Kareen Bratt

Kareen has lived with a lifelong disappointment; unable to claim she was "born and raised" in Montana since her parent drove across the border, into Idaho, to the closest hospital, for her birthing.

But raised she was, on the prairies of Central Montana, next to the Missouri River, awash in the history of homesteading, steamboats, Lewis and Clark and the early days of that great State.

Ranch life, small prairie towns and a high school romance evolved into life in Western Montana, within view of the Rocky Mountains and Flathead Lake. She and her Midwest husband are parents of three grown children, eight grandchildren and six great grandchildren.