Rural Montana & Small Communities

Strong Communities. Strong Montana.

Montana is more than its largest cities. It is the small towns, ranching communities, working families, local businesses, schools, volunteer fire departments, and neighbors who have kept this state going for generations.

I believe a community does not have to be growing rapidly to be worth investing in.

For too long, rural communities have been asked to do more with less. Essential services become harder to maintain. Young people leave because they cannot find good-paying careers close to home. Rural hospitals and emergency services struggle. Housing becomes increasingly difficult to afford, and infrastructure built generations ago becomes more expensive to replace.

We should not accept the slow disappearance of rural Montana as inevitable.

Creating Reasons to Stay — and Come Home

Young Montanans should not have to choose between the communities they love and the opportunity to build a good life.

That means creating and protecting good-paying jobs in agriculture, the skilled trades, natural resources, healthcare, education, and small business.

I support bringing skilled-trades education and apprenticeship pathways directly into Montana high schools, including partnerships with registered apprenticeship programs and licensed professionals. Students in smaller communities should have access to these opportunities too, even if that means instructors traveling between schools or districts working together to provide training.

A four-year college degree is an excellent path for many students, but it is not the only path to a successful career. Montana should give young people the opportunity to learn a trade, earn a living, and eventually raise their own families in the communities that raised them.

The measure of economic development shouldn’t simply be how many people we can bring into Montana. It should also be how many Montanans we can give a reason to stay.

Protecting Rural Healthcare and Emergency Services

Where you live should not determine whether you can receive basic medical care in an emergency.

Rural hospitals, clinics, ambulance services, volunteer fire departments, and first responders are essential infrastructure. When one disappears, the consequences reach far beyond a balance sheet.

Montana should work to strengthen rural healthcare, recruit and retain healthcare professionals in underserved communities, and ensure that emergency services have the resources necessary to serve enormous geographic areas with small populations.

A rural ambulance traveling dozens of miles to reach someone is every bit as essential as an ambulance traveling several blocks in a city.

Infrastructure That Keeps Communities Alive

Water systems. Sewer systems. Roads. Bridges. Broadband. Schools.

They may not make headlines, but they determine whether a community can survive and whether a business can operate there.

Small communities often face infrastructure projects costing millions of dollars while having only hundreds—or even dozens—of residents to shoulder the expense.

The state should be a partner in maintaining critical rural infrastructure and should prioritize investments that allow communities to remain viable without placing impossible burdens on local taxpayers.

Supporting Main Street

Small businesses keep money circulating locally, employ our neighbors, sponsor our kids’ teams, support community events, and provide services that would otherwise require driving an hour or more.

Montana should make it easier—not harder—for locally owned businesses to survive.

That means reasonable regulation, access to workforce training, investment in infrastructure, and ensuring that state economic policy does not consistently favor the largest corporations over the people willing to invest in their own communities.

A thriving Main Street is one of the strongest signs of a healthy community.

Growth Without Losing Who We Are

Economic development matters, but growth should not require Montana communities to surrender what made them worth living in to begin with.

I don’t believe every Montana town needs to become the next Bozeman.

Success can mean keeping the local school open. It can mean a young couple finding a house they can afford. It can mean keeping a grocery store in town, maintaining a volunteer fire department, giving a ranch or small business to the next generation, or creating enough good jobs that someone’s children can come home after finishing school or an apprenticeship.

We can welcome opportunity while still protecting our agricultural heritage, public access, working landscapes, and the character of our communities.

Rural Montana Deserves a Voice

Policies that look reasonable from Helena can have very different consequences when they reach a ranch, a small business, or a town hundreds of miles away.

That’s why I believe government should listen before it legislates.

The people who live with the consequences of a policy deserve a seat at the table when that policy is written.

I am running to make sure rural Montana is not treated as an afterthought.

Our small communities aren’t remnants of Montana’s past. They are an essential part of Montana’s future—and they are worth fighting for.