Narrator: Montana.

Big Sky Country.

The Last, Best Place.

A state famed for its natural beauty, picturesque vistas, and majestic wildlife.

But it is also a place whose identity is often defined by outsiders and people who are more invested in its mystique than its lived reality.

Long-term residents are well-acquainted with the feeling of embarrassment that accompanies when Montana enters the national spotlight.

Almost inevitably, we are painted according to stereotype by people who fantasize about what it would be like to live here.

Submarine Officer: I will live in Montana, and I will marry around American woman and raise rabbits, and she will cook them for me.

And I will have a pickup truck.

Narrator: Or by people who fear what they to be our vigilante code of justice.

Cop: If you think you can just blow into town and start making messes, that ain’t gonna go well.

This is Montana.

Narrator: Occasionally we catch a break.

Crew Person 1: Of all the places the Vulcans could have landed, they chose Bozeman, Montana.

Crew Person 2: Humanity's first warp drive was developed there.

It seemed a logical place to begin.

Narrator: Growing up here, the stories told about us can make it easy to feel like our real, actual lives don't matter much.

But there's another story that isn't as often told of a small town with really long roads.

A story of resilient, caring, and neighborly people.

A story of a place that definitely matters.

That's the story we tell at Montana PBS, and it's the spirit of that story that underpinned our creation 40 years ago.

Jack: October 1st, 1984.

I think it was 22 degrees below zero.

We worked with a helicopter crew to install the transmitter on top of Hedges South.

And mount that on that rooftop.

It was kind of amazing.

Narrator: Montana PBS officially went live October 1st, 1984, broadcasting its maiden signal over a 20-mile radius in Gallatin County.

It was a very humble beginning, but this moment marked the culmination of years of sustained effort from several dedicated individuals.

The story begins with Jack Hyyppa, a professor of television production at Montana State University.

Jack managed the Television Services Center, a small production facility housed in McCall Hall, and a converted RV that recorded lectures from various university departments.

His experience with live production led Ed Groenhout, the Dean of Arts and Architecture, to approach him with the idea of starting a small station on campus.

Jack: Ed Groenhout came to me and said, we've been talking, and we think that one of the things we would like to do for the academic program is to provide an outlet for the student films and student television productions that we do.

Narrator: At the same time, Nancy Flikkema, a Bozeman mother with three young children, had recently moved to the outskirts of town and learned she was unable to receive educational children's programing in her home.

Nancy: I really didn't have an interest in PBS until I had my children.

And then, of course, I couldn't get it.

We could get local stations, just not cable out there.

I just didn't care for any of the cartoons.

I called Sesame Street in New York to see what it would cost to just air it on one of the stations, and it was not doable.

Narrator: Unperturbed, she formed an organization called Montanans for Children's Television and started to explore other options for bringing educational programing to local broadcast waves.

Jack: Montana at that time was the only state in the nation that did not have what they called educational television.

There was no outlet for the programs that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS were were developing.

Narrator: The only option for Montana residents seeking PBS content was to watch stations out of Utah or Washington over cable, and there was no way to get it using an antenna or bunny ears.

Nancy: We were very active for two years.

We had petitions sent out in the Bozeman and rural areas, trying to catch people who either couldn't afford cable, didn't want it, or just had no access to it.

We had a tremendous positive feedback.

Narrator: During this process, They became aware of Jack and Ed's effort at Montana State University to launch a small broadcast station, and both groups immediately recognized a common cause.

Jack: Everything kind of just flowed together.

We brought them in and they became the fundraising group for KUSM.

Narrator: By the end of 1983, the pieces were beginning to fall into place.

MSU's Director of Communication, Marilyn Wessel, had applied for a permit from the FCC.

Montana Broadcasting pioneer Joe Sample had agreed to donate an antenna and transmitter, and Tom Jenkins, Jack's chief engineer at the Television Services Center, had been brought on board to install it on South Hedges dormitory.

The final and most crucial piece of the puzzle was supplied by the general manager of Salt Lake City's PBS station, Fred Esplin, whose generous contributions would prove to be absolutely invaluable.

