Sample Press Release
{Print your press release on your sponsoring organization's letterhead
or include name, address, and phone number of organization at top of release}
For Immediate Release
THE [SPONSORING ORGANIZATION] HOSTS HUMANITIES MONTANA SPEAKERS BUREAU
PROGRAM “A JESUIT WINDOW INTO WESTERN MONTANA LIFE IN THE 1840S AND 50S” WITH
SALLY THOMPSON
[City-Date]
The --your sponsoring organization-- will host Humanities Montana Speakers Bureau program “A Jesuit
Window into Western Montana Life in the 1840s and ‘50s” with Sally Thompson on [date of program]. The
program will be at [location of program] at [time of program]. The presentation is free and open to the
public. Partial funding for the Speakers Bureau program is provided by a legislative grant from Montana’s
Cultural Trust.
Diaries, letters, field journals, sketches and paintings by Jesuit missionaries provide particular views of life
in the Rocky Mountains in the mid-19th century, during the period after the active fur trade in the region
and before the treaties and arrival of government agents. Thompson engages the audience in the
recorded observations and the skewed perceptions of these European Jesuits. The presentation includes
primary documents from history and anthropology, including maps, sketches and paintings; quotes from
literature; interviews with Native American educators; oral histories and folk traditions from local tribes;
and comparison of European, Catholic life with North American Native life.
Thompson has a passion for the untold stories of 19th century Montana, especially focused on the tribes
of Rockies. Over the last two decades she has traveled all over the continent and to Europe in search of
primary documents that reveal first-hand descriptions of people and places of our past. She is the author
of People Before the Park.
For more information, please call --the sponsoring organization– at --phone number--.
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Contact person: --Project organizer and phone number--