The Kaimin Cast

Grace Golbach / Montana Kaimin  grace.golbach @umontana.edu Halloween weekend fills the streets with people of all ages dressed in their favorite ghouls, characters and memes. At the University of Montana, Halloween can be a wild addition to the college experience. But they don’t roll out of bed decked out in face paint, wigs and fur, the costume is pieced together in the time leading up to the ni...

Grace Golbach / Montana Kaimin  grace.golbach@ umontana.edu   Libby Riddle / Advanced Audio Capstone  libbyriddle01@gmail.com In 2007, a University of Montana graduate student in the anthropology department started digging at a 19th-century gold mining camp known as China Gulch a little over an hour northwest of Missoula. There he discovered bone fragments that help tell the story of the Chinese i...

Grace Golbach / Montana Kaimin  grace.golbach @umontana.edu   Lotus Porte-Moyel / Advanced Audio Capstone  lotus.porte-moyel@umontana.edu This next Good Bones episode tells the history of the Montana State Hospital, the patients buried surrounding it and the work citizens are doing to keep the patients from being forgotten. Thousands of the patients buried were unclaimed and remained unvisited by...

Grace Golbach / Montana Kaimin  grace.golbach @umontana.edu The Missoula community loves its nightlife, and so do the University of Montana students. At local bars, they socialize among each other after long weeks of work and classes. At the doors, they are met by bouncers checking IDs and keeping interactions safe. One Stockman’s Bar bouncer is a student and a UM Griz hockey goalie. Isaac Jones W...

By Grace Golbach / Montana Kaimin  gracegolbach @umontana.edu   Vivi Ostheimer / Advanced Audio Capstone  vivianne.ostheimer@umconnect.umt.edu During the late 1800s, four children of the Gros Ventre Tribe on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation attended Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania and died there. Their bones were not returned home until three were exhumed and identified in 2023. Members...

By Grace Golbach / Montana Kaimin  Lily Meskers / Advanced Audio Capstone University of Montana alum Haley Omeasoo discovered the remains of an Indigenous woman in a box in a campus closet. The finding brought concerns about the University’s compliance with NAGPRA, a federal law requiring Indigenous remains be returned to the tribe. After 40 years in this closet, Omeasoo found the woman and dove i...

Grace Golbach / Montana Kaimin  grace.golbach @umontana.edu 8.4 million acres of land have already burned due to wildfires across the country in 2026. Students across the University of Montana have been affected by wildfire smoke or flames, whether through their work as wildland firefighters, or simply living where fires reach. From a past fire in small-town Colorado to the fires in Spokane that m...

Missoula’s River City Roots Festival celebrated its 20th anniversary with music, dancing and laughter. Missoula residents and university students come together to connect as a community. The event eases out summer and welcomes students back into the downtown community. 

  For 25 years, a group of women have stood at the south end of Beartracks Bridge in dedication to a peaceful world. They stand as part of an international network of women promoting nonviolence. Current events are making their presence louder.  Episode by Grace Golbach / Montana Kaimin Full transcripts of this episode and all others are available online at www.montanakaimin.com/the_kaimin_cast/ Q...

The Oval is not just the center of campus, it is also UM’s student-run literary magazine with a mission to be a building block in students' artistic journeys. A publication in a literary magazine can be the first stepping stone in many careers.   Episode by Chaytan Reid / Montana Kaimin   Full transcripts of this episode and all others are available online at www.montanakaimin.com/the_kaimin_cast/...

Missoula is the hometown of Timber, a four-legged social media phenomenon that locals and visitors might find hanging out the window as they enter their Uber. “Are you okay with a puppy?” Over 30,000 people say yes, maybe you will be next.   Episode by Grace Golbach / Montana Kaimin Full transcripts of this episode and all others are available online at www.montanakaimin.com/the_kaimin_cast/ Quest...

The song “Hey Baby” was performed in University of Montana classrooms 40 times through “Singing Valentines” to help fundraise for the National Association for Music Education. Students played instruments and sang to deliver love to students and professors for Valentine's Day.   Episode by Grace Golbach / Montana Kaimin   Full transcripts of this episode and all others are available online at www.m...

