Editor’s note: The following story was written by a student in Professor Nadia White’s Public Affairs Reporting class at the University of Montana. You are free to share or publish this story provided you retain the reporter’s byline. Questions? Email nadia.white@umontana.edu.

Hollywood to Helena : Former producer seeks Former producer brings entrepreneurial energy to race

By Nate Rott

Most Montana legislative candidates don’t consider party affiliations “disenchanting.” Most candidates haven’t started an academic-based business run almost entirely by students. Most candidates haven’t produced a Hollywood movie. Even fewer have left Hollywood to become a ranch -hand in Montana.

Peter Rosten, Democratic candidate for House District 87 in Ravalli County, is not your typical candidate. And, he’s proud of it.

“I’m not your grandfather’s candidate,” he said. “I’m doing it my way.”

He calls himself a big dreamer and idealistic, but sees no problem with that. His dreams include tackling issues such as healthcare, education, forest management, employment, wages and the “broken” state of politics.

“I want to pay teachers more and someone might say there isn’t money for it. It’s my job to find the money,” Rosten said. “I’ll find it or die trying. But, ‘no’ is not something I want to hear right off the bat. I can outwork the nos.”

Rosten said he would put “country over party.” While he is running as a Democrat and is endorsed by fellow Democrats Gov. Brian Schweitzer and Sens. John Tester and Max Baucus, he doesn’t want voters to focus on party affiliation.

His way means putting “country over party,” an idea that, he claims, has excited many people, Republican and Democrat alike, in Ravalli County’s House District 87. So, while he is running as a Democrat and is endorsed by fellow Democrats Governor Brian Schweitzer, Senator John Tester and Senator Max Baucus, he doesn’t want voters to focus on party affiliation.

“We are so stuck in the partisan divide. I am very disenchanted by this whole red versus blue thing,” Rosten said. “People are sick of ‘You’re a this and I’m a that’.”

Rosten is challenging Republican incumbent Ronald E. Stoker, a fellow Darby resident, to represent House District 87 in the state legislaturein the HD87 race. Stoker, a self-proclaimed “die-hard conservative,” has held the position since 2002 and said he knows little about his contender, Rosten.

“Peter is an interesting, retired Hollywood producer who moved here and made the decision to run against the incumbent,” Stoker said. “Other than being a Hollywood producer, I don’t know.”

To fill in the blanks, after a year and a half of college at San Fernando Valley State College, Rosten decided that pursuing a law degree wasn’t for him. In 1969, he landed a job as a truck driver for a film company and thus got his start in Hollywood. “It was serendipity to land in the film business,” he said.

Rosten met the right people and worked his way up to producing movies such as “True Believer” in 1989 and television shows, “Eddie Dodd” in 1990. In 19851992, he vacationed in Montana and fell in love with the place. He bought a house in the Bitterroot Valley in 1992.. To make ends meet, Rosten only lived in Montana seasonally, working in California the rest of the year. In 2001, at the age of 52, Rosten At the age of 52, realized he “had more yesterday’s than tomorrow’s” and he quit his jobhe quit his job, moved to Montana and worked as a ranch hand for three years to o“find the agricultural roots and the heartbeat of what this state is all about,” he said.

In 2004, Rosten decided to get back to what he knew best: making movies. He felt noticed how the arts had been decimated in public schools and approached Corvallis High School administrators with the idea of teaching students how to make movies and commercials. Media Arts in the Public Schools (MAPS) was born.

MAPS has since become a money-making, student-employing program and expanded in the following years to other Montana cities. MAP students have, woninning national awards and producedcing statewide “Hungry for Knowledge, Go To College” commercials and later other national commercials. Recently, Rosten recently announced that MAPS was moving from an academic programwill leave the public schools and become a to its own business, MAPS Media Institute, which will be a production company that provides video production training to youth and adults alike TK. He said he plans on opening hopefully open in Hamilton in Sept. 2next fall.009.

For his work, Rosten was honored with the “Exemplary Service Award” by the Corvallis School District at the end of the 2008 school year.

Success didn’t come easy. Rosten said teaching was the hardest job he has ever had.as teaching was the hardest job he has ever had.

“I don’t recommend anybody at the age of 55 to start teaching. With all love in my heart, kids are energy vampires,” Rosten said. “MAPS was my baby and each of these students were my kids. It’s exhausting having that many kids.”

One of those students, Luke McLean, recently graduated from the MAPS program and has since started his own business, Circumference Productions, which specializes in post-production film editing. Under Rosten’s guidance, McLean started setting up his business before he had even graduated from MAPS.

“Peter helped me in terms of getting started, giving me guidelines, showing me the ropes,” McLean said. “Every lesson he’s given me I still use today.”

As a teacher, Rosten demanded the best from his students, McLean said. He ran the program like a business, but students looked up to him “as a mentor and an employer.”

“Peter makes people feel like human beings, he gets them excited and gets them involved,” he said. “He never lets you have an excuse. If the job was there, you had to get it done.”

Rosten believes these traits, honed by teaching and producing, will make up for his admitted lack of political experience. His ability to work hard, generate publicity and to move coalitions is what he hopes to bring to Helena.

When he decided to run for the Legislatureive position, Rosten went out to local community members:; police officers, doctors, teachers, ranchers, foresters and other issue makers. The goal was to have “a kitchen cabinet, people to reach out to,” he said. “My job isn’t to know everything. It’s to make things happen.”

Perhaps He said his most valuable resource , or at least the one who will always be within ear-shot, is his wife, Susan. Susan is Aa fourth- generation Montanan, Susan’s and her knowledge of the state and its people is invaluable, Rosten said.

Healthcare, education, forest management, employment, wages and the “broken” state of politics are all issues Rosten wants to address. He calls himself a big dreamer and idealistic, but sees no problem with that.

“I want to pay teachers more and someone might say there isn’t money for it. It’s my job to find the money,” Rosten said. “I’ll find it or die trying. But, ‘no’ is not something I want to hear right off the bat. I can outwork the no’s.”

Peter Rosten is not the average Montana legislative candidate. Yet, people who know him, like McLean, believe there is something regular about him.

“He’s a Montana man. The typical Montana man,” McLean said. “He has a background in Hollywood, but when you look at him you’d swear he’s from Montana.”
.