Legacy Wall
The Roosevelt Center has seen a great number of tenants and partners who have contributed to the building's success since the Red Lodge Area Community Foundation purchased it in 2017.
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Read about the artists, community groups, nonprofits, small businesses and AmeriCorps teams that positively influenced the Roosevelt Center's history as one of Red Lodge's premiere hubs for arts, culture, events and community gathering.
Aaron Martin
Aaron Martin is a born and raised Montana boy with a lengthy background in broadcast and video production. He's the founder and a contributing visual artist of Vivid Northwest Media, a video production agency out of Red Lodge. Beginning in 2019, he started providing small UAS (drone) operations for film and various media applications. Since then, he’s worked with independent artists, small businesses, and corporations on various film & cinematography projects around the region.
As Vivid Northwest Media, Aaron works with musicians and local business owners to use the power of communication to bring people together and portray messages in a unique and fun way.
The earth and sun has been an inspiration for Aaron since a kid. Some of his earliest memories reside on the family ranch in Fergus County, climbing in the pine trees at his childhood home, and entertaining his everlasting curiosity for the environment around him.
To view Aaron’s work, find him on social media or visit his website: vividnorthwest.com
Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness Foundation
Our mission at the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness Foundation is to “support stewardship of the Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness and to foster appreciation of wild lands." Click here to visit our website.
Anton Wilhelm
Anton Wilhelm is from Twin Bridges, Montana, a small town in the southwest part of the state, known for its fantastic fly fishing. Anton went to college in San Diego to study acupuncture, and came to Red lodge 15 years ago after working in Billings. He opened his practice at the Roosevelt Center seven years ago, which grew rather quickly for the time he had been in the space. Wilhelm treats 20-24 people a week for about an hour. His patients range in age from infants to the elderly.
Wilhelm practices Japanese acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, and Shiatsu message. In Japanese acupuncture, they use a finer gauge of needle in comparison to the Chinese version where the “heavier needles are more sedating to the body”. The reason Anton uses the Japanese method is because “you are able to create a more activating response in the body.” Also, the mellower needle approach can cater more to chronic illnesses.
Anton started his practice with herbal medicine, but eventually moved more towards acupuncture because he didn't need the herbs to get the desired outcome of acupuncture. He also enjoys acupuncture more because, “I really like to do hands-on work so I can create change with a person with my hand, it is a very satisfying feeling.” Wilhelm said on the profession he has done for almost two decades, “It kind of found me more than anything.”
Alex Albright
Americorps
Robust Arts & Culture Vista
2014
College:
Carthage College, Kenosha, WI.
2013
Major:
Studio Art major, Art History minor
Home town:
Barrington IL
Reason for joining AmeriCorps:
“manifest destiny”
Favorite Montana moment:
Driving the Beartooth All-American Highway
Years of service: 2
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While in Red Lodge Alex Albright worked to Revitalize Old Roosevelt School into a multi use community art center for the benefit of the whole community. Alex helped to form an independent committee dedicated to revitalizing Old Roosevelt , helped to select an architect to complete a re-use study of the building, secured funding as well as developed and expanded public engagement and outreach.
Alex worked with volunteers from A Place for our Arts to establish and streamline a new grant program, the Educating Emerging Artists fund. Perhaps most important to Alex’s impact and legacy however were the chalk wall drawings at the community foundation.
2021 AmeriCorps Team “Gold 3”
Gold 3 wants to give a huge thank you to Red Lodge, the Red Lodge Area Community Foundation, and especially our sponsors Kat Healy, Tracy Timmons, and Schyler Allyn for making us feel so welcomed and appreciated during our time here. The work we did was all the more rewarding for knowing that the community we served was so hard working, honest, and friendly. Our work ranged from painting the Roosevelt Center, to helping Habitat for Humanity on their build-site, supporting the Beartooth Billings Clinic's COVID- 19 vaccination program, offering our help at the Yellowstone Wildlife Sanctuary and so much more with BRTA, AB Wilderness, DSVS, the Recycling Center, Food Distribution and the City of Red Lodge.
Red Lodge has so much to offer and the Community Foundation does such good work within their community. Gold 3 enjoyed being a part of that work and learning from our sponsors and site supervisors about all the processes and workings in the area, as well as many practical skills from the hands-on training we received for various projects.
As a team, we enjoyed trying all the food Red Lodge has to offer, we enjoyed going on hikes and the rewarding views, and we loved getting to know people in town. This was Gold 3's last project round together and it was indeed a very high note to end our 10 months of national service on (elevation pun intended)!
