1972 - 1972

1972 Major Accomplishments

• Montanans Robert Pantzer, Pierce Mullen, Joe Ward, John Van de Wetering, and Roy Huffman are invited to Washington, D.C., to meet with officials of the National Endowment for the Humanities to discuss formation of a state humanities council in Montana.
• They submit a planning proposal ($15,000), add new members Alma Jacobs, Earl Barlow, and Harold Stearns, and hire director Bruce Sievers and secretary Leslie Hargesheimer.
• The incipient Committee holds a series of state conferences, and, by August, submits a proposal to NEH, with the theme “Political Power in Montana,” and requesting $155,000 for 1972-73.
• The full Committee’s first meeting of record—including new members David Drum, James Murray, Bradley Parrish, William MacKay, Jr., and Flora Willett—occurs on October 30, 1972, in Bozeman.
• A grants subcommittee is appointed by chair Pantzer, but approval of a first regrant proposal, to KUFM in Missoula, does not occur until the Committee’s second meeting, December 1-2, at which time the Committee holds its first public conference, on “Political Power and Human Values in Montana” in Helena.