and organizations.

“We were very successful,” Ro-lich said. “I want to give kudos to everyone in Silver Bow county, we had a good stretch where we had no cases for 70 days or so and it was a community wide effort that should be applauded.”

Going forward, the attention of Rolich and the health department turns toward schools. As fall ap-proaches and students in Butte-Silver Bow prepare to head back to class, Rolich just wants to make sure they do it safely.

“Credit to Montana Tech and their chancellor Les Cook,” Rolich said. “Judy Jonart who is the pub-lic schools’ administrator and Don Peoples Jr. as well. We’ve been focusing on making sure these schools can open safely. That has been one of our main focus, the other main focus has been get-ting contact tracing going that can prevent any kind of serious outbreak.”

It’s not an easy task, especially considering that many people

do not wish for the unstoppable changes that COVID-19 has re-quired.

Rolich feels those same emo-tions. The actions of Rolich and the health department are not to restrict, but to protect.

“Everyone in this department cares about Silver Bow county,” Rolich said. “Sometimes it’s dif-ficult. We want to protect the public, even if they think we’re overstepping our bounds... That’s what we have to do.”

John RolichKEEPING BUTTE CITIZENS SAFE IS HEALTH DEPARTMENT GOAL


John rolich, the Environmental health division manager at Butte-silver Bow County health department, is photographed in his office. “I’ve basically been living at my desk since this whole thing started,” said rolich.


When you grow up with role models like Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II, you become someone like Pam Sholey.

The Butte Central junior high teacher wears several hats. She’s about to enter her fourth year teaching English Language Arts and Literature to sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders. She’s a mom to a daughter and four sons, one of which is fighting can-cer. And when it comes to her community, she’s not one to sit back.

“Wherever there’s a need for help, I’m going to try to do something about it,” said Sholey.

It’s that kind of curiosity and passion that got her nominated for the “Local He-roes” partnership between The Montana Standard, St. Patrick Catholic Parish, Butte Chamber of Commerce, and others.

When schools closed mid-March due to coronavirus concerns, Sholey and educa-tors like her already had a lot on their plate as they worked to continue providing edu-cation to their students.

But when she heard many people weren’t getting groceries because they didn’t want to leave home to avoid coronavirus expo-sure, Sholey made the decision to work as a personal shopper at Walmart knowing the risk to her personal health as she has face to face contact with staff and customers.

While her responsibilities increased as the need for shoppers increased, Sholey accepted the challenges as they came. In fact, she took on a full-time shift at Walmart to take and fill customers’ curb-side order.

The person who nominated Sholey as her local hero wrote:

“Pam Sholey is a true inspiration with her commitment to serve the people of

Butte, MT, in several capacities. During COVID she continued being committed to educating the students at Butte Central in her role as a middle school teacher ... She always goes above and beyond when working with students and parents at the school. Additionally, during COVID she took on a second job ... Pam put herself at risk in the front lines of a grocery store to help minimize risk to other citizens by giving them the option to pick up groceries and not have to enter the grocery store.”

Before becoming a teacher, Sholey spent 20-plus years running her own daycare business in different states and finally, Butte. She established the former Sacred Heart Zone childcare services before tak-ing a teaching post at Butte Central.

Outside of work, Sholey also volunteers at the New Hope Pregnancy Clinic in Butte and is involved with organizing a soccer recreational program for kids and adults.

Sholey’s ties to the community mean she wants to see it thrive.

“My passion, it is education and loving and helping people the best that I can,” she said.

Sholey said there’s no secret behind her inspiration.

“I am Catholic, and I think that plays a strong part in making the person that I am,” she said.

Sholey said she wants to continue to help Butte in the future.

“I want our community to make it through this COVID strong, healthy,” she said.

Pam Sholey

TEACHER PAYS IT FORWARD AS PERSONAL SHOPPER AND VOLUNTEER


Pam Sholey, an elementary teacher at Butte Central, is photographed in the hallway of the local Catholic school. Along with teaching, the Butte woman volunteers for many other community activities.

“Wherever there’s a need for help, I’m going to try to

do something about it.”

Pam Sholey, Butte Central junior high teacher

The MonTana STandard ThurSdAy, AuguST 13, 2020 | BUTTE’S LOCAL HEROES | 11

OurCommunityis BetterBecause ofthe PeopleWho Live Here!

• Abstracts• Mining Titles• Title Insurance• Sale & Loan Closing• Home to the originaland only Tract Indexes

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Congratulationsto Our Heroes!


