"One minute of music for orchestra equals about 20 hours of work at the computer notating it in," Naylor explained. With two major commissions to complete, Naylor has a lot of notating to do.

The Kalispell-based educator/conductor/composer has been commissioned by The American Composers Forum as part of the Continental Harmony Project for the New Millennium. He is one of 50 composers selected from a field of 900 to write a 15-minute choral piece for the project.

Naylors piece will premiere on July 4, 2000, in Osceola, Wisconsin. Towns in all 50 states will premiere Continental Harmony Project works on the same day, creating a national celebration of American communities and cultural heritage.

Meanwhile, Naylor is wrapping up another major composition, a piece commissioned by a consortium of university and high school wind ensembles including UCLA, University of Georgia, Montana State University, Flathead High School, and others.

"Symphony #2: Of Rivers and Roots Entwined" reflects Naylors fascination with water and echoes his own cultural roots, with Scottish, Irish, and Scandinavian themes woven throughout the piece. "Rivers and Roots" will make its debut in spring 2000.

Nalor will add these two new compositions to his portfolio of 60-some works, ranging from elementary band and choir pieces to professional film scores.

Broadening horizons

How does he fit it all in? "Caffeine," he laughed. "Lots of 5 a.m. to midnight days." Naylor often gets up at 5 a.m. to compose for a couple hours before his family stirs. Then hes off to a full day teaching.

Naylor is undaunted by the transition from elementary to college level teaching. "It satisfies different parts of my love for teaching," he said. "With younger children, I get to experience the excitement of little kids exploring music for first time. With adults, you can throw out grander concepts. Yet some of my college classes are for nonmusical people. Its nice to broaden their horizons a little bit."

Naylor has received the "Love The Arts" Award for excellence in education from the Flathead Arts Council and the prestigious Individual Fellowship from the Montana Arts Council.

Of MEA and MFT combined

He thinks the MEA/MFT merger holds great promise. "The new era of cooperation will be a big boon as far as Im concerned," he said. "Merger will strengthen respect for teachers."

Naylor already sees the benefits of cooperation at his college, where three unions – full-time faculty, part-time faculty, and support staff – are exploring merger.

"Its a very different climate," he said, citing new respect from the college administration. "Its starting to become clear they wont be able to do the divide and conquer routine any more."

For MEA/MFT members like Naylor, that means more energy for teaching – and for getting all that music down on paper.

Jack Jensen: Miles City
Renaissance man
Jack Jensen likes people, and he likes diversity. That makes him well suited for his dual roles in the Miles City school district.

As the maintenance person for Custer County District High School, Jensen does everything from electrical work to checking boilers to keeping an eye on troubled students.

As president of the Custer County District Custodians, he bargains contracts, represents members in grievances, and keeps his finger on the pulse of the association – mostly on his own, according to MEA/MFT field consultant Maggie Copeland.

"He does it all," said Copeland. "Hes kind of a Renaissance man."

Jensen has been a school custodian in Miles City for 12 and a half years. The job has changed considerably during that time, he said, because students have changed.

"Its gotten to be a little more of a challenge," said the soft-spoken Jensen. "I notice a difference between what students go through now and when I was in high school. There is more expected of them. Youve got to be aware that theyre going through more stress. Yet I dont believe they should be able to use that as an excuse to do some of the things theyre doing."

Jensen once thought Miles City schools would never experience drugs and violence, "but its a changing world," he said. "Custodians need to be aware of the situation."

Jensen recalls a situation a few years ago with a student who was involved with drugs and trying to organize a gang. "We kind of kept an eye on him," Jensen said. "If you happen to be going down the halls and notice something that doesnt seem to be right, you need to get hold of the proper people and let them know.

"Attitude has a lot to do with it. If you expect respect from students, you have to give them respect, too. Its a two-way street."

Jensen is serving his second term as president of his local. He first served from 1988 to 1990, then becamepresident again in 1996 when his local was struggling to help a member who had lost his position. "He was going to be bounced around," Jensen recalled. The case was headed for arbitration, but Jensen helped settle it with a win-win solution in which the district gave the member a buy-out.

"It satisfied both parties, so it worked out pretty good," Jensen said. "Things have been running pretty smooth [since then]." Thats largely because of Jensens ability to anticipate problems before they happen, according to Copeland. "A good leader is someone who is aware of things before they become problems," she said. "Thats Jack."

Power in numbers
As president of a local with only 17 members, Jensen understands the benefit of unity. He thinks the impending merger between MEA and MFT is a good deal. "I think theres power in numbers," he said.

To maximize that power, he stays in close contact with the two other MEA/MFT affiliates in his district, the teachers and secretaries locals.

