Evan Barrett and Pamela Haxby-Cot

00:03 I'm Pam haxby Cody. I am 48 years old. It's July 20th 2007. We're in Butte Montana and I am even Barrett's co-worker for the last 20 years. My name is Evan Barrett time my 62. I'm very glad to be here because I just found out Pam's real age. It is July 20th in this is Butte Montana and Pam and I have worked together an economic development both locally here in Butte. And then now in the at the state level in Governor's wife is office over the last 20 years.

00:42 Evan give us a little bit of information on your background.

00:48 Well, I'm on a Montana native from Red Lodge and ended up in the men involved in government politics and economic development for the last 40 years 38 years. I guess I don't stretch it, but, you know college here out-of-state back here in over the MSU with out-of-state and in St. John's University, then back to the University of Montana for grad school ended up teaching Junior High in Helena and out of that ended up working for governor Forrest Anderson, 1969, and after 11 years of knocking around working for governor Anderson, the Democratic party working for a governor judge, and then running Pat Williams is campaign back in 1978 after that I end up going to work for Senator John melser senior senator at the time and and John said move to Butte.

01:48 And I said do I have to move to be with them have been to have been in Helena for 11 years? And if you had kind of this Rough and Ready reputation, I really haven't seen much of you to Noah. And so I was a little reluctant to move to Beaverton. He said yes, I want you to run my field offices, but do it out of you cuz I don't have an office there and I said well, how about Missoula Missoula? I'd like to go to build in that and then they just kept they finally said just get picture but over there and so I came to Butte what the great deal of reluctance by the way. It was kind of ironic because 7 years later when I left John when we came to a disagreement wait was over that he wanted me to leave Butte and go to Billings or Helen out for him and I refused to leave and we split the sheets and I stayed in Butte so kind of ironic. I really didn't want to be here in the first place. But then I'm a beaut Greta has a great hold on yet. It grabs ahold of the people of Butte the circumstances Butte and and you know, I wouldn't leave you for any.

02:48 Singing is, you know both you and I have made choices not to leave you with her current jobs. I mean look at yourself and how long does it take for you to become a negative 29 years now. I'm almost to Butte guy. They've got to give it to you and it's over. I'm still waiting. Although when we lit The Gallows frame. They wouldn't live there with the Belmont Dallas ran with the red lights done people. So they kind of one of the Godfathers of you introduce me as a beaut guy and icons on maybe I made it. Well, I would think all the great things that you've done for view that you're you know, you know, you can view native will tell us a little bit about you know, when you were working for Senator mail to earlier some of those things that progressed into you getting into Economic Development and what some of those early problems were here in Butte.

03:46 Will you know coming to Butte your first struck with the physical and attributes of Butte I mean in that old poem about beauty cheese and ugly town. You know that did that bralia calm and the first thing you see about Butte especially then beautiful porch cleaned up immensely since 1979, but a pretty gritty town but clearly a town that was on the decline and it became very clear the economy of Butte was sliding in the economy. The area was sliding at what used to be a a community that had 10000 underground miners at had gotten down to about five thousand total employees with the end of kind of company in Butte Anaconda together in 1975. And by the time I got here in 79, you know that there was it was open the smelt it was still open, but it was pretty clear that things were kind of winding down from a mining perspective and in in

04:43 I remember the date it was the 30th of September in 1980 was right in the middle of the the election campaign.

04:54 The Anaconda company came out and announced that they were closing the smelter an anaconda. They were closing the refinery in Great Falls and they were closing the Berkeley pit in Butte and moving over to the smaller Continental pit. And that meant thousands of people were put out of work in one Fell Swoop. And in the end the unemployment rates here got so you had unemployment. They probably approach to 20% and people were having to move out of town. I mean that's the downside of of of an economy gone bad is it if people don't choose to leave play places like pewter Montana, but they sometimes are forced to because they can't sustain the family and we saw families being split up and and people I mean it was a tragic to watch it and and it was especially right then that means we've gone for thousands of jobs were lost and in all the in beauty of course still was able to maintain the the Continental Pit and the

05:54 Concentrator so we had gotten down to about 800 jobs. Now. That sounds like a lot but remembering they were 5,000 jobs between Butte and Anaconda prior to 1975 and now here we were the 19 late 80 down to eight hundred jobs at nine hundred jobs in Butte and everyone started thinking about what can we do about this? What can we do about this Senator Melcher and Metcalf came in for example of when we attend years before when we had the underground mine is closed. Will Senator Melcher said well help the community. Anyway, you can that's just after well, we were just kind of

06:34 Tumbling long is an economy here.

