Penny Redli of Columbus and Mark Ratledge of Missoula Tapped to Lead Montana’s Cultural and Aesthetics Project Advisory Committee

Penny Redli of Columbus and Mark Ratledge of Missoula were elected as Advisory Committee chairman and vice-chairman, respectively, of the state of Montana’s Cultural and Aesthetics Project Grants program http://art.mt.gov/orgs/orgs_ca.asp .

The Cultural and Aesthetics Trust is a fund established from Coal Tax revenues by the legislature in 1975 to restore murals in the State Capitol and support other cultural and aesthetic projects. The Cultural and Aesthetics Project Grants program is steered by a 16-member committee of advisors, half appointed by the Montana Arts Council and half by the Montana Historical Society. The Montana Arts Council administers the program for the legislature. The advisory committee makes funding recommendations to the legislature, who make all final grant funding decisions.

Penny Redli is the executive director of the Museum of the Beartooths in Columbus, and served as executive director of the Carbon County Historical Society and Museum in Red Lodge for nearly nine years. She is the secretary/treasurer of the Museums Association of Montana and was the chair of their annual conference committee for five years. This is her second term as one of the Montana Historical Society’s appointees to the advisory committee.

Mark Ratledge, who writes a technology column for both State of the Arts and the Missoulian, received a Montana Arts Council Individual Artist’s Fellowship in Photography in 1991. He has also acted as an advisor for grant programs of the Montana Arts Council. He is an information technology consultant, and teaches English and computer science at The University of Montana.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Penny Redli, Museum of the Beartooths

P.O. Box 1, Columbus, MT 59019

(406) 322-4588 [email protected]

Mark Ratledge

P.O. Box 8701, Missoula, MT 59807

(406) 543-5347 [email protected]