Whitefish students link past, present

As Whitefish's historical records get a bit richer, thinking skills of some high school freshmen are going much deeper.

Whitefish is celebrating its centennial this year, with a series of community events that highlight a rich heritage founded on logging, railroading and a determined pioneer spirit.

At Whitefish High School, 78 freshmen are joining in the accolades by working through the Montana Heritage Project.

"The wonderful thing is this requires research, analysis and inference," English teacher and Heritage Project leader Beth Beaulieu said of the project designed to connect students to their community, then let them give something back to that community.

"It develops critical thinking that takes students beyond the typical classroom," she said.

Students in her four freshman English classes interviewed a pair of Whitefish residents about their histories in railroading and logging, read local-history books such as "Stumptown to Ski Town" and filtered everything through a set of essential questions.

They looked at immigration, taxes, drinking, death rates, celebrations, jobs, crime, technology, medicine, recreation, school, styles, law enforcement, people, residential areas, entertainment and more.

Each group came up with a snapshot of Whitefish in 1905, another snapshot in 2005, then compared the two to see how the earliest patterns set the stage for Whitefish's 21st century incarnation.

On Wednesday, the entire community can see their results.

Students will share a multimedia presentation of their findings at 7 p.m. May 25 in the O'Shaughnessy Center.

In 90 minutes, to the accompaniment of live piano music composed by school librarian Dan Kohnstamm and with PowerPoint illustrations and projected photographs, students will stand up and summarize what they learned of Whitefish's colorful past.

"They have to write and do some real public speaking," Beaulieu said. The fact that they are relating their information to the community and to their own lives is what has her excited.

"It's the depth of their thinking process," she said. "They really have to think and sort things out.

"The process I want them to learn is to make a statement that is their own and back it up with real data," she said. "If they can develop the thinking and the writing process they need to do that, then I feel I've done everything I need to do."

The Montana Heritage Project is a statewide initiative established in 1995.

Projects have been completed or are under way in 29 Montana communities, including Bigfork, Eureka, Libby, Ronan and now Whitefish.

As part of their project, the Whitefish freshmen translated their research into written form and are polishing the results. Some of their work will be included in a book to be sealed in a time capsule and preserved for future generations.

Students learned what it is to do primary research when they interviewed people who were there as Whitefish was growing up.

"You know how we think of logging now, but not back then ," Colin Fuller said of the work his group did. So, working with Joe Engibous, Kevin McDowell and Tarik Rawlings, they worked along a pattern of growth set by the booming railroad industry.

Reginald MacDonald and Harold Ace McDowell, both still Whitefish residents, were a wealth of information.

MacDonald's grandson and class member Owen Gobel captured on tape his grandfather's stories of his years spent working on the railroad. McDowell's great-nephew, Kevin, did the same with the elder McDowell's recollections of growing up in a family that owned and worked a logging company.

The two, with help from their classmates, then transcribed and edited the conversations for inclusion as oral histories under the Montana Heritage Project.

Local historian Walter Sayre and other history buffs with the Stumptown Historical Society also were a wealth of information and a great source of photographs of Whitefish in its infancy.

Another group researched how the character of Whitefish has been shaped by the businesses of 1905 and 2005.

To begin their research on downtown Whitefish, Sydney Cummings, Jessica Newman Katie Dodds and Erin Haas combed through early editions of the Whitefish Pilot on microfilm, comparing advertisements and noting what was mentioned in news stories.

Owner-operated establishments made for few hired workers in 1905, they found; hired workers abound in 2005. There was a good supply of cheap places to eat and sleep for railroad workers back then; today's prices reflect the tourism-driven economy. Items sold a century ago were fundamental supplies needed by miners, pioneers and railroaders; today's reflect desires for vacation mementos.

Michael Samdahl talked of his group's research into landowners then and now. With loggers and railroaders flocking to the developing jobs 100 years ago, he said, there weren't many women and families coming along with the crop of men who bought land for its resource values.

Today, raw real estate is bought, improved and sold for two or three times its initial value - often in less than 10 years, Samdahl said.

"Now, they buy it to sell it," Samdahl said. "It's all about tourism."

Although only in its second year with the Montana History Project, the Whitefish program is developing a good reputation already. Beaulieu's students from last year were asked to present their "Our Place Whitefish" project at this year's state history conference.

They accompanied her as she presented a workshop for the state teacher conference. And she, along with other Montana teachers, presented seminars on the overall project in Idaho for the National Council of Teachers of English conference.

Both years, a contingent of students presented their project at the Youth Heritage Festival in Helena, anchoring the statewide efforts of the Montana Heritage Project.

In all, it's been a good year for Beaulieu.

In January, her speech and debate team, a dynamic group she coaches with Gil Jordan, captured the state speech title for the first time in school history.

Last month, she was offered a Fulbright Fellowship to teach conversational English in the Czech Republic next school year.

Now, freshman students under her tutelage are making a lasting contribution to the recorded history of Whitefish.

For a teacher with a connection to the community and her students, it's a satisfying accomplishment.

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com