EVAN [email protected]

During a pandemic, emergency respond-ers can’t worry about what could happen, they focus on what

they can do.For A-1 ambulance worker

Konnor O’Neill, this is especially true. When a patient requires fast and safe transport in scenarios where time is of the essence, the minutiae of the COVID-19 pan-demic is thrown out the driver-side window.

“It doesn’t really weigh on me,” O’Neill said. “I trust our proce-dures and doing things the proper way and our process. We have to take caution and if it weighs on you, it makes your job a lot harder and maybe makes things worse.”

That doesn’t mean that the worry isn’t still present. Like all of Butte, O’Neill has family and friends who are either aging or at-risk should they contract CO-VID-19.

What that means for O’Neill and the people who safely trans-port those in need of emergency help is focusing on their jobs, both in terms of efficiency and safety.

O’Neill says he and fellow workers are more diligent than ever when it comes to cleaning and disinfecting the ambulance. The 22-year-old said it’s partly due to the fact that they want to protect their patients, but they also know that as employees they are putting themselves and their families at risk.

“I was really cautious about it,” O’Neill said. “I didn’t want to catch it and pass it on to my parents or grandparents so I was pretty nervous about the whole deal. Seeing people my age get it opened my eyes and made me think it’s real and it’s here.”

There is also the distinct un-known factor: O’Neill and fellow ambulance workers never know if

the person they are transporting has COVID-19 or not.

While that could get to some-one’s head, O’Neill says that trust-ing the process and committing to his job and being safe is what he can control, rather than the vari-ables of the patients he’s assisting.

It helps that the former Butte Bulldog has been wanting to help

his community ever since gradu-ating.

“My whole life I wanted to become a firefighter or work in the emergency services,” O’Neill said. “When I graduated I took an EMT class and started as quick as I could.”

While it’s a personal dream of O’Neill’s, he says it also has to do

with the fact that he’s doing it for the Butte-Silver Bow community in particular.

While life has had to go on, the people of the Mining City have stuck together through a pan-demic and many have done what they could to limit the spread and keep Butte tough.

“I love seeing that,” O’Neill

said. “Butte’s community com-ing together and supporting one another is really cool to be a part of. I love helping the people of Butte-Silver Bow and I really ad-mire how Butte people really are ‘Butte Tough.’”

“Love this community, I love this town and how tight-knit it is. Butte has Butte’s back.”

Konnor O’NeillA-1 AMBULANCE DRIVER LOVES TO HELP PEOPLE


Emergency medical technician Konnor O’Neill stands near his ambulance on galena street in uptown Butte.

DAVID [email protected]

Cindy Yant’s smile is so powerful you can see it behind her mask.

The Front Street Safeway checker’s helpful, friendly approach to her customers was cited by sev-eral nominators as an island of warmth and humanity in the dispiriting morass of COVID-19.

Yant is a Butte native. Her father, Ralph Yant, mined the Berkeley Pit while she was growing up in Center-ville.

She moved to Idaho for a time after high school, but came back to Butte to make her life here. The mother of four children and grand-mother of four “with two more on the way,” says the virus is scary to her — she has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease — but you wouldn’t know it from her calm, professional de-meanor at work. Among essential workers, grocery workers are at the front lines of the virus fight because they interact with so many people.

Yant has been a checker at the Front Street store for five years. She previously worked in the bakery at Albertson’s and then Stokes. She liked it okay, but says, “I’m a people person and I like my current job much better because I get to talk to people.”

Asked how she maintains her cheerfulness in these times, she says, “I just have to. I can’t be a crabby per-son doing what I’m doing. I don’t bring my personal life to work. I need to make

people feel comfortable.”She says having a smile

and a friendly word for her customers “is part of the job,” and most customers respond in kind.

Yes, the store has had its share of would-be custom-ers who refuse to wear a mask.

“That’s up to manage-ment to handle,” she said. “I can’t say anything to them.

“I’m cautious myself — I have been washing my hands all the time since be-

fore washing your hands was cool. And I wear my mask.”

She said doing her job well, even though it may be a small thing to some, is the most important thing for her.

Laughingly, she said, “Some people come through the line and tell me, ‘Don’t put my canned goods in with the bread,’ and I smile. I’ve done this a time or two.”

“Even if another checker is free, I’ll wait in Cindy’s line,” one person said. “It’s

worth it because she’s so nice and cheerful.”

Another nominator echoed that sentiment.

“Cindy has waited on me for several years,” she said. “She’s always cheerful, and knows many of her custom-ers by their first names. She always asks how I’m doing and always wishes me a good day. If she’s on duty I make it a point to wait in her line — she is worth the wait!”

“I love my job,” Yant says. “It gives me a purpose. I take pride in doing it to the best of my ability.”

