Welcome to the September issue of Bozeman Magazine, where we have collected an armful of local content created by contributing writers, mostly based on a back-to-school theme. In each issue, we include at least one historical article looking at Bozeman’s past, and we feature content about future events so you have time to learn about them and decide to be a part of them.

This month I am grateful for the education I acquired at Montana State University, culminating in a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with an emphasis in graphic design in 2002. I worked my way through seven years of college since I believed a degree would give me the ability to get a better job than I could get without one. I wasn’t all wrong, but I never did get a professional job in the field of study I chose — I had to create one.

My MSU class was the first to graduate after 9/11; eight months after the World Trade Center Towers collapsed the world was still reeling and recovering, the job market was scarce, and the future was foggy. Before finishing college, I took a year off from school to reprioritize and ask myself what I wanted. That year, my mother during a fairly routine surgery passed away suddenly while having her gallbladder removed.  I was 21; she was 44. I decided I wanted to finish my education and receive a degree in art. A lot of other personal desires were moved aside to make room for grief.

The best thing we can do to honor our loved ones is to keep on going, to create new goals for ourselves that we may not think we can reach without the support we’ve lost. Yet the support never leaves us if we take the time to notice it; the energy our loved ones gave us in real life continues in us as we choose to keep living.

All this to say we’ve got four more months of this year to create, to be a part of events that excite us, to clear the fog from our lives, and to keep on living. I sincerely hope that something within our pages lights a fire for you to push aside what has been keeping you down and encourages you to pick yourself up, get out, and enjoy your life.

Thank you for reading!    

Seventeen years ago, Angie Ripple decided to begin publishing a local monthly magazine. She and her husband have been creating it together ever since.