Bugs & Weeds: How a County Agency Found Common Ground with an Insectarium

Jerry Marks has worked in the Missoula County Extension Office for more than 50 years, and he knows a thing or two about collaboration. Years ago, he extended an offer to the Missoula Butterfly House & Insectarium when he heard they were outgrowing their downtown location, and the offer was generous: a coveted spot in the middle of Missoula to create a unique science and discovery center.

In this week's episode, the commissioners talk with Jerry and Glenn about the Rocky Mountain Gardens & Exploration Center, which will open at the Missoula County Fairgrounds in 2023. Jerry also gives some history on how the Extension Office came to be and how the office is always adapting to the needs of the public.

Learn more about the projects mentioned in this episode:  

• Rocky Mountain Gardens & Exploration Center
• Missoula County Weed & Extension Office
• Missoula Butterfly House & Insectarium

Thank you to Missoula's Community Media Resource for  podcast recording support!

Thank you to Missoula's Community Media Resource for podcast recording support!

Transcript

Josh Slonick: 0:10

[intro music plays] Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Tip of the Spear with your Missoula County commissioners. I'm Josh Slotnick, and I'm here with my fellow commissioner, Juanita Vero. Dave is off this week and unfortunately won't be joining us. But we have two special guests. We have Jerry Marks, head of the Weed District and Extension Office at Missoula County, and Glenn Marangelo, the Development and Community Relations Director at the Missoula Butterfly House and Insectarium. And they're going to talk with us about the new and exciting Rocky Mountain Gardens and Exploration Center, which will open up in 2023. It's under construction--not just under construction--you can see it taking shape if you happen to be lucky enough to drive by. So welcome to both of you and thanks for coming by.

Glenn Marangelo: 0:50

Yeah, thanks for having us.

Juanita Vero: 0:51

To start out, Jerry, explain to us what is

Jerry Marks: 0:54

Okay. I'll give a little history there was being established. George Washington and...

Juanita Vero: 1:04

He wasn't joking. We are going way back to

Jerry Marks: 1:06

...Thomas Jefferson.

Josh Slonick: 1:07

Did he work for you, Jerry?

Jerry Marks: 1:10

Yeah. And they were quite they were quite They thought we should do more in that. And that went on for a long time. Finally, in Abraham Lincoln's administration, they passed the Morrill Act or Land Grant Act, which established colleges in all the interstate states in Montana, dealt with that in about 1893, when they established Montana State University and the University of Montana. And so that brought the world of agriculture, I guess, more to the people. There was a strong interest in trying to do more with the producers to teach them more. And this led in actually 1887, the passing of the Hatch Act, which established demonstration farms or experiment stations, and there are seven of them in Montana that is state operated in western Montana. There's one up by Creston and one down there by Corvallis. Well, they still felt there should be a lot more communication with the people. And that went through a lot of gyrations-- farmers, institutes and a number of things, and then was finally passed officially in 1914 with a Smith-Lever Act in Missoula, established its extension office the fall of 1914. So it's been here quite a while. Oh, I should back up and say a little more, though, on the land grant colleges, because I've always found this of interest. The Southern states weren't necessarily supportive. They were strongly driven by slave labor and didn't want to change their agriculture as much. And that led to, in about 1890, passing legislation that established land grant colleges in, I think, five of the Southern states, and primarily to enable the black people to have more opportunities toward education. And I can say it's also took almost 100 years later, in 1994, that they passed legislation that give the American Indian Colleges land grant status. So that's been a very much part of this country.

Josh Slonick: 3:09

Oh, Jerry, that is really fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. So hear the word extension. I always thought it was kind of a literal thing that the idea was that the knowledge generated through research at land grant institutions was extended out to farmers on the landscape via people who were extension agents. They were, in essence, informal adult learning teachers taking what was generated at land grant schools and then literally bringing it out onto the landscape.

Jerry Marks: 3:33

There was a lot of that throughout the years state and county. They decided early on to have the counties as a major player in this. And I can add Missoula would had its course in agriculture, I guess, I will call it what they were growing here. I think because I've been so involved with the horticulture, they had a lot of interest in raising produce that actually went to more of the mining communities in Butte, Helena and actually in Idaho. And I can add then things really started to change when we put in the pulp mill, that was about 1956. They had a sugar beet plant. They built that in 1928 and that closed in 1966.

Juanita Vero: 4:16

Where was the sugar beet plant?

Josh Slonick: 4:18

Is that the one by Target? Because there's big piles of lime. They're still covered up.

Jerry Marks: 4:22

Yeah, that's right where it is. There's one building left of what was a sugar beet plant then and now.

