Lavina in the Montana Quarterly
I have some friends in Lavina, the town of 180 people about 45 miles northwest of Billings. So for the latest Rural Route for The Montana Quarterly magazine -- the column where they send a writer and photographer to hang out in a small town and tell stories about its characters -- I figured if nothing else I could write about my friends. But Lavina was so full of fascinating people that I didn't even mention them!
I did this assignment with photographer John Warner. In addition to running in the magazine, his shot of the little-seen interior of the Adams Hotel was recently highlighted by National Geographic.
Here's an excerpt from the article:
Gerard Peters, 86, seems to have a permanent twinkle in his eye. He’s not a cattle baron, he doesn’t have much acreage, he doesn’t live on a blue-ribbon trout stream. But his pleasures are simpler. “I like being around family and cattle,” he says.
Raised on a ranch north of Lewistown, Gerard has spent his whole life in Montana, except for a four-year stint in the Air Force where he met his wife Jeanine. They raised 10 sons and a daughter. His jobs involved livestock, land, and people: ranching, guiding, mining. Once he managed a 43,000-acre ranch for a committee of 25 owners. Now it’s just a few acres with his son John, John’s wife Mary, and their family. But to Gerard this land east of Lavina is a little slice of heaven.It's not available online, so to read the whole thing, you’ll have to subscribe.
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