Business, cultural arts keep longtime Butte couple busy

Editor’s note: This year’s inBusiness movers and shakers come from businesses and communities from Butte to Dillon, Twin Bridges to Anaconda. They’re people whom we — the staff of inBusiness and mem bers of its editorial board — believe are making a positive difference in business and in their communi ties. It may be through business innovation, involve ment in the community, attracting government dollars, growth in payroll or providing good training and a career path for employees.

By Vikki McLaughlin of The Montana Standard

While neither of them is technical ly a Butte native, Gus and Shag Miller are practically Butte icons. Gus — whose real name is Helen Guthrie Miller — goes hand in hand with the Mother Lode Theater and fine arts throughout Montana. Shag — who doesn’t tell his real name — is known for his longtime ownership of radio sta tion KBOW/KOPR, for participation on several boards in town, and, of course, in golf circles.

Shag moved to Butte when he was only a year old, and grew up here, graduating from Butte High, then the University of Montana in journalism. He served in the Air Force during World War II, and again in the Korean War as a navigator. After working as a reporter, then later an advertising salesman for The Montana Standard, Shag bought KBOW in 1962, and added KOPR 10 years later.

For 32 years, he ran the station, doing some editorials, some sports coverage and some advertising sales. He sold the station in 1994. But, before that — 20 years ago — Shag start ed up with a company called Muzak. He owns a franchise here that serves 29 Montana coun ties, selling and installing audio systems for the “ elevator music” as some have called it to businesses, churches and other commercial buildings. In Butte, for example, Shag’s business installed the new Bose audio system in the Civic Center.

At 78, Shag still works full time, traveling 3,000 miles a month in western Montana. With his office in the Ossello building at 910 S. Arizona St., Shag employs 10 people.
While Shag was building his business at the radio station, he served as the first president of the Butte Local Development Corp., an office he held for seven years. He was presi dent of the Chamber of Commerce in 1970-71, a director of First Bank Butte (now U.S. Bank), served on the board for Montana Power Co., and is still on the Airport Authority after 25 years, he said. Shag is an emeritus member of the UM Foundation board, and on the School of Journalism’s advisory board. He’s also director of the Montana State Golf Association and a sectional committeeman for the U.S. Golf Association, a position he has held for 25 years.

Shag’s first wife, Danette, died in 1978, after having four children with Shag. In 1979, he and Gus were married by Don Peoples, who was then chief executive of Butte-Silver Bow.
“ We asked him to,” said Gus.

Gus said her background is “ a little more checkered” than Shag’s.

She was born in Great Falls while her parents — including her author father, A.B. Guthrie — were there on vacation, but were living in Kentucky. The family came to Montana every summer to visit grandparents who lived in Choteau. The family moved back to Great Falls when Gus was a freshman in high school, and she attended school for two years before transferring to the Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. After one year there, she skipped out and didn’t graduate.

Back in Montana, Gus persuaded the admissions people at UM to take her without a high school diploma. She finished her bache lor’s degree in four years, then went to New York University and earned a master’s in book publishing.

She worked for Viking Press for a year. Between that time and marrying Shag in 1979, Gus worked in public relations and with advertising agencies in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Memphis. She married and divorced twice and brought her daughter, Eden Atwood, back to Great Falls in 1974. While working as media director for Wendt Advertising in Great Falls, Gus met Shag.

“ I gave up my wonderful, lucrative, selfsustaining career and moved to Butte,” Gus drawled, tongue in cheek. “ And I haven’t worked for money since.”

Gus has been described as a Butte-based driving force in Montana’s cultural affairs. The arts had always been part of her life, as she grew up studying piano, voice, flute, clas sical guitar and theater.
She was honored in 2001 with the Montana Governor’s Humanities award. She chaired the Montana Repertory Theatre’s statewide advisory board for more than a decade and has served as a Museum of the Rockies
trustee for more than eight years. She was appointed by former Gov. Stan Stephens to the Montana Arts Council in 1989. She sits on the UM School of Fine Arts advisory council and was given the Robert T. Pantzer Award by the University of Montana, recognizing an individual “ who has helped make the university a more open and humane environment.”

In Butte, Gus and Bob Poore, a Butte lawyer, joined forces to try to save the Fox Theater on Park Street, which was owned by the Masonic bodies.
“ Using Bob’s legal expertise, we formed a 501(c)3 (nonprofit) corporation — the Butte Center for the Performing Arts Inc.,” Gus said. “ And with the financial largesse of Bob and Pauline Poore, we launched a drive to raise funds not just in the community, but far beyond our boundaries.”

The fund-raising began in 1992 to repair and restore the building. “ We opened the doors again in 1996,” Gus said of the theater renamed the Mother Lode Theater.
Gus, who started out as vice president of the corporation, stepped up to the presidency when Poore stepped down in 1999. She is constantly looking for the money to keep the theater going — looking for grants from state and national organizations. The theater is rented to the Butte Symphony and the Community Concerts organizations for their performances, and the Mother Lode series brings in national touring groups for music, dance and plays.

Of Butte, Gus says, “ I don’t think there’s another community in the state that would give me a project of this magnitude and say run with it.”
Although he has watched the population drop from around 55,000 in the mid-1950s to a little more than 30,000 today, Shag said, Butte is still surviving. “ I think one reason for our survival is the consolidation of city and county governments,” he said. “ That’s one thing that has enabled it to survive — the efficiency of local government.”

“ I think what we’ve got to do is to make the Uptown forget about big business, and make it a community of shops and boutiques, little businesses, artisans,” Gus said. “ And, it needs a lot of spiffing up.”
Butte has always been different, Gus said. “ We should play on what makes us different. We’re not the same as every other town in America. So if we get our act together, we could get somewhere. Our rents are low, make them lower. Do galleries, coffee houses, restaurants, clothing stores.”
“ The Uptown,” Gus said, “ is the heart and soul of this town.”

Gus pointed to Philipsburg, which has dressed up its downtown area with bright colors and specialty shops. “ We need to make it a destination. Nobody in their right mind thinks that people will come to Butte for Costco when there’s another one in Bozeman and Missoula. We don’t need big box stores.

http://www.mtstandard.com/newslocal/lnews22.html