We have also seen unique approaches to community development that Red Lodge is pioneering such as the Habitat for Humanity Land Trust Model created by the Workforce Housing Project team of the Red Lodge Area Community Foundation. Lastly it has been really inspiring to meet so many change agents who are authentically invested in uplifting their community. This is what makes Red Lodge an amazing and resilient town. Instead of being apathetic in a time of such great difficulty and divide, Red Lodge has community members who have taken initiative to grow, develop and move their community forward. To all of Red Lodge, thank you so much for the opportunity to serve and for the generosity you have shown us” -Parth Singh
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Big Sky Bonus Tracks
Formed in 2022 by four local creative dudes with a passion for music, Big Sky Bonus Tracks is a platform for musicians to share their stories and songs in video form. The crew is committed to capturing raw musical experiences in the Big Sky while helping you discover new music that’ll have you jumping for the “repeat” button.
Right now, you can view the live-recorded music sessions produced by the Big Sky Bonus Tracks team for free on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and BigSkyBonusTracks.com. If you’re a Montana local, chances are you’ll see some familiar faces featured in high resolution while listening to high-quality sound mixed and mastered by Sam Gertsch.
The local filming crew, made up of Mitch Lagge, Schyler Allyn, Lucas Treptow and Aaron Martin use their Roosevelt Center studio to plot new video shoots, dream big, think local, and spark ideas about how to grow camaraderie and teamwork in the Montana music scene.
Whether it’s an on-location shoot capturing musician’s songs in the expansive wilderness surrounding Red Lodge, or an intimate small-stage recording experience at the Roosevelt Center, the Big Sky Bonus Tracks crew is proud to offer its services free-of-charge to the musicians. All they have to spend is the time to get here to record a session.
The crew believes that music has the power to connect people and inspire creativity, so they’re committed to sharing the stories of the talented people who make it. Big Sky Bonus Tracks’ goal is to create a space for these artists to be heard and appreciated.
Henry Blond
Henry Blond is a British born artist originally from Liverpool in the North West of England. Introduced to art at a young age, his father an artist, mother a keen collector and both gallery owners, Henry’s influences grew from the world around him.
As a teenager, after picking up the guitar, his creative energies were directed towards music. He earned a BA Hons degree in Jazz Studies and spent fifteen years as a professional musician playing and touring extensively around the UK and Europe.
After moving to Paris in his early 30’s, Henry’s love for painting was reignited, heavily influenced by the great masters on show in Paris’ finest art museums. As a result, the guitar was replaced with the brush and his creative pursuit resulted in his first full solo exhibition at the American University of Paris.
Henry moved to America in 2011, bringing his graphic design company, “BlondCreative”, Stateside. Over the last ten years he has pursued art alongside the design work, with the later becoming less prominent and the painting slowly becoming his primary focus.
Working primarily in the ‘alla prima’ style of oil painting (Italian, meaning at first attempt or wet into wet), he brings creations to life with a unique realistic, yet ‘painterly’, edge.
As a resident of Montana, Henry primarily works on his own creations from his Red Lodge studio. He also takes human, animal and pet commissions. He is deeply influenced by the breathtaking scenery, wildlife, people and pets that this wonderful state has to offer
Jessica Parpart
A Thousand Leaves is an herbal company located at the base of the Beartooth mountains, inspired by a passion for nature, an adoration for plants, and an interest in clean and natural herbal products. The owner, Jessica Parpart, grew up in Laurel, MT and often spent time with family and friends in Red Lodge while growing up. When talking about Red Lodge, you'll likely hear her say, "this place has magic!" A Thousand Leaves (ATL) was created with the intention to educate others about plants and how they can support us in so many ways.
A Thousand Leaves dreams of bringing herbal education to the community in the form of workshops, webinars, plant walks, and more. A core belief of the company is, "knowledge is power" and the goal is to empower others to make informed decisions regarding their health. For more information about this company and their products, please visit the website: www.athousandleaves.love
Manette Rene
Manette Rene Bradford moved from San Francisco to Red Lodge during the pandemic. For over a year, Manette worked diligently in her Roosevelt Center studio on three large 8x10 pieces, which she completed earlier this month. Carefully using watercolor to create monochromatic marbling texture, she painstakingly cut paper forms to parsing together male body parts. From there she placed them on to the canvas using them to shape mountains and lakes -- the brutality mirroring the horrors thatshaped the Western landscape. Mythology meets modernism in this larger-than-life installation. Deep within her piece is an homage to the Smith Mining Disaster of 1943. The three pieces together create something dark and beautiful, one piece the panorama of the mountainous Beartooth’s, another reminiscent of Dante’s Inferno, each bolgia a complex layer, built off of men’s destruction of the natural landscape and seemingly buried on top of a primal myth of creation.
2020 AmeriCorps Team “Red 1”
“It's been an honor and a privilege to serve the Red Lodge Community. Sponsored by the Red Lodge Area Community Foundation, we have gotten the chance to work with Yellowstone Wildlife Sanctuary, Recycle Red Lodge, Habitat for Humanity, and Boys & Girls Club. We learned so many hands-on skills such as painting, planting trees, building houses, and doing renovations.