06:38 And in 1983 the Anaconda company announced that they were shutting down completely completely by then they'd been acquired ever questions about who could be acquired at me and was like Anaconda company followed by Chase Manhattan Bank followed by Arco Arco said we're closing down completely in 1983 is all the sudden the remaining eight nine hundred jobs became 15 jobs. The place was closed and everybody said, oh, what are we going to do about that? And then at the same time Northwest airline pulled out Safeway regional office has moved out of Butte and this was a community that to Pat on the news on the Tom Brokaw News NBC news. They actually declared the town debt and meanwhile and a kind of company kept there and they kept paying their taxes and then kept 15 people they were they were

07:38 Can you put grease in the hinges and keeping the place alive and everybody kept wondering what's going to happen with this thing? And so that so hard on people who is the chief executive of Butte that's like being a mayor have formed a mining development committee and it had heart Cody on it to your father-in-law. Remember Dan Regan and bar near and ask him a whole group of community leaders were serving on this thing on this mining development committee and we started figure out well who could own this mind cuz Argos would basically we don't want to own the mine and smelter go do something about it. They were trying to Market it the mining economy was bad copper was $0.59. What are we going to do about it? Nobody seemed to want to buy it. So we started exploring an ESOP Employee Stock ownership program. Well that was going nowhere. I had a friend at Asarco American smelting and refining company back in New York the vice president who I knew and I

08:38 Call him up and said would you like to buy a copper mine? And so they considered?

08:43 There's an interesting anecdote about that. I'll tell you later, but they didn't they didn't buy it. So all of a sudden by about night middle of my maybe early 1985.

08:56 Anaconda company called up people's and said will you better get somebody to buy that thing by the end of 2005 because if you don't were tearing it down.

09:08 Well, you know, once you tear the infrastructure down, it'll never come back. So we were we were faced. We were facing a real crisis about what we do and we really pushed the sawed-off idea because we couldn't think of anything else that being said one day was a very interesting story. When I won one day you may recall that I was a member of the Democratic National Committee at the time which I did 12 years that way and so I was very involved in state democratic politics and and we're approaching the I was one of the elections or something in and then we decided to have a fundraiser over in

09:50 Missoula and it was to be a note that softens his house and milk was the attorney for Dennis Washington. So I went over and that with Milt about what we had to do to set up a fundraiser at his house and he says would you know, why don't you go over and visit with didn't let me go visit Denny because cuz I was talking about the copper mine and you said to you know, he might have an interest in the car.

10:15 So I went over and we sat down over to sandwich in Denny's old office is a little tiny office and along the railroad track over there off of Van Buren Street and I sat down and said would you be interested in buying a copper mine? And he said, you know how you know, I just might I mean that's kind I like to move dirt and that's what it involves and we started talking about it and said, well, let's meat is coming Saturday night at Noah's house for this fundraiser. So we go there and Danny shows up Melcher shows up soon as the senior senator Melcher Governor Swindon shows up. When did Mel turn myself in Washington Go off into a corner and talk about them by in the copper mine. And he says why I'm kind of interested this really tweaks the interest of the two elected officials roof. See this is a pending crisis that has to be dealt with and it was clearly was a community crisis and we finally agreed that we would meet the next Tuesday over here and then he flew over and met with peoples in myself in the

11:15 Lansinoh repeat after me repeat Pete was a retired my way when retired is from a mining family in the beat was a bright guy. He was member the mining development committee to and he knew Danny Washington back in the days when Danny just ran a little construction company, so Pete and Dawn and I met with Danny met him at the airport sat down with him talk to him about it. He went up and visited the site of mine came back and said, you know, I think I'm going to take a run at this.

11:44 Lo and behold a lot of stories in between but he ended up down in Denver at Arco and within three weeks. He bought the copper mine for about 6 million bucks with + 2 mm Box by that asset and and and he bought the water company with it and every square inch of land and a kind of company owned in the three-county area around and he and if they thought while we're getting rid of this we're dumping this junk onto Dennis Washington while he was a little smarter than they were it because he he could see what was coming ahead. And so he ended up owning the mine for that much money plus some royalties on future minerals.