Cindy Yant‘I CAN’T BE A CRABBY PERSON’


Cindy Yant, a checker at Safeway on Front Street, says she checked in with her doctor at the beginning of the stay-at-home order because of a chronic health condition she battles. “She told me to just keep doing what I’m doing and take extra care to wash my hands, but I told her I’ve been washing my hands before it was even a thing to do,” said Yant. “My doctor just laughed.”

“Cindy has waited on me for several years. She’s always cheerful, and knows many of her customers by their first names. She always asks how I’m doing and always wishes me a good day.”

Nominator

The MonTana STandard ThurSdaY, auguST 13, 2020 | BUTTE’S LOCAL HEROES | 13

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Celebrating ourlocal heroes.

Butte has a long history of heroes who have always shinedbright. Current times call for us to shine a brighter light on allthose who sacrafice for this great community. Please join us incelebrating all the local heroes who are being honored.

Show us your favorite mask pictures of yourself,kids, friends, family or coworkers. Be creative!

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rules and restrictions apply; see contest page for details.

Thankyouto our Local Heroesfor going aboveand beyond!

We admire yourcourage and

dedication duringthis difficult time!


LUKE SHELTON [email protected]

One of the first things Traci McArthur wants you to know about her role with Ac-

tion Inc. is that she’s just one part of a multifaceted opera-tion that serves a critical role in southwest Montana.

“I wouldn’t be able to do this without my whole team here and the other com-munity agencies that we collaborate with,” she said. “We each have our piece and it wouldn’t come together if it wasn’t for everybody.”

As the Housing Services Coordinator, McArthur and her team played a pivotal part as COVID-19 shuttered businesses and wiped out jobs during the early phases of the coronavirus pan-demic. Action Inc. helped to deliver rental assistance to individuals and families that may have otherwise been on the brink of homelessness.

“A lot of collaboration, coordination and referrals,” McArthur said of her job duties. She has been in her current role since December 2018 and has spent her en-tire professional life working in case management. She spent 15 years working as the health educator for the health department before arriving at Action Inc.

Before COVID tossed the U.S. economy into a tailspin and placed concepts such as housing security and evic-tions at the forefront of the national conversation, much of McArthur’s focus was on people who were ei-ther chronically or literally homeless.

But coronavirus quickly transformed the image of

what a person who is at-risk of being homeless looks like with everyday, working-class families suddenly find-ing themselves one missed paycheck away from being unable to make rent.

“We’ve definitely been busier during the pandemic,” McArhur said, noting that Action Inc. currently has a rental assistance waiting list of about 35.

But no matter how over-whelming the job became during the height of the pandemic, McArthur and her colleagues always re-mained committed to treat-ing every client with respect and dignity.

“Compassion, that’s one of our core values,” said McArthur, whose childhood in Butte wasn’t without its share of financial hardships.

“I’m the oldest of six kids, and we grew up not wealthy,” she said. “So I’ve been in some of the situations that a lot of the clients are. I un-derstand that, and I know

how that is. I’ve been there.” A 1990 graduate of Butte

High, McArthur originally headed for the University of Montana with the in-tention of majoring in mi-crobiology. After a discus-sion with a professor, she ended up transferring into UM’s newly founded pub-lic health division and went on to earn a degree in health and human performance. After spending 15 years with the health department, she went to work for Action Inc. and has been loving her job ever since.

“This is the first time I’ve been somewhere that I actu-ally want to get up a and go to work,” she said. “It’s really rewarding.”

McArthur said that many of her clients often make a commitment to pay back the money that has been af-forded to them in a time of need. But she always tells them that isn’t necessary.

“Don’t pay it back,” she’ll say. “Pay it forward.”

Traci McArthurACTION INC. HELPS BUTTE WEATHER DOWNTURN

Traci Mcarthur is photographed in front of her office at action Inc. in the Emma Park Neighborhood Center on West silver street in Butte. Mcarthur says the last couple of months have been particularly hard for her clients. “Being homeless is just hard but the additional pressures of the pandemic have been even more hard,” Mcarthur said.MEAGAN THOMPSON, THE MONTANA STANDARD

We care About the care you receive.

507 Centennial Ave • 723-3132

AmbulAnce

Konnor& Thank You to our Staff for All Your Hard Work

Congratulations

YOU ARE TRUE HEROES OFOUR COMMUNITY


THANKYOU!

A special recognition to Father Patrick Berettafor his inspiration for this community recognition

Thank youTo all of our

sponsors who madeThis possible!

Butte Chamber of CommerceGlacier Bank

Janice, Jenna and Leo McCarthy FamilyKBOW/KOPR Radio

St. Patrick and Immaculate Conception ParishThe Montana Standard

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