We have also seen unique approaches to community development that Red Lodge is pioneering such as the Habitat for Humanity Land Trust Model created by the Workforce Housing Project team of the Red Lodge Area Community Foundation. Lastly it has been really inspiring to meet so many change agents who are authentically invested in uplifting their community. This is what makes Red Lodge an amazing and resilient town. Instead of being apathetic in a time of such great difficulty and divide, Red Lodge has community members who have taken initiative to grow, develop and move their community forward. To all of Red Lodge, thank you so much for the opportunity to serve and for the generosity you have shown us” -Parth Singh
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2021 AmeriCorps Team “Red 4”
“It's been an honor and a privilege to serve the Red Lodge Community. Sponsored by the Red Lodge Area Community Foundation, we have gotten the chance to work with Yellowstone Wildlife Sanctuary, Recycle Red Lodge, Habitat for Humanity, and Boys & Girls Club. We learned so many hands-on skills such as painting, planting trees, building houses, and doing renovations.
Red 4 would like to extend a huge thank you to the Red Lodge Area Community Foundation for giving us the incredible opportunity to live in and serve the beautiful town of Red Lodge. We had the pleasure of working at the Roosevelt Center, the Nonprofit Shared Services Center, Habitat for Humanity, the Yellowstone Wildlife Sanctuary, the Beartooth Billings Clinic, and the Carbon County Historical Society. During our short, yet amazing, time here we have proudly completed 1,846 hours of service, doing work around town ranging from painting the Roosevelt Center recital hall, to staffing the COVID booster clinic, to building the Foundation's of 2 affordable homes with Habitat for Humanity. What inspired us the most was how every staff member and volunteer at these various organizations were so dedicated to their work and invested in the success of the Red Lodge community. While working here, we have seen firsthand the power and strength a community can have when they come together to tackle an issue. One of the most unique things about Red Lodge is its resilience and ability to unite in order to ensure everyone in the community feels supported and secure. It was an honor to be a part of this community and the amazing work the local nonprofits are engaged in. Most importantly, thank you to Kat Healy, Tracy Timmons, and Schyler Allyn for being so welcoming and ensuring our team had everything we needed. Thanks to you all, our first round project in Americorps NCCC was everything we hoped for and more!
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Roscoe Outdoor
(no storefront)
Founded by Montana native Hans Howell, Roscoe Outdoor creates comfortable, functional outerwear that holds up to the hard stress of mountain use. The garments are tested right here in the glacier-carved mountains surrounding Red Lodge.
Howell grew up exploring the mountains surrounding Montana’s Paradise Valley with his family and later learned to climb during his college years in the Bitterroot Valley south of Missoula. When not working, Howell enjoys climbing rock and ice, along with skiing and hiking.
Howell’s rugged clothes are worn by hunting guides in Alaska, adventurers trekking in the Himalayas, rock climbers sending new routes and plenty of others who just enjoy spending time outside. View his products at roscoeoutdoor.com
Sara Johnson
They say that nothing worth having comes easy.
Sara takes that to an extreme. Using encaustic, her current medium of choice, she explores the mirroring between nature and the human journey. The pigmented beeswax is applied molten and is manipulated with a torch, making this medium technically difficult while incredibly fun. The layering of the wax allows her to use line, layers, and color in a more subtle and muted way.
When she’s not torching wax, she spends her time outside the studio in the dirt. She cultivates beautiful and unusual flowers for cutting. She fills her garden with different textures, deep colors, and delicate shapes that you also see in her artwork. She is inspired and challenged by the harsh conditions and shortened growing season here in Red Lodge.
Sara also has a knack for being able to pull anything out of the dumpster and make it beautiful. What others might consider trash, she eagerly pours energy into restoring and repurposing. She has a particular soft spot for old screen doors, vintage metal containers, worn hardwood flooring, and anything else hidden behind layers of paint, wallpaper, or dust… just waiting to be re-exposed.
Sara and her husband have had a home in RL for 7 years, but they have finally moved here full time from Billings. Currently, she is inspired by the 2019 California super bloom and archeological parch marks left after the 2018 European heat wave.
Satellite Gallery
The Carbon County Arts Guild & Depot Gallery, located in the historic train depot on the north side of Red Lodge, is a place for local and regional artists to show case their work. Of the nearly 400 members at the Arts Guild, about 180 of them display artwork in the Depot Gallery all year and others chose to participate in art shows which change each month. Space at the Guild is limited. This is where the Roosevelt Center project comes into play. The Roosevelt Center formerly provided a “Satellite Gallery” for Arts Guild members to show their work, specifically larger pieces.
Kim Kapalka, Executive Director of the Carbon County Arts Guild says, “It is really exciting that the Red Lodge Area Community Foundation wants to keep the Guild involved with the Roosevelt project. I think it is another great opportunity for people to see what’s happening in the art world and extends viewing art to the south end of town.”
