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Montana Awards and Scholarship

Montana Awards and Scholarship

Montana Tree Farm recognizes special contributions by its members, inspectors, and partners each year, as well as providing a scholarship to one aspiring forestry student in Montana. Click here to learn more about past award winners or find out how you can nominate a deserving individual.

Mary Naegeli Memorial Scholarship

Scholarship Application

Deadline: May 31st

Applicants must be a resident of Montana enrolled (for the first time) or attending any accredited institution of higher education, on a full time basis, have a cumulative grade point average of 2.5 or above, and must demonstrate an interest in forestry. (See application for additional information.)

The Montana Tree Farm System Steering Committee would like to congratulate Maida Knapton, our 2023 Scholarship Recipient.  Thank you for all the applications. 

Maida Knapton 2023

My name is Maida Knapton, and I was raised in the small town of Ennis, in Southwest Montana. Growing up, my playground was the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest and it fostered a strong appreciation and inspiration for the forests that blanket the landscape, and the lifeline habitat they create. Now, I am a junior standing at Montana State University, where I plan to graduate in the spring of 2025 from the Land Resources Department with a degree in Geospatial and Environmental Analysis.

From my childhood experiences of growing up in Montana and playing in the forests, I am now interested in the sustainable management of natural resources as I believe it is crucial to both the environment and human societies. These resources are critical to ecological and climate balances, human and cultural livelihoods, and economic stability, especially in rural communities.

My goal for the next two years is to start a summer position doing practical forestry management work and continue to build connections and networks. After I complete my studies at MSU in 2025, I will work in the field to sustain systems and my values through geospatial and natural resource-focused work, and later on, continue my education in a graduate program.

I am very grateful for Holly McKenzie and the Tree Farm Community, and all the support they have given me.

 In gratitude, Maida Knapton

 

 

Awards

The Montana Tree Farm Steering Committee winners for the following:

Each year the Montana Tree Farm program recognizes outstanding Tree Farmers, educators, loggers, and forest inspectors.

2023 Award Winners

2023 Montana Tree Farm of the Year

 Jerry Akin

Jerry Akin 2023

This tree farmer is unique in that there is a multigenerational heritage in managing this property, each steward has invested time, sweat, blood, treasure and love into their land and they’ve done the planning  to keep it in the family for another generation.  They do the work themselves and freely share time, knowledge and expertise with any who come seeking.

Over the last three years this tree farmer has actively participated with area partners to help meet community goals for wildfire mitigation and forest health. Jerry has offered countless tours and interviews to any who are seeking input from small private forestland owners’ perspective.  He’s an anchor in a major state project area and collaborator and helped coordinate efforts with his neighbors.  He’s visited other local tree farmers and adopted equipment to better manage his property.

 

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2023 Logger of the Year

Neil Pluid

Neil Pluid

Neil has worked on the FH Stoltze Tree Farm in Lincoln County. He has also worked with many private landowners in the Eureka area. He has taken the Stewardship Workshop for Loggers to get his ALP certification.

 Neil is an Accredited Logging Professional through the Montana Logging Association. Many crew members of Pluid Logging are ALP certified as well. Neil encourages his crew to attend many MLA classes.

 Maintaining ALP status requires attending a BMP/SMZ every 3 years. In addition, Neil often exceeds the standard BMP’s to reduce erosion and do a good job. He never has to be asked to do things such as water bar and/or add slash to steeper trails.        Normally these items are done as soon as he and his crew are done using the trail so that everything is kept up to date and nothing is missed.

Neil has been an excellent contractor to work with. He is extremely professional and works well with agency personnel, private landowners, and industry foresters. Working with each of those presents various challenges and Neil has taken those head on, with a positive attitude, every time. He truly cares about his quality of work and wants to do an excellent job.

 

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2023 Educator of the Year

Tye Sundt

Tye Sundt

Tye has been very involved with the Kootenai Forest Stakeholder Coalition, ATFS board member, SAF treasurer, Leadership Flathead and other groups. Tye brings common sense practical forestry to the publics eye as well as being an upstanding community member who is trusted and respected by peers. 

Tye promotes tree farm enrolment with many landowners he comes in contact with. He also is in charge of yearly certification inspections for ATFS Montana. Tye also has been involved in field tours with ATFS at the Section One LLC event in Kalispell.

Tye helped instruct the Forest workshop in conjunctions with Cindy Peterson last year. He also helps with SMZ/BMP logger training and is on the state audit team for field reviews. 

Like mentioned earlier Tye is involved and on the boards of many organizations in the professional sector. He promotes forestry and engages the public about the benefits of the profession.  He is trusted and a very knowledgeable professional! 

 

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2023 Inspector of the Year

Marvin (Ed) Levert

Ed has been active on the Steering Committee for many years. He provides valuable input and insight from both an inspector and Tree Farmers point of view. He owns 2 different Tree Farms. He is a leader in many other forestry organizations including Montana Forest Stewardship Foundation, Kootenai Stakeholders, Firesafe Montana, Montana Forest Owners Association, Society of American Foresters, Forest Service history groups, and more.

He has completed 43 inspections for 24 Tree Farms in his 24 years as Inspector (2000 – 2023), 10 were new TFs he enrolled. He is an active Forest Stewardship Advisor and many of these inspections included additional monitoring and paperwork for that program. He is always willing to take inspection assignments and promptly gets them done. This year he visited properties for 2 Tree Farmers. One had 4 relatively large, non-contiguous parcels that needed to be split into individual tree farms. He helped the landowner update their management plan to address each parcel and inspected them separately. He learned a new tool by inputting the data directly into the database. Old dogs CAN learn new tricks.

 

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