Josh Slonick: 4:28

It's a logistics firm, a tech company.

Jerry Marks: 4:31

Yes. Yeah.

Glenn Marangelo: 4:33

It's changed.

Josh Slotnick: 4:34

Yes.

Jerry Marks: 4:34

And I'm going to say the interstate also

Josh Slonick: 4:39

So, Jerry, when you said the pulp mill

Jerry Marks: 4:42

Labor. Those guys find a job and weren't operation. In what changes is that when the sugar beet thing went out, they kind of switched more to cow-calf, pasture. And I'm also going to say with the truck gardening stuff, a lot of the folks that they suddenly didn't have a market of the stores were bringing it in from other places. It just brought...

Juanita Vero: 5:05

So the interstate changed all that.

Jerry Marks: 5:06

Yeah, the interstate changed that.

Josh Slonick: 5:09

70 years ago, sugar beet farming was super without a labor supply. It just wouldn't work.

Jerry Marks: 5:16

Yeah. So when I come on board--get it into my We were getting into development. We had lots of new places that were places subdividing. Another reason they didn't want to change. They want to sell it for subdivision. At the same time, there was folks that says, Well, there's still some things we want. I mean, it was Mavis McKelvey and Chinwon Reinhardt started the first farmers market in about 72 or 73, and I had several local folks. That's as hot. How do we grow stuff and marketing? And of course, the grocery stores wanted it more registered in a known quality and quantity so they can fit it into their oncoming computer system. And so that slowly brought a lot of change. And I started the Master Gardener program in '74 because of folks wanting to grow their own. And I'm going to say that's true about Missoula. We want to know where our food's coming from. That was a process early on when we got involved in setting up a classroom for kids at Lowell School was in '83 and did that for a few years until our grants run out. And then we worked with a group called Missoula Urban Demonstration Project that kind of carried that on, and then it was transferred to the Garden City office in about 1996. I can think of another program that kinda drove us, is trying to preserve ag land in. In those early years, zoning was the only thing in that didn't market itself.[all laugh]

Josh Slonick: 6:42

That's very generous in that description,

Jerry Marks: 6:46

And in mid eighties, we had county with a Soil Conservation Service, had done their soil survey work. And so we had some idea on what the better soil should we preserve. That didn't market [well] either. I did a class on conservation easements up the Blackfoot. That was the first meeting that was positive. Yeah.

Josh Slonick: 7:08

Yet another thing that Jerry pioneered:[all laugh]

Jerry Marks: 7:12

Yes, And I was I was so pleased because of do something that might fit Missoula better.

Juanita Vero: 7:19

So what do you think are your responsibility?

Jerry Marks: 7:23

I'm going to I guess I'm trying to head this It is what is going on locally, what is important to the people. That is the main thing. And we're often in a somewhat leadership, I guess I can call it that, or ahead of the schedule a little bit to, maybe test the waters. I'm also going to add Missoula is a very passionate community. They kind of want to do some change. They don't always agree on it, but there's opportunities that were being challenged to try to explore and see how it flies.

Josh Slonick: 7:55

So, Glen, for those who don't know, would you and what's your role there?

Glenn Marangelo: 8:01

Sure. It doesn't have quite the storied getting...

Josh Slonick: 8:06

History starts now.

Glenn Marangelo: 8:08

We've actually been around for a while, so about us and experienced our programs in Missoula. The kind of nugget of an idea started back in probably about 2000, five or six. My wife, who is our executive director, so this is very much a family developed organization and effort, she went back to get a master's degree in curriculum development and museum exhibit design with this idea of starting a tropical butterfly house and an insect museum. Where that idea first came from is that she was through her work at the university. She would go into classrooms and talk to kids about insects and do a little bit of insect education. And the times that she went into a classroom with a live insect in hand, it was just this experience that you had the kids attention immediately and there were so many different concepts that you can teach depending on what kind of animal you were talking about, whether it was an ant or honeybee or a praying mantis or whatever it was. So that really kind of launched the idea of doing something like this in Missoula from day one. The goal was to build a tropical butterfly house and an insect museum, but it was obviously a huge first step to take. So we started out all volunteer organization in 2009. I was part of the founding board of directors and volunteered until 2016 doing the fundraising to try to get this moving forward. And we just slowly built things. And at one point we got to the stage where we were big enough, where we wanted to take this first tangible step forward. We opened the Missoula Insectarium in downtown Missoula in 2015, which we ran for a little over four years, and then things started growing and starting to change. And luckily we developed this incredible partnership opportunity with the county to kind of reach that bigger vision that we've always had. And that leads into the bigger conversation today about the Rocky Mountain Gardens and Exploration Center. But we're really achieving that dream that started everything. Quite a while. We've been at this a few years for sure.