"If locals can work together, you get a lot better communication than if youre fighting with each other," he said. "With only 17 members, we need to work together."

Karen Moses: A classified dynamo
Monumental projects are Karen Moses’s strong suit. Case in point: As a board member of the Billings Public Education Foundation, she helped create "Saturday Live," an all-school carnival that annually attracts 20,000 people and raises $70,000 for Billings schools. ("We got a little carried away," Moses explained.)

She’s the driving force behind Support Your Schools, a group that works to pass mill levies in Billings.

And as president of the Billings Classified Employees Association (BCEA), Moses recently led her local through an intense, 10-month bargaining session that resulted in the biggest salary increase BCEA has achieved in years.

The new contract brought members closer to a livable wage and fixed a glaring insurance inequity.

"We still have a long way to go," Moses said. "But I think we take a little more pride in ourselves."

MEA UniServ Consultant Steve Henry, who helped BCEA in its bargaining efforts, credits Moses’s leadership for turning BCEA into a strong local. BCEA recently gained about 30 new members.

Moses, a hall monitor at Billings Senior High School, has seen school management from several vantage points. She served seven years on the Billings school board in the 1980s and early ‘90s. She knows how it feels to sit at the management table during budget crunches, layoffs, and school closures.

She also knows how it feels to earn less than a livable wage.

"If I only knew then what I know now, my service on the school board would have been different," she said. "I always supported staff, but I had no idea of the plight of support staff."

Moses works as a hall monitor because she loves being involved with the school – and to help put her three children through college.

But most of her classified co-workers – primarily secretaries, classroom aides, and paraprofessionals – rely on their jobs for survival. That’s why she got involved in BCEA. "I feel responsibility for the support staff," she said. "They were $3 behind the livable wage."

The irony of her situation – school board member turned local president – is not lost on Moses. "I’m like a bad case of the flu" when it comes to the school board, she joked. "I seem to continue to hound them."

Hall monitoring and BCEA activities are just part of Moses’s work at Billings Senior High (her own alma mater), where she has devoted countless volunteer hours.

"She’s kind of the PR person for the school," said Steve Henry. "She’s involved in a million community activities. She’s a gem."

Out among the critters:
Tom Carlsen: wildlife biologist, MEA/MFT member
What do educators and wildlife biologists have in common? More than you might think. For one thing, they’re both responsible for some of Montana’s most precious natural resources.

They also share membership in MEA/MFT.

"Amazing Members" was created to celebrate MEA/MFT members and introduce them to each other. In this issue, we introduce Tom Carlsen, a wildlife biologist and member of the Montana Association of Fish and Wildlife Biologists/Montana Federation of State Employees/MFT.

Carlsen works for the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks as a management biologist. He manages the Canyon Ferry Wildlife Management Area near Townsend. He’s also responsible for four hunting districts: one in the Elkhorn Mountains and three in the Big Belt Mountains.

His job includes tasks such as surveying wildlife populations, making recommendations on hunting seasons, and dealing with other agencies whose policies affect wildlife.

So much opportunity . . .
With a masters’ degree in fish and wildlife management and 18 years’ experience in his current job, this soft-spoken scientist knows his business. And he has seen a lot of changes during his tenure.

"Montana’s been discovered," Carlsen said. "We’re seeing more pressure on wildlife habitat."

Much of the pressure comes from subdivisions that fragment wildlife habitat. "Fortunately, our department has a program to acquire conservation easements for important wildlife habitat," Carlsen said. "But that can’t affect all the impacts we’re seeing."

Conservation easements offer incentives for landowners to keep their land intact instead of subdividing. According to Carlsen, there is a great deal of interest on the part of farmers and ranchers but not enough money to acquire all the property that could be protected.

So much opportunity, so little funding. Sound vaguely familiar?

Carlsen believes Montana’s public land will be a saving grace for wildlife. "What’s going to carry us on into the next century is that we do have a lot of public land," he said. "It’s becoming more and more important as far as providing wildlife habitat."

Habitat abounds in Carlsen’s wildlife management area. The 5,000-acre area hosts birds, deer, moose, and other species. "It’s unchanged since Lewis and Clark came through," Carlsen said.

Carlsen periodically gives tours to school groups and others – a welcome chance to get out of the office and onto the land. "It’s really important that you don’t lose connection with why you became a wildlife biologist," he said. "You do that by getting out among the critters."

A voice for wildlife biologists
In the highly political arena of natural resources, speaking up for "the critters" can be risky business for wildlife biologists.

That’s partly why the Montana Association of Fish and Wildlife Biologists formed in 1984.

"We were trying to have an independent voice," said Carlsen, who has served as a board member and chair of the association.

"Lots of times we can’t take a stand on certain issues because of the political process," he explained. "The association was an avenue to take on resource issues that we as individuals felt strongly about."

