Holt Gets Name On Montana Range Days Top Hand Trophy

On June 22, 2022, in Shelby, Mont., Zora Rose Holt of Hinsdale, Mont., became the 45th person to get her name engraved on the Montana Range Days Top Hand Trophy. To the best of our knowledge, she is the first person to have shared the trophy with a parent.

Montana Range Days started in 1977 in Jordan, Mont., and has been going strong ever since with a pause for 2020. The third week in June, it offers two and a half days of non-stop learning, tours, and contests for the whole family from age four to 104, all focused on the rangeland resource. People younger than four can come, they just don't get their own personalized name tags, manuals, and workshops.

This was Zora's ninth Range Days. Children and adults alike get the chance to learn about (and then show off their new skills in the contests) the parts of range plants, the names and characteristics of range shrubs, forbs, and grasses, how to determine rangeland health by looking at the plants, how to recognize different ecological sites, and how to calculate stocking rates and grazing plans that will improve the well-being of the resource.

High School students in pursuit of the Top Hand trophy need to excel in all these contests and also prepare an illustrated talk, a range plant or weed collection, and an educational display.

If you would like to see the big trophy, it's currently on display in the Hinsdale Public School lobby, just ask Gwyn to point you in the right direction. Montana Range Days will be in Shelby again in 2023, and then move to Miles City for two years.