Not only did he readily agree to allow KUSM to rebroadcast his station's program feed, he went a step further and volunteered a plan to transition members of his own funder base to the fledgling Montana station over the course of three years.

Jack: It was an amazing gesture, but they did it knowing that Montana needed public broadcasting.

Narrator: When October 1st arrived and the helicopter lowered the antenna onto South Hedges.

The event passed without much fanfare, but for those involved, it was a momentous and hard-fought accomplishment.

Years of work had come together, and Montana's first public broadcasting station had officially started transmitting.

Nancy: There was a camera crew from the Bozeman Chronicle at my house, taking pictures of my three kids, all gathered in one armchair, watching as PBS came on the air.

It was amazing.

Narrator: At first, almost no one besides Nancy and her kids were watching.

Jack: We didn't have an audience locally.

We really didn't.

We'd get on the air and ask.

And, you know, the phones wouldn't ring.

We would have somebody back in the control room dial the number and make it ring so it sounded like somebody had made a call.

You couldn't take it seriously.

It was just a disaster.

Paul: There was a lot of scrambling, a lot of television that we might not find acceptable today.

Nancy: We were auctioning off all these silly things, and basically the board members bought all the items.

Narrator: Despite the slow start, KUSM managed to get through those first few rough years and finally emerged on more solid footing after receiving its first federal funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Once the transition from KUED had completed, the station also gained access to cable viewers across the state, dramatically increasing its donor base.

Jack Hyyppa, now general manager of the station, was able to turn more of his team's focus towards something new and exciting.

Jack: As soon as we had made that transition from KUED totally to us, we started producing more local programing.

Narrator: One of the series begun at this time, “Montana AG Live”, has become a staple of our programing and is still being produced today.

It is a fan favorite that offers farmers, ranchers, and home gardeners an opportunity to ask questions to a panel of agriculture experts.

Panelist: If there's any crop that a home gardener needs some help with the weeds, it's got to be asparagus.

Narrator: Another series, “Backroads of Montana”, which cataloged the many wonders of small town Montana, had begun production at the University of Montana in the early 90s.

William: One thing's for certain in Virgelle, Don Sorensen and company can really serve up the food.

By the mid-nineties, it began broadcasting on Montana PBS.

It has been our most viewed local program for decades.

Narrator: As the station began to find success and become established.

A new challenge presented itself.

Administrators at the University of Montana were taking notice and wanted to replicate what KUSM was doing.

Jack: The man who headed up their operations watched what we were doing, was interested, and he began working out a relationship with the Spokane station to do exactly what we did.

Put on a station in Missoula, in essence, become the competitor.

Narrator: This was very concerning to Jack because he was convinced it would spell doom for both stations if it were to happen.

Jack: I thought, this is really not a great deal.

If they pull this off, we will both fail.

State’s not big enough.

There's less than a million people in this state at the time.

You can't support two public television stations.

Narrator: The best solution would be to come to a collaborative arrangement.

But the two universities did not have a great history of working together.

Jack: There's always been this Bobcat/Grizzly, MSU/U of M rivalry, and it's deep.

Aaron: I remember the getting to know you meetings.

It was a struggle to kind of figure out, well, what would a unified Montana PBS look like?

Paul: Both sides had to learn to be open to new ideas, new ways of doing things, better ways to collaborate.

That was modeled for us pretty darn well by the two general managers.

Narrator: William Marcus, the host of Backroads of Montana, had just replaced U of M's previous manager of broadcast operations.

He and Jack had an established positive relationship, and together they were able to convince the necessary authorities of the benefits of a partnership.

Nancy: It was the first ever cooperation between the two universities.

That was one of the most amazing things that happened.

Aaron: Ultimately, our goals were completely aligned.

We're much more similar than we're different.

Other than that football team thing that goes on every year.

Paul: There really is no rivalry in that sense.

We like to kid each other back and forth, of course, but we're here to serve the public and we're here to do a really good job at it.