12:27 I hear is really at a Thai little antique. I got to tell you this as soon as you may remember this that that copper once he got going and it took about a year to get going and we can talk a little bit about that. We took about a year to get going and and you know during that time copper went up from about $0.59 to a but by the time he got in his first year of operation. It was a buck and a half copper that never been so high so he had money coming in the door and he then sold 50% No 49.9% of the company.

13:06 To Asarco who could have bought 100% of it for six million dollars.

13:13 And I asked if you ask Bob but but the guy from Asarco my friend from a sarcoa about it that you said what we decided not to buy it because there were the Union problems.

13:24 With the mine and we thought the Darko had these problems and Anaconda the problems and that we as a large company would probably inherit the problems and that was an interesting twist in the purchase in the mines was what happened to the union because you'd be in the Gibraltar unionism in me coming from the union family and I know your family was very tied to the Union's philosophically and otherwise of

13:49 All of a sudden we ended up with a non-union mining operation here.

13:56 And how that happened in Butte Montana and actually survived they survived was a intriguing thing. But but but what did but but that's how Dennis got into it. He ended up in this is mining committee then had in front of them when he bought it. It wasn't he just had it but he had his plan was if I can't make this operational.

14:20 What all end up doing is salvaging it would be no different than divarco and shut it down and salvaged it. So the mining development committee had to come up with tax breaks and with water and sent and sent making sure they have the water and this and that in one of the issues was the the union issue. He didn't want 14 unions. That was the challenges was the place where they at 14 unions and they had jurisdiction will disputes all the time. If you wanted to the old story was that if you needed a light bulb changed its nobody could change it to how to call someone with the electrical union

14:58 You know and so it was said to really low productivity and and so they wanted to go non-union and we thought to this is Butte. You can't be not your name. So. So don't people see myself sat down with Danny in and that we spent a lot of time with him in those days.

15:17 And said that you got to do Union here, this is Butte and he finally acquiesced and said you know what?

15:25 I'll do Union.

15:27 But I'll only do one Union so you guys sit down with unions and figure out tell him to figure out which Union is going to get it and we'll go that way and of course the big Union at the at the concentrator pan was the steelworkers bar near asked and they were all the other unions mostly Building Trades but everything from pipefitters and and joiners and carpenters and electricians and everything else.

16:03 So we had a meeting with all the unions and said here's the deal if you know that would work during a message from Dennis Washington, by the way, that's not a nice thing to do when you have to go to your friends in the union movement and say we're here to tell you it can be it can be Union, but it can only be one of you.

16:21 And they weren't very happy with Don and me and it took me a lot of years some of those guys never forgave me for that meeting, but but we got together and we put it to him and you know what?

16:33 They couldn't choose.

16:35 And they wouldn't choose how they could they they could came out of meeting saying we can't choose or we're going to take a chance that we can force the issue of multiple unions for striking. So Washington open the app when I open it up now and Union tickets went up but because the economy was so bad.

16:55 And yet 800 people laid off.

16:57 And there were only 250 jobs at 300 jobs there that people actually crossed the picket lines to go to work every once in awhile would just drop a picket line and no one will cross it. Well, if you're hungry enough and you want to stay in town enough, even if you got a union background and up cross the picket line and so that was the end of the Union's being and Beauty as far as the mining was concerned cover is you know, what did happen to this town to it to the community families and individuals when that mine did clothes and and in between the time of mine clothes and it opened

17:44 What you want to do? Just let you observe is that I guess that gets the point exactly. How could how could you have changed so dramatically that the people who crossed picket lines was because the whole economy of Butte was shaken to its core and the sociology changed with it that people were moving out finding finding a job in Colstrip finding a job down in Wyoming damage job in mining in Nevada and they were leaving half their family here and they were going there and pretty soon they'd pull the family with him. And you know, we had a boarded-up buildings you had two families that were split people were gone from Butte and hungry to get back to Butte to instead of driving across town for Christmas. People had to fly across the country or drive 1500 miles to be interviewed for Christmas. So the whole sociology of you the whole sense of family was individual families were being Shattered by this in the meantime.

18:45 You had to figure out a way because should towns like that has the hit that the what happens economically is towns that start down this debt spiral often go that just go to the bottom of the desk virologist how to make a why would a town survive in the face of this kind of economic difficulty part of it was that's why it was survival. They needed this copper mined so much that it didn't matter if it was Union and onions most people in Butte. They needed the jobs. By the way, I was when

19:22 When the mine started back open in the tree could hear the trucks running at night.