Josh Slonick: 10:12

Congratulations, for sure. I have to say, when I first heard about this and the funding idea was brought to us that the Butterfly House folks are going to go raise this big chunk of money privately, and then we'll put some of our public money towards the construction of this building that's going to house Extension and the Weed District and we'll all move forward together. And I thought, "That is never going to work." And I was wrong. I'm dead wrong. And what I was thinking was and this leads into the my question. I actually visited a butterfly house. I went to one in New York City. I can't remember which big, huge, famous, gorgeous thing. And I know there's some in cities in the Pacific Northwest. And my thought was, well, you've got to have a critical mass of people who are into this. And if we look at how large that critical mass is as a proportion of these other larger cities, well, we just don't have that. It's never going to work. And then it totally works well. So why do you think it worked?

Glenn Marangelo: 11:04

Well, I mean, number one, I mean, Missoula is You get this community excited about things and people people dig in, get excited about it. I mentioned this started at as our dream and as things grew, other people took it on as their dream and it became a bigger community thing. What I equate it to in a lot of different ways was how the carousel for Missoula developed, because it was, I think it was one person's basic idea of when it first started out, but then the community got excited about it and it slowly grew and it took off and that's kind of the trajectory that we've had over the years.

Juanita Vero: 11:38

So you started out with before the dream, or interested in insects?

Glenn Marangelo: 11:46

Well, you know, to be honest, we just were interested in a variety of things. But until her work and her interests started developing, I didn't pay attention to insects to the degree I do now. And as an adult learning this, I mean, kids gravitate to insects immediately because they're cool and there's, you know, they're just neat and you can handle them and they tickle. But as an adult, I think it was feeding that thirst for learning again, because in the insect world, without even trying, you learn something new every day easily because there's just...

Juanita Vero: 12:20

Weren't you guys like housing these things in I mean, like crazy humble beginnings.

Glenn Marangelo: 12:24

Well, yeah, I mean, when we started out, you It was all volunteer. We would go everywhere we could in the community to set up a booth with terrariums full of insects, which all lived at our house at the time being. So yeah, we had terrariums all over the place until we finally got the insectarium. We kind of drew the line. We said, "okay, no, no bugs in the bedroom," but but they were pretty much every place else in the house.

Juanita Vero: 12:50

Expanding on that: bugs, plants. What's the the Science and Discovery Center like at the Rocky Mountain Gardens?

Glenn Marangelo: 12:57

It will be unlike anything that we've had in Montana. And, you know, I'm talking about this collectively. It's not just what we'll have at the Butterfly House is what our partners at the County will be bringing to the fore with the the outdoor education gardens, the expansion of their programs with the plant clinics and 4H, the cooking demonstration kitchen and everything. But this basically takes the science education that we've had and what the county has had, and we're just ramping things up pretty significantly in a lot of different ways. I mean, our programs will expand. There'll be a lot of new programs based on the new species that we'll have on exhibit and we'll be able to... You know, the thing I'm so excited about the fairgrounds is it's so central to Missoula. And with everything that's going on there and the continued revitalization and everything that will be out at the fairgrounds, it's such a draw and it's so visible and it's really just going to take everybody's work and really kind of put the spotlight on it that much more.

Josh Slonick: 13:59

So I'm just curious who reached out to who This is such a great partnership. How did it come to be?

Glenn Marangelo: 14:05

Well, and Jerry, please just jump in and So we've had a partnership with the county going back before this project started on different education programs, and I'm not even sure why we were meeting that one day, but Jerry Bryce Christians with the district myself and Jen were meeting and we were letting them know of some changes that were coming down the pike for us is we were no longer going to be able to stay in our space for the Missoula Insectarium. And so we had a choice so we can either look for a new space and replicate what we've been doing for the past four plus years or an opportunity to do something larger. And I mean, Jerry basically said,"Hey, we're going to be building a new home Why don't we build a bigger building together and have this education center?" And if I'm not wrong, I mean, that's the way I remember it. And I think it really evolved almost as simply as that.

Josh Slonick: 14:57

That's just how Jerry rolls.

Glenn Marangelo: 14:59

Yeah, I know.

Jerry Marks: 15:00

Yes.

Juanita Vero: 15:01

He talks about that steering wheel big enough

Josh Slonick: 15:04

I love it. Exactly. That's perfect. Yes.