Carlsen cited game farms as an example. Man wildlife biologists are concerned about diseases that spread from game farm wildlife to indigenous wildlife, but speaking out could get biologists into political hot water. The association provides a safe mouthpiece. It also protects members who do get into a jam by angering the wrong people.

Labor of love
Here’s another similarity between educators and wildlife biologists: They do what they do as a labor of love, not to get rich. But wildlife biologists need to make a living, too. So their association has gotten more involved in pocketbook issues in recent years.

For example, members have rewritten job descriptions to reflect what they actually do. "Our jobs have changed over time, so we’ve been able to get upgrades by rewriting descriptions," Carlsen said. "The association was influential in getting that done."

The next time you drive past the south end of Canyon Ferry Reservoir near Townsend, slow down and take a look at the wetlands near the lake.

Chances are, you won’t see the critters sheltered among the islands. But you can rest assured they are there. Thanks to Tom Carlsen and wildlife biologists like him, this piece of Montana’s heritage will remain for future generations to cherish.

Colleen Sauer – Class Act
By Judy Byrne, Lewistown
"Mrs. Sauer has a whole lot of panache!" cries Lindsay Hogg.

"Oh, thank you, thank you," Mrs. Sauer demurely replies, bowing ever so gratefully toward the child.

Sitting in the back of her fifth-grade classroom, I catch the wink Mrs. Sauer sends my way. She is pleased with the way her students have quickly caught on to the meaning of this new vocabulary word.

"Someone who had lots of panache," she notes, "was Elvis Presley. With his sequined white costumes, he really displayed a unique style."

"Like John Travolta," interjects a student.

Mrs. Sauer swoons, "John Travolta always shows his panache. He swaggers with a jazzy, ‘wow’ sort of flair, kind of like me when I wear my red glasses." She gestures in grand theatrical style. The students giggle and groan.

"No, your glasses were gaudy," teases one, demonstrating mastery of a previous word. She rewards his achievement with a smile, and others follow his example using panache in their own sentence, adding words from their vocabulary collection as they go.

Words trim the walls of this Highland Park School classroom in Lewistown, laminated onto neon-colored fish. While students continue to create new sentences, I hear words that swim on the walls overhead: uvula, prolific, feign, and colossal.

"I am a lover of words," Colleen tells me. "In fact, the first word kids learn here is linguaphile."

She also loves American history. High on the walls, cartoon figures of famous Americans stand sentinel, recalling great moments from the past. King George decrees the colonies must be taxed; Paul Revere gallops his warning; a soldier shivers at Valley Forge; Thomas Jefferson offers the Constitution.

"Awesome work"
Colleen Sauer has taught at Highland Park for the past 21 years. Although she has taught second, fourth, fifth, and sixth grades, as well as Chapter I reading classes, Colleen beams when she says, "Fifth grade is truly my favorite. I’m like Charlie Russell; I feel pretty fortunate getting paid for what I enjoy."

Another subject she especially enjoys is math. Students begin each day with a math challenge while she attends to the record-keeping, lunch count, and roll-taking. As she finishes her tasks, students stream forward to have their exercises checked.

"Awesome work, Laura," she says. "I think we’ll keep you. Hayley, that’s super! You’ve got it," she grins at Deidra.

"I’ve never been too happy with the egg carton model of school organization," she confides. "People can’t be packaged in groups of 20 or 30. Each of these kids has a unique story with their individual needs and dreams. We have to teach the whole child." She adds, "There are lots of ways to be smart, you know."

Her own story includes a Masters of Elementary Education degree and involvement in the Lewistown Education Association, where she has served on the executive committee and as a representative to MEA’s annual Delegate Assembly. This year marks her twentieth year of MEA membership.

Partnership with parents
"Your children become mine for a year," she tells parents. "I take partnership seriously because we are both committed to providing our children with the best education we can."

She sends home a newsletter each Monday, detailing the lessons for the week, the spelling words her students need to study, a weekly poem to memorize, and a drawing by one of the class.

"I find it’s a good way to keep in touch with the parents," she comments. "It makes the kids feel good to see their work published in the newsletter, and helping build their esteem is critical to what we do. However," she cautions, "a positive self-esteem arises from a firm foundation in knowledge and skills, so I want to let parents know exactly what we’re working on in class. Practicing these lessons at home gives parents a concrete starting point for discussing school activities with their child."

Parent Candy McKenna says, "The newsletter is excellent. Today’s message tells me the class is reading Number the Stars, and I should ask Laura about that. Those kinds of remarks create a wonderful opportunity for me to talk with my daughter. It also helps prepare kids and parents alike for junior high."

