Roundup, MT

A trauma room is where one is rushed to when you have suffered a traumatic accident. When the accident happens the clock starts running what is called the Golden Hour. It has been proven that what medical care given to the victim in the first hour after an accident will greatly determine their chances of survival. This means that a team of Emergency Medical Service personnel, a medical staff and a well equipped trauma room is of vital importance.

Roundup Memorial Hospital staff and administration work hard to keep the trauma room at the hospital up to date to provide high quality care during the Golden Hour. Lori Shanks, a member of the grant committee, has written several grants to insure that the trauma room stays well equipped. “When you live in a rural community with activities like horses, chain saws, hunting, oil wells, coal mines, and everyday ag work, accidents happen. Roundup Memorial Hospital needs to be ready when they do” stated Lori Shanks.

Some of the items that have been bought with the grant money are a new probable heart monitor and vital sing recorder. This peace of equipment costs over $9,000. Emergency department stretchers allow the medical staff to move and situate trauma victims to better treat them. These units cost over $11,000. Another piece of equipment is called a Bair Hugger. A victim can be placed in this unit to be warmed up. There is an attachment that allows medical staff to warm fluids that are being given to the patient. Theresa Kirby added, “This is the type of equipment that allows Roundup Memorial Hospital to provide quality care and stabilize trauma victims during the Golden Hour. Then when the victim is stabilized we can transport them safely on for their major medical needs.”

The manager of the Community Teen Center has partnered with the Horizon Program to help develop a growing youth afterschool program. She has participated in the grant program, and Leadership program to help develop healthy youth. The teen center also provides a free lunch program for youth at risk and latch key youth. These are programs that Horizons has helped market through the Share program.

The Superintendent of the Roundup School system was a member of the advisory board for the Horizon program. Mr. Slept encouraged his staff to partake in the training, take part in the process, and to become more involved with the community.

The people of Musselshell County where struggling, knowing they needed a vector for community growth and economical development. Community members were asking for program from the County Commissioners to enhance growth and direction of the community. When the Horizon program was presented to them by the local MSU Extension agent, the commissioners bought into the process and helped promote and support the program. Two of the commissioners received the facilitator training and all three served on the advisory board for the Horizon board.

Do to economical hardship the Roundup community consolidated the school, city and county libraries into the community library. Many of the Library board members, staff and friends of the library have participated in the Horizon program. These people have had roles in the Horizon program as participants, advisory board, and facilitators. This has been a strong partnership that has benefited the Community and Library.

Lee Rhodes, administer of the local hospital, joined the Horizon program. As a small community hospital that has economical hardship they where looking for tools to help their facility. A healthy hospital is a vital part of a Healthy Community.

For processing a Community Strategic Plan, the Extension Office recruited Barb Andreozzi to do a presentation to the Roundup Horizon Group. She successfully walked this large, enthusiastic group of individuals through an huge amount of processing to a group concensus for direction of the Horizon Project.

Mike Vogel was a guest in Roundup to present a work shop on grant writing through the fiscal support of Horizons. Again, the city, county, schools, library, hospital and other groups were present to learn how to write effective grant applications.

Paul taught a class on serving on local government boards, districts and commisions. His day long presentation saw representatives from the the county, schools, city, conservation district, library board and various other groups.

The Community Library has been struggling for years to save enough funds to put in an electric door for the handicap patrons. Even though the Library is one level, the manuel door has been a major problem for wheel chair access. After one patron got a wheelchair stuck in the door frame and had to be manually pulled out by the Librian, the Library Board decided to put their used book sale money towards buying and wiring a new door. They found this to be a very slow and frustrating process. The Board then approached the three government entities (County, City, School) that fund the Library to see if they could help. Due to fiscal constraints, none of the entities had funds for the project. The Board then decided to look into grants to boost their meager savings. Two members of the Library Board attended the Mike Vogel grant workshop through the Horizons Program. They then pursued some of the resources given to them through Mike and another Grant attendee that had knowledge for handicap access. The Friends of the Library offered to help with the project as well. All this networking brought about a successful grant application to fund the new Library door, which will be installed this summer.