The Roosevelt Center Satellite Gallery allows artists to display larger work than can be shown in the Depot Gallery. Carol Hartman, known primarily for her large oil paintings, was the first artist to show at the Satellite Gallery.
She said, “I certainly did appreciate having an exhibition space such as the Satellite Gallery to install my large artworks so that viewers can see them together.”
Carol goes on to say, “With all the new uses of the Roosevelt Center this exhibition space will become a more visible place.”
Satsang - Drew McManus
Drew McManus carries many labels and does a lot of different things, but Montana runs through every aspect of his life.
“Montana isn’t just where I live,” McManus said. “It’s my heart, my soul. Along with my family, it’s my everything.”
McManus is a musician specializing in guitar, singing and songwriting.
He started up the folk / rock band Satsang in 2016 and serves as its front man, writing a majority of the songs. The band’s debut album, “The Story of You”, is steeped in reggae, hip-hop and world music and initially raked in roughly 15 million streams on Spotify.
Satsang’s 2021 release, their fourth album titled, “All. Right. Now.”, was written and produced by McManus here at the Roosevelt Center over the course of 2020 during an extended hiatus from touring. The band saw six years straight on the road.
The record finds McManus reconnecting with his western roots and exploring a whole new palette of sounds and textures, drawing on classic country and modern Americana to forge a collection all about letting go and living in the moment.
McManus was born here in the treasure state, but spent his childhood years in Des Moines, Iowa. There, he found a new love of skateboarding and the music that goes with it: punk rock and hip-hop. After finding more trouble than it was worth as a teenager, and leaning into music to escape a troubled home life, he eventually found his way back to Montana in 2009. In Montana, he met the girl of his dreams, got married and moved to Red Lodge.
During a backpacking trip across the Himalayas, McManus climbed Mount Everest and filled notebook after notebook on his journey. Those pen strokes formed the basis of Satsang’s first album.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, McManus started up the “Satsang Podcast”, which chronicles his journeys in music, travel and study of martial arts. He’s had all sorts of guests, ranging from UFC Champions to Grammy Award-winning musicians.
Sean Keeney
Sean Keeney, from Minot, North Dakota, moved his family to Red Lodge three and a half years ago. North Dakota’s oil and population boom transformed the area, so Sean and his wife decided shortly after visiting Red Lodge for a friend’s wedding to move their family to this beautiful area. Sean started his career in video editing in the 1980s as a young kid with a camcorder and a VCR, and as time went on and technology grew, he continued to learn.
In the later 2000s, Sean started MightCouldDo with a colleague, where he provided video services for North Dakota and the surrounding states. His company prided itself on the quality of work it could do to help people or companies on a shoestring budget. MightCouldDo made documentaries, music videos, and production videos for nonprofits. Sean goes on to say, “We tried to focus on people who normally would not have the means to work with high-end production values”. When Keeney first moved to Red Lodge, he was still working in North Dakota and traveling back and forth, but that agreement fell through, so he started working on his own freelance projects for more than a year. This was a lot more challenging because having help in any production work is invaluable depending on the project. Another important part of his production is having a space that can accommodate the work that he needs to do.
Sean was searching for a space to run his company Jun[K] Farmers for about eight months and then was able to get in the Roosevelt Center space a year ago. “This was exactly what I was looking for,” Keeney said. The high ceiling allows him to use his production lighting the way he needs. “I think Roosevelt [Center] is hugely important with what they’re doing with the spaces
they offer and the artist community,” Sean says.
2021 AmeriCorps Team “Silver 2”
“What truly made our time in Red Lodge so spectacular is the wonderful cohesiveness with the many different organizations in the area. From the Yellowstone Wildlife Sanctuary to the Red Lodge Area Community Foundation, to Baretooth Cupboards, to the Domestic and Sexual Violence Services organization, to the Helena Habitat for Humanity, and lastly, the Roosevelt Center, we have seen the ripple effect of our work that has helped the town immensely in such a short period of time. All of these organizations exposed us to the diversity of work that you can engage in in this beautiful small town.
As a team, we proudly completed 1,311 hours of service in town throughout all the different organizations we became involved with during our time here. The team painted 9,581 square feet of the Roosevelt Center and the Red Lodge Area Community Foundation combined, distributed 57,119 pounds of food to the community and surrounding communities with Baretooth Cupboards, discarded 8,138 pounds of trash/debris from a combination of organizations, sorted over 252 pounds of wood at the Habitat for Humanity site, and much more.
The work we did with the community helped us truly understand that one of the profound ways to make a direct impact on a town is to start with continuous small steps that eventually lead to an impressive mark on a community. We hope that our work in Red Lodge has made an impact in the community that will resonate within the town for years to come.” Kelly Saldarriaga