Jerry Marks: 15:09

From my take, I guess, on that, I become our vegetation. And part of that was my connection with the weeds that that I wanted to move it from killing weeds to spending more time on what do you want to grow and to be more focused on that. And so in the city, it passed a bond issue on the open space and the interest in it was really high. And I worked with Montana Natural History Center when they first was out at the fort, and then they moved down over here in putting together educational programs. And so I've had some experiences over time that I don't know, it just kind of drew me more into the insect world in a little different way, because in the extension office you're often dealing with bugs people want to get rid of, they eat your apples or whatever. I become very involved. The county commissioner and a legislator says, "Well, would you put together a biological weed control program?" And that was principally, principally insects. But as we got into our natural areas, it just kind of maybe a change. I was trying to think how to do it. One of my experience was actually looking at the bug house in Washington DC...

Juanita Vero: 16:22

That's not a euphemism. That's a...

Josh Slotnick: 16:24

Yeah. [laughs] That's a good one, yeah. That's a funny name for Congress.

Jerry Marks: 16:29

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's true. They had Leaf Cutting Ants and they had a hallway and they would pack these leaves up over the hallway. And I said "Well, that's interesting." And they had an open corner with African Orb Weavers and these are huge spiders and they were just sitting there in came a bunch of kids. The clerk says, "Well, let's, let's feed these ants." They dropped crickets in there. Oh, those ants come alive, kids come alive. And I said, "You know, kids really want this stuff. There's things we could do to probably more explore..." I think this is all part of Missoula discovering the land, I guess coming back, that connection on the plants and the insects and how things fit together. And so I thought this and they were doing a monthly meeting and at times we would help them find a speaker and put that together. So we had that connection with them and the thought of trying to expand that or keep that going was, well, I don't know, I thought it was important to give that a try.

Josh Slonick: 17:30

That's great. Well, it's been super good And we're going to ask you our standard final question. So if you wouldn't mind sharing with us a book you read recently, a podcast you heard something from a magazine, just a nugget of wisdom, something that's stuck with you lately as worth remembering. And let us know what that is. It can be anything from anywhere.

Glenn Marangelo: 17:53

As far as a nugget of wisdom, I attended even though it's something that's always kind of been behind what we've been doing in our work all the time, the theme that was brought up all the time throughout that memorial and the work that he did is that you do things that make your community better. Just hearing it over and over again, it's just kind of one of those things that just imagine if everybody set a goal out of just doing that on a daily basis to do things better for your community, your neighbors, that where you can it's it makes a huge difference. And it really shows how one person can do something pretty extraordinary or at least feed the seed that gets it gets other people on board, too.

Josh Slonick: 18:35

That's well said, well said, Glenn. Thanks.

Jerry Marks: 18:38

I'll probably relate a little on my trying to put things together. And I have about six things here building integrity, building trust with the people is my first one that is really critical and we do a lot of projects. And what is the mission of the project? What is the purpose and is there really passion about that project? It is important on teamwork, partnership, collaboration. You can use whichever of those terms you think you want, but those those is the important part of it. Workin' to empower the people leadership development is to me is really critical to help people and a lot of change that goes on with the subdivision. I really think that's important. Transparency in the capital allocation and when we do projects, we got money, we set up a special account for that. So people got questions, they can see it. The money in, money out. And my last one, which is true to me, I guess projects tend to be long term.

Josh Slonick: 19:45

That's so good. He's so modest.

Juanita Vero: 19:51

And what year, what year did you start at the

Jerry Marks: 19:54

1969.

Juanita Vero: 19:55

Yeah. Pretty great.

Josh Slonick: 19:56

So great. So great. We're so glad that you decided to choose Missoula County.

Jerry Marks: 20:01

Yeah, well, it's it's had its challenges.[all laugh]

Juanita Vero: 20:06

Well, thanks, everyone. And we'll catch you next week.

Glenn Marangelo: 20:08

Yeah. Thanks for having us.

Josh Slonick: 20:09

Yeah, bet. Thanks a lot. Yeah.

Josh Slotnick: 20:13

Thanks for listening to the Tip of the Spear If you enjoy these conversations, it would mean a lot if you were to rate and review the show on whichever podcast app you like. And if you know a friend who would like to keep up with what's happening in local government, be sure to recommend this podcast to them. The Tip of the Spear podcast is made possible with support from Matt, better known as Missoula Community Access Television and our staff in the Missoula County Communications Division. If you have a question or topic you'd like us to address on a future episode, email it to communications at Missoula County US and to find other ways to stay up to date with what's happening at Missoula County, go to Missoula Dot co slash county updates and thanks for listening. [outro music plays]