Joseph Shelton is a freelance writer who graduated from Montana State University with a degree in English Literature. He lives in Bozeman, where he enjoys hiking, reading, and being a misunderstood artist-type.

Thanks to Kevin Hansen, Museum of the Rockies Superstar, Granddad, Occasional Muse
I’ve just finished my third article for Distinctly Montana’s print edition, which is in fact my third article of any kind for any magazine.  In other words, I’m just starting out, and part of the fun of doing so has been in discovery.  For instance: I really enjoy researching these stories.  While the first, about movies in Montana, was mostly a matter of solitary research and by that I mean watching movies.  The second, however, had me meet Shane Doyle, Native American academic, lodge keeper, and a fascinating person to talk to.  His help (thanks, Shane!) was indispensible.  
This time I’m indebted to Kevin Hansen, who in many ways gave me the idea for my next story (due in the Spring ’14 issue).  He’s a janitor at the Museum of the Rockies, and he comes into the video store I work at.  And of course I’ve always been a big fan of the Museum (henceforth the MOR, ‘cause ‘breves save sp’ce), starting when I was a little kid.  Like Hansen’s little granddaughter Ava, I was transfixed, terrified and thrilled by those dinosaurs.
But, as was repeated to me several times over the course of researching this article, the Museum of the Rockies is not just a dinosaur museum.  Dinosaurs have been kind to it, that much is certain.  The epochal work of its world-famous paleontologist Jack Horner have put it on the map as one of the world’s best dinosaur museums, yes.  But that shouldn’t diminish the fact that the museum has a priceless collection of objects recording the more recent history of the Northern Rockies, a history that may very well include some of our great-great-great-grandfathers and grandmothers.  
So it was thinking about Kevin and his family, history buffs all of them even down to little Ava, that gave me the idea for the story on the Museum of the Rockies (thanks guys!).   Kevin himself was kind enough to spend an afternoon showing me through the exhibits, telling me the history of particular pieces and of the museum itself.  
He told me how Caroline McGill, a doctor from Butte (Butte, America, that is) who wanted to keep the treasures of Montana history from being shipped off or sold, opened a museum in a series of Quonset huts right on the MSU campus in 1957.  He told me how over the years it moved out of the huts and into new locations, expanded its scope and its collection, even how it came by its name, chosen because the truly-cool-sounding lady Dr. McGill didn’t want it to be called “The McGill Museum”.  He outlined how the Museum has only gotten bigger, better, and how it aims to be even better soon.  
So I want to thank you for your kind help, Mr. Hansen, because my article wouldn’t be the same without you.  
And to Ava, resolutely unafraid of the dinosaurs (while I wouldn’t get within seven feet of them when I was a kid, staring wide-eyed from just outside that sphere), but still a little spooked by the section on oceanic history and it’s assorted monsters, I wish her many more visits to the Museum with her grandfather.