University of Montana

University of Montana at Missoula; state supported; coeducational; chartered 1893 as the Univ. of Montana. In 1913 when the Montana Univ. System was established, the school's name was changed to State Univ. of Montana, and in 1935 the name Montana State Univ. was adopted. The name was changed back to its original form in 1965. The school has a noted forestry program; research facilities include the Lubrecht Experimental Forest, the Environmental Studies Laboratory, and the Flathead Lake Biological Station. The university system also includes the Montana College of Mineral Science and Technology at Butte and Montana State Univ. at Bozeman.

Welch, James (1940–), born in Montana to a Blackfoot father and a Gros Ventre mother, was schooled on a reservation and at the University of Montana. He has been a firefighter, educational counselor, and served on the Montana State Board of Pardons. His first book was Riding the Earthboy 40: Poems (1971). Winter in the Blood (1974) is a novel of a young man struggling for insight amid the hardships of reservation life. The Death of Jim Loney (1979) treats the differences between white and Native American moral codes. Fools Crow (1986) deals with the Blackfeet in the 1870s. A more contemporary novel is The Indian Lawyer (1990).

Hugo, Richard [Franklin] (1923–82), Seattle‐born poet and the director of creative writing at the University of Montana (1964–82). His poetry concentrates on bleak views of derelict towns in his native Northwest, yet in his first book, A Run of Jacks (1961), he apostrophizes the region's fish and in his third, Good Luck in Cracked Italian (1969), he recalls the Italy he knew in the air corps during wartime. Other books include Death of the Kapowsin Tavern (1965); The Lady in Kicking Horse Reservoir (1973); What Thou Lovest Well, Remains American (1975); 31 Letters and 13 Dreams (1977), which is partly epistles addressed to other contemporary poets; Selected Poems (1979); White Center (1980); and The Right Madness on Skye (1980). The Triggering Town (1979) prints lectures and essays on poetry. He also wrote under his own name a detective story, Death and the Good Life (1981).