
106th Foresters Ball to Honor Victims of the Mann Gulch Wildfire
Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - UM students at the W.E. Franke College of Forestry and Conservation are hard at work transforming the Schreiber Gym into an old-fashioned logging town for the 106th Foresters Ball to be held on January 31 and February 1, which will specifically honor the victims of the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire.
I spoke with UM Director of Strategic Communications Dave Kuntz about how students are hard at work on the yearly party that’s open to the public.
This Will be a Special Year for the UM Foresters Ball
“The first thing that pops into your mind when you walk into the Schreiber Gym for the Foresters Ball is just how our forestry students transform it for the weekend,” began Kuntz. “They bring in thousands of square cubic feet of wood and transform the 100-year-old gym into a turn of the century forest Boomtown, including stage and music and all sorts of other things that make it really one of the more unique events that take place in all of Montana.”
Kuntz said this year’s ball will have a special focus, honoring the victims of the 1949 Mann Gulch fire.
“This year, we're really going to honor the Mann Gulch fire and the victims who lost their lives 70 years ago fighting that fire just north of Helena,” he said. “And at the ball this year, there will be a dedication to those individuals, many of whom were U M alums and students of the College of Forestry and Conservation almost four or five generations ago.”
Kuntz said the Foresters Ball is an opportunity to draw attention to the School of Forestry and its work.
“In recent years, we've really, as a university, tried to use the Foresters Ball to help educate the public and create a better understanding of the role that the Franke College of Forestry and Conservation plays in Montana's ecosystem and forest policy, and really the skills and the workforce that we spin out of that college and as part,” he said.
Kuntz said commemorating the Mann Gulch fire plays a part in many UM activities and traditions.
“We have an extension of our forestry building that is named after those young men as well as you know, one of the 36 carillon bells up in the bell tower of Main Hall is named and dedicated for those who lost their lives that day,” he said. “And so the Foresters Ball was just the latest in a long line of examples of universities done truly do right by these individuals, again, many of whom were alums and students of the College of Forestry at the University of Montana.”
Click here for more information and how to get tickets to the 103rd UM Foresters Ball.
Looking Back at One of Montana's Most Explosive Fires
Gallery Credit: Dennis Bragg