19:27 It was the sweetest sound I hear those big mining trucks running because that meant people had paychecks. That means family were back together and never end in what that did is I was working for Melcher it really whetted my appetite for what economic development was which is wow. If you can actually create jobs as sustained people and families in a community. What more could you do what better thing could you do with your life and to do something like that? And that's what I'm sure that drove you and just doing it Mustaine Economic Development. Was it that made a difference?

20:04 And every day you get to go to work do something different and make a difference to public service. Will you bet I'm so so that that's what started change it was really really down and our old dear friend bill Birmingham. Remember him as much as you know, sometimes they used to bug the heck out of it, but he he brought into a visioning thing that he had become acquainted with and I can't remember what it was called. Now the original version of it, but it was a it was a loose Tice was the was the sponsor of it and it was nothing that they use Consultants charge a huge amounts of money for people to participate and learn how to Vision their way to success and see the future in a positive way and move toward it and Bill convince them to allow him to use it for Butte for the whole community and they ran was it 1500 people or 5,000 people through this course.

21:01 A visioning positive element in in all of a sudden people people's the psychology started to change for Butte that people said maybe there is maybe if we can see a better future and then the buying of the mind, can you let people hate maybe this could get better in Bude. Maybe we aren't going to die. And in the meantime member all of those unemployed miners had nothing to do and they went to work on it that amazing project that lady the Rockies and and and so all these guys work. We're building a statue almost the size of the Statue of Liberty down on the ground and Jill Roberts has a yard.

21:43 And they were designing and they weren't designers. But they were Steel Workers are the iron workers were welding it all together with rolled steel and building the framework and everybody was watching this and saying what the heck is that thing, but there was a piece by piece and and they came here in and I was still working for Melcher at the time and we need any bought the mine but questions would it melt would it open in December of 1985?

22:12 We secured and I was working with Melcher and he working with Senator Barry Goldwater believe it or not. Who is the chairman of the armed services committee secured this big Sikorsky National Guard helicopter from Reno under the guise of giving them high altitude training. They brought that thing up here with the idea of moving that statue in 6 pieces from the flats all the way up 3500 feet up to Saddle Rock at the top of the Continental Divide above Butte in over five day. Each day. They would bring one or two pieces up there the whole Community would stop and everyone go outside and they would watch him carry this piece of this statue magnificent statue of Lady the Rockies all the way to the top of the East Ridge hand.

22:58 I was up there with my camera when they put the top on it and had the in the Indian is typical fashion what the and these were the Union guys were out of work and typical fashion when you finish a building project of your ironworker and you've done needs welded a skyscraper that the top piece of Steel that goes on goes up with an American flag on it and it was and it was December 21st and the head of the lady the Rockies was being lifted up there and it had it had the American flag on it and a Christmas tree and Earl Casa Grande that was up there among the workers and when they put the lid on it and we took pictures and then you know, Earl Earl played Santa Claus always for families and he was up there in the Santa Claus outfit with the Christmas tree on the top and the American flag is a bolt of that lady down in the lady looked down on Butte.

23:56 And it's almost as if the fortunes of Butte change positive that we were able to work with Norwest mine and the State Board of Investments and get the capital and get the everything. We're all the issues. We had eight or ten issues to work out to get that mind reopened and it reopened and the reopening of the mind that the lady looking down on Bute started to turn the fortunes Butte around I think you talk a little bit about the can-do attitude that was kind of the Butte Monica and still is where no one Nationwide for for the people in their attitude that but then Don people's came up with this because he was driving a car down the building cuz people have written you off for dead butt Butte was going to survive and he was driving down there any listing to a talk show from Billings and some guy got into like he know I can't understand those people from Butte but they just have a can do attitude. They have a can do attitude by gosh, and they

24:56 Don't let They'll Never say die and he listened to that. He came back. He said, you know, we're going to give you a new name that can do City. And we took the monitor the Kansas City and we are B job was important he was so important then that when they located the pre-release Center here and it had six jobs in the pre-release Center. It was the biggest thing happened in town. And we remember the city bought the the old boy Central High School 4A Dalton from the from the from the diocese and they got a million-dollar Grande from the Eda Economic Development Administration and turned it into a business incubator. And so the business incubator in and it was some jobs. It was some hope and at the same time they started the remember the sum of the vision of Martin white to have the High Altitude Sports Center, whoever that a place to train Olympic athletes in Butte so so between so by taking the real thing of the copper mines and the business incubator