The class moves on to some math strategies. Today they are doing multiples of seven in their heads. She quizzes them with rapid-fire questions.

"How much is 7 times 7? 7 times 4? 70 times 6? 700 times 8?

Their responses come back just as fast. 49! 28! 420! 5600! "Okay," she slows the pace a bit, giving them time to think. "Here’s the biggie. What is 7 to the 3rd power?"

In only a moment, they shout, "343!"

"Right!" she exclaims with pride apparent in her shining eyes. "You people are so awesome!"

"Mrs. Sauer is awesome, too," offers one young man in the back.

Others agree. Colleague Starla Solberg states, "Mrs. Sauer is my mentor. She truly fosters a lifetime love of learning and expects no accolades."

Even without her red glasses, Colleen Sauer is a teacher with style. Oops, make that panache.

Author and former MEA Board member Judy Byrne recently retired from 25 years of teaching in Lewistown. She currently is pursuing a new career in writing and educational consulting. She contributes regular articles for the Lewistown News-Argus. This article is excerpted from the original and reprinted by permission.

Kari Dvorak - Looking out for the children
Kari Dvorak knows exactly who benefits from her work — and she wouldn’t have it any other way. As a child support investigator for the State of Montana, Dvorak makes sure everyone is clear about her goal — and that is to make sure the children in her charge are taken care of properly.

"The children are direct beneficiaries of the work I do," says Dvorak. "I’m there to make sure the payments are made. I’m a neutral third party as far as the adults are concerned."

A four-year employee of the state Department of Public Health and Human Services, Dvorak is all too aware that child support payments often make the difference in whether or not a child has food and a place to live.

The many thank-you letters she receives from children and parents alike are a testament that her work has not gone unnoticed by the people she serves.

Dvorak’s work ranges from keeping track of the amount and frequency of child support payments to serving official notice to individuals who fail to make their payments.

When a parent obligated by law to pay child support falls behind in his or her payments, Dvorak has to find out why; and she sometimes has the difficult task of making arrangements to seize the assets of a delinquent payer if it becomes necessary.

"Seizing a person’s assets is a last resort," says Dvorak.

Custodial parents generally rely heavily on the court-ordered payments for things most of us take for granted, Dvorak says. "Sometimes it’s a matter of having the money for a dependable car that can get the children to and from school," she notes.

Dvorak is a member of the Federation of Public Health and Human Services, an affiliate of MFT.

George Beyer - Montana’s first Hall-of-Famer
When retired Bigfork teacher George Beyer filled out his application for the National Teachers Hall of Fame, he figured he was wasting his time.

After all, the Hall of Fame had printed 25,000 applications; only five teachers are selected each year. But MEA President Eric Feaver, who nominated Beyer for the honor, had made him promise to send in the application, so Beyer did.

It paid off. This summer, Beyer found himself in Emporia, Kansas, the first Montana teacher and first psychology teacher to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Icing on the cake
"I was shocked," Beyer said. "It’s kind of like the icing on the cake. My goal was always to be a good teacher and have fun. I never expected to win any honors."

But honors have come with the territory for Beyer. He was Montana’s 1996 Teacher of the Year and a 1995 Milken Educator Award winner.

Beyer, who taught psychology at Flathead High School for 35 years, said he owes his success as a teacher to the many people who have helped him along the way, especially his wife, Frances, also a teacher.

"No one gets there by themselves," Beyer said.

Beyer began his career as an elementary teacher then moved to the high school level, teaching a total of 38 years.

Today, although retired, Beyer stays active in education issues and volunteers two mornings a week in a rural elementary school, working one-on-one with kids who need extra help. "I love it," he reports.

The National Teachers Hall of Fame was founded in 1989 to recognize exemplary pre-K-12 teachers and help share their outstanding expertise and accomplishments. The program’s main goal is to promote great teaching.

Each Hall of Fame inductee receives a $1,000 award, a $1,000 scholarship for a student in his or her school, and other gifts.

The best perk of all, according to Beyer, is the chance to help improve teaching. As for the cash award, he intends to donate part of it to the scholarship fund he and his wife have established.

Probation and parole officers "walk the talk"
The Governor’s Summit on Youth gave the Probation and Parole Bureau an opportunity to publicly commit to mentoring and teaching youth in communities throughout Montana.

The Adult Probation and Parole Officers and Juvenile Parole Officers committed to mentoring/teaching 180 youth via coaching, Big Brothers/Big Sisters programs, Eagle Mount, Scouts, camps, school programs, and the community youth justice council.

These state employees not only serve the public during the day, they also generously give to the youth of their communities in their free time by volunteering numerous hours every month.

Providing a healthy adult mentor to our Montana youth is clearly "walking the talk." The Probation and Parole Bureau members received public recognition for their commitment to youth.