Narrator: Jack and William took their proposal to the state legislature, which promptly approved it and allocated state funds to the effort.

The project would take some years to be completed, but in 1997, the Missoula transmitter went live, the newly rebranded Montana PBS was born, and we really started hitting our stride.

Narrator: From that point forward, things took off.

While no viewer-funded PBS station ever has the luxury of feeling totally secure, the days of worrying about imminent collapse were largely passed.

We began to measure each year according to growth and accomplishment, not survival.

Dean Lawver, the station's technology director, led the effort to expand our over-the-air coverage to all five of the most populous cities in the state, and eventually beyond.

Local production ramped up with new signature series like “11th and Grant with Eric Funk”, “Montana Focus with Gene Brodeur”, and now-classic documentaries like “Class C”, “Butte, America”, “Indian Relay”, “Night of the Grizzlies”, and “Evelyn Cameron: Pictures from a Worthy Life”.

We underwent a number of important technological upgrades, including the transition to fully digital HD broadcasting in 2009, the launch of an online video player in 2010, and the development of an iOS and Android app in 2011.

By 2015, we had grown into a truly modern multimedia platform with a national reputation for producing an abundance of high quality, award winning, Montana-focused content.

Narrator: Today, we are a thriving organization with more talent and energy than ever before.

We have the largest news and public affairs team in our history.

Our series, “Montana PBS Reports: Impact” takes in-depth looks at issues affecting Montanans across the state, going beyond what the nightly news can accomplish.

Our Education department has become a highly active content producer, creating original media series on subjects, like Montana State Parks, that teachers in Montana have requested.

They are distributed for free on our Learning Media platform.

Our documentary production team continues to punch above its weight and churn out high quality, award-winning films that celebrate our neighbors and their personal stories.

Narrator: Looking back over our history, it's hard to believe how far we've come from a 100 watt transmitter on a dorm to where we are today.

Jack: The incredible changes that have taken place in 40 years is pretty much amazing.

We barely had color television in the studio when we started.

Narrator: But we’re still growing and there’s big plans for the future.

Aaron: I'm very proud of the fact that we raised a significant amount of funding to make the first expansion of our Montana PBS facility in our 40 year history.

Narrator: We are well underway in the process of designing a new base of operations, the Montana Public Media Center, on the campus of MSU.

It will feature an event center, a classroom space, a learning gallery, and a special nook dedicated to Nancy Flikkema Nancy: Nancy's nook, that’s what it's called, yeah.

The recognition is nice.

Narrator: Above all, it will increase our public profile and further our ability to connect with the Montanans we serve.

Jack: What's going on now in terms of new design is such an amazing thing.

It's just going to make our relationships with the community much, much easier.

Scott: The building is a tool that allows us to create things, host events, have screenings that will benefit the public by allowing us to create more and better content.

Narrator: Telling the real Montana story and strengthening community bonds, that has been our goal from the beginning.

No matter what romanticized or distorted stories may come out of Hollywood, Montana PBS is here to remind the citizens of this beautiful state that we are all neighbors in this country's largest small town.

And we owe it all to the efforts of a few ordinary folks with an extraordinary will to improve the value of their community.

Aaron: Those early people—Ed Groenhaut, Fred Esplin, Joe Sample, Nancy Flikkema, Marilyn Wessel— they laid the foundation for something that's really thriving today.

Scott: that culture building that Jack and his successors did made this place what it is.

Nancy: I'm so pleased how it's all started and is still going and getting bigger and better every year.

I'm proud of everybody here.

Jack: There's a great deal of pride and gratitude, but it was like just being along for the ride a lot of the time: staying in your place and trying not to mess it up.

Aaron: We're still working on long form, great Montana stories.

Those films, those documentaries, those programs, when they touch people's hearts, I think that's really what we do at Montana PBS and we do really well.

There's a lot of great Montana characters that we still haven't told the stories of yet, that we'd like to.

There's more work to be done.

Narrator: Here’s to 40 more years of telling treasured stories in the Treasure State.