Bill Milton‘s family has been ranching in Montana since 1956. He and his wife Dana have owned and operated their current family ranch in Musselshell County since 1978.  During the last 50+ years, he’s worked with local organizations and efforts committed to taking care of land and community. In 2019 he and his wife Dana became the first Montana recipients of the Aldo Leopold Award. 

Most recently, Bill participates as a rancher member, and sometimes facilitator, with several working groups in Central Montana, covering nine counties, including the Musselshell Watershed Coalition, the Winnett ACES, the CMR Community Working Group, and the Musselshell Valley Community Foundation. He has assisted several ranch families with succession planning facilitation and has a particular interest in figuring out how ranchers and local communities monitor the health of their working landscapes and communities.  Since February of 2016, he’s been facilitating a diverse group of partners, called the Rangeland Monitoring Group (RMG), dedicated to finding an effective means to achieve this objective. Relatedly, he’s on the Planning Committee for the Central Grasslands Roadmap and the Life in the Land Project.

Certainly not unrelated, has practice as a Soto Zen Priest, has helped inform and support his appreciation for our shared interdependence and the need to imagine solutions respectful of everyone’s unmet needs.

Ellen Baumler is a well-known interpretive historian and storyteller and beloved member of the helena community.  With over 25 years as a historian for the Montana Historical Society. she became the first person to oversee the society’s the National Register sign program (which started in 1991).  The project involved detailed research into community history, thoughtful negotiation and logistics with property owners, and the skill of being able to tell a succinct and meaningful story. 

An award-winning author, she has written over 22 books on Goodreads, the most recent of which is titled “The Life of the Afterlife in the Big Sky State: A History of Montana’s Cemeteries.”  She was also the host of the show “History in the Go” on Cherry Creek Radio and is a member of the Humanities Montana Speaker’s Bureau.

In 2011 she received the Montana Governor’s Humanities Award and in 2017 the Peter Yegen Jr., Award from the Montana Association of Museums for excellence and distinction in fostering the advancement of Montana’s museums.  Most recently, in the Summer of 2023, she was presented with the Montana Heritage Keeper Award by the Montana Historical Society in recognition of her exemplary commitment, effort, and impact in identifying, preserving, and presenting Montana’s historical and cultural heritage.

Since her retirement in 2018, she continues to educate the public through her ability to share stories of Montana’s past and serves as an expert resource for journalists and others seeking reliable information on Montana’s past.