25:56 The lady of the Rockies and the High Altitude Sports Center. Remember we put them into a package and applied to the National Urban League and civic league and to become an All-America City on economic development went down to Houston in 88 just after we've got those mines open and we were designated and All America City for economic development. They called it but you know, we were being named and All America City really for not dying for surviving for the tenacity and you know that I just got to say that

26:32 Again, I was reluctant to move to be able to buy 1986 when Melcher wanted me to leave Bude. That's when we were right in the heart of making all this stuff happened and I'm not leave it here. But I live here. I've gotten married here. I have a child on the way and I'm going to stay here. We're going to survive together. We're going to make this town work and I quit him and I thought

26:57 Now, what do I do? Remember I'd become a minute, but I was made a member of the bldc board because of what I've been working on BL2. She is beautiful building Corporation. Remember they're bored and I work for Mel cheren and their executive director who would member hadn't really done much. God bless him a nice guy, but he hadn't done much but he was faced with tough stuff.

27:18 Left and they had an opening in peep said well, why don't we just hire you on a contract for a while and keep this place going and then they went out for a national surgeon and I think they just picked a local guy to do it because there's no more comfortable but I ended up becoming the executive director the Buell Oklahoma Corporation and and I didn't even know how to spell economic development now wasn't it at that time in the Chamber of Commerce had been blended with the Chamber of Commerce and it didn't work. I mean it took the development organization and chamber function or different functions. It wasn't working and they basically told the guy executive director choose one of the other and they thought he would choose the chamber cuz he was kind of a chamber exact type but he chose the economic development organization, but then he ended up taking the one Over in the Meadow in Lewiston, Idaho, and he left here. And so we ended I ended up on that in and I had somebody helping me there for everyone in the quarter people.

28:17 Myself in the quarter time Secretary. We had a $50,000 budget with only 30,000 coming in. And what was what could we do with this community and that and then we moved over by where the incubator open the December of 86 we moved over 85 hired have time to work full-time with nobody but then you went to work at the incubator. You were halftime with the incubator and half time with us was Nat if I have time with the bldc and work part-time for Verde for a little while. You know, that was a that was a scary time to I was a single mom and then but do you know it just was you made it so exciting and sound so exciting and there was so much to do that. He knew it was a real opportunity.

29:17 We got going in that stuffing.

29:20 Make an economic development happen. And did you were an integral part of it and pretty soon very soon. We were able to hire you full-time and then we got rid of some of the other stuff you had to do and we just were trying to make stuff happen if things were happening and I mean then lo and behold 15 years later. We're still doing it then and all the sudden we have an organization that has it had the capital of its instead of its net worth being $400,000 at at at at five six million dollar net worth. We had done 10 or 12 million worth of loans to people we we had we had an annual operating budget of maybe four hundred thousand dollars. We had to before staff we had that hole. We had 10 or 11 Vistas there for a few years. I bet it would be came. We just trying to make it back to them to them exciting and dramatic and and make things happen and things started to happen for you to leave but you were a big part of that to me just where you at you you contributed so immensely operation and what it meant to be used. It was just amazing and let's talk about some of those.

30:20 Major project early on that that we worked on at the local Development Corporation want want to talk about the Porta Montana that the Hub out there. That was a really interesting exciting and another turning point for Butte. I think the port of Montana that was one that was really intriguing memory. Remember we had to go get a federal Grant started but we are at The Buttes at the crossroads of to interstate highways into railroad. So it's got unique Transportation opportunities, but we didn't have the infrastructure to support it. And so we went for a big the state had some money and we went for a grant with the state and federal money to go to the leverage that thing and we prepared a big plan and submitted it and we were chosen over over Billings and she'll be a member billing suit has I had to go to court and they were trying to prove that we had put the fix in with with the state and of course being from Butte. We always say you don't get the Dead 2 justice prevails when the fix is in on both sides.

31:20 Believable to fix was in biggest one of the guys that they don't go forward. He was up there and he worked his dad was from Butte but the fact was we cover the gray proposal is a great thing and it made sense and it still makes sense in the port of Montana to Port Authority still out there and it's it is a big part of Butte and that was around the same time. I do it one of the first things that I remember and it was a great thing for Butte was a true celebration was when the mines opened. I think we have one of the hoverboard it hadn't been the part of Montana where we had started construction. What was the first annual dinner of the Butte local Development Corporation when you and I work there any Washington was are on a reef, you know, how many people were there different? Because when I went when I went on those bldc board they have their annual dinner and I went there and they were about twenty people are there was a board member about five or six other people and if I don't I'm getting on the board of this group. This doesn't sound too dynamic.

