Students pepper Zinke with questions

American history teacher Brian Fox’s seventh graders were not afraid to ask tough questions of U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., during a video chat session Thursday afternoon.

Zinke was one of three members of Montana’s congressional delegation to Skype with seventh-graders. 

On Tuesday, students talked with U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and Monday they will speak with U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont. To participate, students had to submit two questions.

At the familiar softly beeping Skype ringtone, a video feed from Zinke’s office popped up on the classroom screen Thursday and students waved to the camera. 

“Hey guys,” Zinke greeted the class before sharing what his day had looked like so far since 5 a.m. 

Questions for Zinke included from domestic topics such as Common Core standards, publicly funded preschool, forest management, public lands and Republican/Democrat relations to international topics including Cuba, ISIS and U.S.-Iran negotiations.

Student Allie Rosenlund started off the Skype session with a hot topic: “What are your thoughts on Hillary Clinton’s email scandal?”

“This is my thought. I think if you liked [former] Secretary Clinton you probably still like her. If you didn’t like her, you probably don’t like her even more, but I think if you were undecided I don’t think the smell test was good on the emails — and your generation knows emails. I think what she said was not credible and there’s a trust issue,” Zinke said.

Zinke also addressed a question from Trinity Ceasar asking if he agreed with recent U.S. negotiations with Iran.

“I think to entertain Iran and a nuclear weapon — one of our cities, New York, Washington [D.C.], Chicago or L.A. will be absolutely destroyed,” Zinke said before continuing with details of negotiations. 

“I don’t think we have to go to war. I think we can do it with sanctions and making sure they can’t sell their oil,” Zinke said.

Some students thought Zinke’s answers to their questions — typically on topics about Montana’s natural resources or international issues — were to the point, while others who had questions about education initiatives thought the opposite. 

“I feel like he answered it really well,” student Abi Manger said about Zinke’s reply to her question on how he felt about making public lands and forest more accessible to logging. Zinke said he thought responsible logging could be done to prevent spending millions on wildfires.

“I’m what’s called a Teddy Roosevelt Republican that means that I’m a conservationist. I like to make sure our woods are healthy. I like to make sure that our wildlife are healthy, and part of that is harvesting timber so we can control the amount of fuel in the forest,” Zinke said. “I think you can log and I think we should log but I think you need to do it right so you don’t clear-cut everything.”

Student Aria Scovel, however, said she felt Zinke didn’t answer her question on what will be done to improve the percentage of Montana college graduates. 

Zinke’s answer had been, “The biggest asset Montana has is you. I want to make sure when you get to be my age that I leave you the same Montana as I had growing up. I want to make sure the forests are healthy, I want to make sure there’s a job for you when you go to school, and for some, going to college is going to be the right move. For others maybe the trades, a plumber or welder or guy or gal that likes to work on cars. So the education part is incredibly important.”  

After the Skype session, Scovel said, “I was talking about what we could do to make it so more people go to college because of the president’s goal.”

After 14 questions, Zinke had to leave the Skype session to vote. 

Fox’s students were glad they had the opportunity to address their U.S. representative face to face. Most had not been able to talk to a congressman before taking Fox’s class.

Fox said this is was an example of active citizenship and, at 12 or 13 years old, it is quite a feat. Fox emphasized to those students who were not able to ask questions because of time to email them until they received answers.

“These questions are great questions,” Fox said.

Fox talked about his own experience scheduling the Skype sessions with Zinke, Tester and Daines.

“In order to get the Tester Skype I emailed him three times, Zinke five times, Daines nine times,” Fox said.

“So what if you email him and don’t get an answer back?” Fox asked.

“Do it again,” the class replied in unison.

“Yeah, he said it himself: He’s our representative. We have approximately one million people here in the state of Montana,” Fox said. “Of course he’s busy, so he might not get to it right away, so make sure that you’re heard.”

Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or by email at hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.