When looking outside this winter, the mountains have turned white, but the valley has remained brown and barren of snow. The Southcoast cities are building snowmen, and the mountain towns are wearing sweatshirts. Climate patterns are changing, but what does this mean?   Episode by Grace Golbach / Montana Kaimin    Full transcripts of this episode and all others are available online at www.montanak...

Montana winters are brisk, giving UM athletes an excuse to put on some extra weight. As fat levels increase, so does the athlete's strength. Heavy lifting has risks of generating injury. UM athletes debate the best training practices for gaining weight.  Episode by Sam Armstrong / Montana Kaimin Full transcripts of this episode and all others are available online at www.montanakaimin.com/the_kaimi...

Almost everybody has sounds that annoy them. But when these sounds become more than just an annoyance, it is a syndrome known as misophonia. Recent studies suggest that there may be more to misophonia than just the auditory element. Is misophonia just an aversion to certain sounds, or is there more to it than meets the ear? Episode by Weston Fudge / Montana Kaimin  Full transcripts of this episode...

The University of Montana has a “herd.” Students across campus are posting on the anonymous social media platform YikYak, where they share questions, thoughts, memes and complaints. It’s an app to share what’s on your mind, but do people share too much? As more students join and engage anonymously, solidarity is growing, but there are negatives among the positives.   Episode by Grace Golbach / Mon...

The Clark Fork River could be described as the flowing heart of Missoula, but are we loving it to death? The Clark Fork River Access and Restoration project aims to restore eroding riverbanks by reinforcing access points. These new access points will better withstand foot traffic and reduce impact on the environment simultaneously.   Episode by Weston Fudge / Montana Kaimin   Full transcripts of t...

The use of Ozempic has exploded in recent years as celebrities and professional athletes continue to endorse it on social media as a practical and easily accessible weight loss drug. Ozempic, initially prescribed as a drug to treat diabetes, became popular after doctors discovered its side effect of weight loss.   Episode by Madelynn Pandis / Montana Kaimin      Full transcripts of this episode an...

Missoula is a college town, home to thousands of student renters and roommates, but not all roommate pairings end well. From property damage to physical fights to mysterious beta fish deaths, bad roommate experiences create long lasting stories, and not the kind you want to be making in college. This week's podcast covers some of the most unforgettable and unpleasant roommate stories of Missoula. ...

For this episode of “Confessions of a College Town,” Montana Kaimin reporters, editors and photographers picked up a couple of microphones, left the chaos of our newsroom and headed to the University Center. We went in thinking about the building as a place that provides food, entertainment and cohesion. We left with a better understanding of the people inside it, and how they fit into the ecosyst...

75-year-old William “Spike” Potter is Griz softball’s biggest fan. After receiving a letter from a former Griz softball player during the COVID-19 quarantine, Potter has become an important member of the Griz softball family. He donates his time and his money, roughly $250,000, to the program. Why? Because he thinks Griz softball is unique from other UM athletics programs. By Madelynn Pandis / Mon...

For the average broke college kid, side hustles are a staple. But young adults aren’t the only ones making a couple of bucks on the side. Hear about the ins and outs of plasma donation, how a marketing professor made a business from horse data and why one student has turned puppets into her career. Episode by Bayliss Flynn / Montana Kaimin Full transcripts of this episode and all others are availa...

There’s a new proposal in the Montana State Legislature that would create a gun registry for enhanced concealed weapons permits. As of February 2021, Montana no longer requires a permit to legally carry a concealed handgun in public. This means Montanans can now discreetly carry a handgun without a background check. But is anyone actually going through the process of getting their concealed carry...

Like the episode “24 Hours at the Golden Apple,” where “This American Life” reporters and producers completed shifts interviewing patrons and employees at a Chicago diner, the Montana Kaimin was inspired to find the “Golden Apple” of our college town. Pie Hole is a pizza place that has been open for about a decade. Seven days a week, it operates from 11 a.m. to 3 a.m. It’s become the go-to spot fo...

Montana boasts over 30 million acres of public and protected lands, but around 5% of those spaces are inaccessible to the public. This is because the land is considered privately locked, also called corner locked. Accessing corner-locked land is called corner crossing, an illegal practice preventing recreationists from reaching Montana’s around 1.56 million acres of hunting, fishing and hiking are...