32:20 So after we got going and we started getting the town excited through the bldc was a big part of it and that guy can under ever over State the importance of Don people's his role as the chief executive in mayor of this community who had a coach's mentality that we were going to win this game. We're going to get it done and so he was a big driving force in this stuff and we were part of a team that involved the port in ourselves and the Chamber in the city and everything else, but let's honor somebody every year and we did for many many years. But the first one was Don or Dennis Washington and we had a dinner and they were 800 people with that dinner Donna Dennis Washington who'd never given a public speech before in his life and said, I don't have to give a speech do I only said they want to hear from you?

33:15 You better do it and we went there and he gave a speech and and the end it would get it was part of energize in that whole Community their minds were open. The lady was looking at us the port was open think we're just starting to turn around and you know, it is amazing at me now. We I mean it's taken a long time because when you have economic dislocation of moving from tens of thousands of underground miners to only 300 some people producing the same amount of copper you move from a one company one industry town to try to move to a diversified economy is a long road and it took fifteen years or more. But Beauty Academy is Diversified now and there's no one company in spite of that. We have some major things we've done there's no one company that could shut down a beaut down destroy this community and and that's an important thing. I think when you know when the mines closed and I don't remember for hot what the time frame was what we saw a decline every year in population that was turned around. Maybe what

34:15 Play 889 and then we went up to up from then and in that was after continually declines from 1920 every census from 1920 on went from an official 82000 the 1920s in during World War 1 the estimated. It was a hundred thousand cuz they were all geared up doing production for World War 1 in these mines, but probably around a hundred thousand people here then but officially 80 2019-20 every decade it went down until in 1988 at bottom doubt and from that point on every since the since it's done up in population and it's a beauty isn't that anymore and looking good getting green hoping we can get it green in Butte, which dumped it on the chameleon said find a solution boys. We're done.

35:09 When they bought that mind, they bought the ass at of the copper in the ground and then the infrastructure they forgot that they were also buying the liability and in that same year of 1980 after the election between the time Jimmy Carter was not one in Reagan and won the Congress came back in in a in a lame duck session and passed the Superfund law and the Superfund law said you have the liability and because of that we will have had but two before we're done there will be a billion dollars spent here to clean up Butte.

35:49 And clean green up the quarter Butte in the quarter. So they clean and green of Butte and the whole Clark Fork Valley and Silver Bow Creek being a billion dollars of the money is going to be spent by Arco for that. And so we're not only green in terms of economic green this but we're spending become a green in terms of environmental acceptability in is the biggest cleanup site in the history of the United States is right in this area and it's meant jobs and we like to say we like this. I think we like to look at it with Kevin Schweitzer that the restoration economy. You can you can make the place green and create economic activity in the process. It's a marvelous Shepard Story in a lot of ways that we've been able to educate folks on the restoration of kind of me and use our expertise out there in different communities in different states and different nations even to help, you know in the next rest area.

36:49 So I'm here now and here we are. You're here. You're a beaut native. I'm almost to Butte guy. We're in a we have choices of staying or leaving we both chose to drive back and forth to one every day rather than move. My kids are here. Your kids are here. Our families are here.

37:10 In a weird kind of here to stay at least I am I think you're in the same way. I are committed. We've got too much investment made in this intensity. No beauty is not a town. It's a it's a neighborhood, you know, it's at then we've seen that as we've driven around the state. We love all the all our other communities and working in other communities, but there is a true difference in Butte. We're neighbors, you know, it reviewed is really unique. And when I like I said, I came here with great reluctance, but the primary thing the primary thing that made me say I'm going to stay in Butte was the people that was really unique historically all the architecture and all the past and the all of Montana's history has been built here in the ghost of the past as you walk around. You can just feel him in the Uptown and everything else. But bottom line the people here the resiliency the friendliness the willingness to be together that that that sense of community is good put its hooks in me.

38:07 That's all you know, I think I'm here for the duration and I think we still have work to do really enjoyed interviewing you today. I enjoy working with you. I think it's it's good work going to be here, you know.

38:34 In a lot of ways, I think you're part of everything that you've been there all the way along. So I'm glad you were the person to sit and talk with me.