Rocky Mountain College is not just one of the top 10 best colleges in the West, according to the recent U.S. News & World Report rankings. It is also one of the best bargains in the West.
The annual rankings of colleges and universities nationwide by U.S. News & World Report was released last week. They will be included in the Best Colleges book published for 2011.
Rocky Mountain College, for the 12th consecutive year, was ranked in the first tier, top 10 of best regional colleges in the West.
The rankings are based on criteria that ranked Rocky high for freshmen retention, graduation rate, small class sizes, faculty-to-student ratio, percentage of full-time faculty and percentage of alumni giving.
U.S. News & Report utilizes Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, which focuses “almost entirely on the undergraduate experience and offer a broad range of programs in the liberal arts (which account for fewer than half of all bachelor’s degrees granted) and in fields such as business, nursing, and education.”
For the ranking in the separate category Great Schools, Great Prices, Rocky was ranked for offering students the best value.
“The calculation used here takes into account a school’s academic quality, as indicated by its 2011 U.S. News ranking, and the 2009-2010 net cost of attendance for a student who receives the average level of need-based financial aid,” according to U.S. News & World Report. “The higher the quality of the program and the lower the cost, the better the deal.”
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| North Dakota ‘Barefoot girl’ to perform daily |
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Gwen Sebastian will be performing daily at the Pond Stage during MontanaFair. This article was provided by Shock Ink.
It’s little wonder why singer-songwriter Gwen Sebastian was picked as an artist to watch in 2010 by Country Weekly. After quitting nursing school to pursue her music dreams in Nashville, she is starting to see those dreams come true. Her infectious new single, “V.I.P. (Barefoot Girl),” moves up from No. 37 to No. 33 on the current Music Row Country Breakout chart, and from No. 56 to No. 51 on the Mediabase Activator chart.
Raised on a dirt road farm in rural Hebron, N.D., and now living in Nashville with a heavy touring schedule, Sebastian can completely relate to “V.I.P. (Barefoot Girl),” which she wrote with Dean Miller (Terri Clark’s “A Little Gasoline” and Trace Adkins “I’m Gonna Love You Anyway”) and Brian Eckert. When she sings, “I’m a barefoot girl walking in a high heel world,” she means it.
“I’m very thankful to be involved in what I’m wanting and loving to do, but I think it’s important that I don’t ever forget where I come from, and I won’t,” she says. “That’s what the song is about. I love dressing up, but it feels good to kick off the high heels when you’re all said and done and chill out.”
Roughstock.com calls it a song many women will certainly be able to relate to and describes Sebastian’s voice as pure and sweet and emotive. Music Row’s Robert K. Oermann calls the song breezy and bright. Roughstock included “V.I.P. (Barefoot Girl)” on a compilation CD given away at its booth during last month’s CMA Music Festival in Nashville.
The beautiful singer/songwriter, who is signed to Open Road/Lofton Creek Records, recently completed a lighthearted music video for “V.I.P. (Barefoot Girl)” and it is already getting played on Music Choice and on demand at CMT.com and GAC.com. The video, shot at Oak Lawn Plantation in Tennessee, finds a couture-clad Sebastian fleeing from paparazzi in favor of jeans and iced tea on a porch swing.
“V.I.P. (Barefoot Girl)” is the follow-up to Sebastian’s debut single, “Hard Rain,” which was a top 30 hit on the Music Row chart. Both songs are available on her six-song EP, “V.I.P.” which was recently released digitally.
She co-wrote four of the sets six cuts that also reflect her personality and sensibilities. The breakup ballad “Nothing,” she says, is really about getting off the couch.
“It’s about not being afraid to take the big plunge and give in to love, she says. But for me it’s also about going out on the road and pursuing my dreams, while realizing there might be something back home that’s worth having as well.
For Sebastian, singles and videos are all a conduit to what she loves best: performing live. With several years of touring under her belt, she has built an impressive, high-energy stage show. She calls performing in front of a crowd “my favorite thing to do. That’s my outlet.”
“I want to make sure that everybody that comes out to see me has an experience, that they’re forgetting about everyday life,” she says. “When people are paying money to come see you, you have to make sure they’re getting something special. So I want to make sure they are part of the show, that each and every person feels like they are on stage with me, and that every song means something.”
Sebastian and her band have a full schedule of summer tour dates with more than 30 shows in July and August. She’s also taking time to visit country radio stations along the way.
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For many youngsters in 4-H, Saturday’s Junior Livestock Sale is the culmination of many months of feeding, tending, training and showing livestock. At the sale, they say goodbye to their animals, earn money and look forward to a new project.
The animals are purchased by local businesses and individuals, who are supporters of youth and 4-H. Most young people save the money they make from the sale of their livestock for college. Others use it to purchase animals for the next year’s project or build a herd of their own.
The Junior Livestock Awards Show will be held at 9 a.m. and includes a parade of grand champion livestock from every project category and breed. The auction sale begins at 12:30 p.m. Both events will be held in the Expo Center.
For more information, contact Roni Baker at (406) 698-6838 or 256-2828.
4-H is a nationwide youth development program that emphasizes practical, hands-on learning in a broad variety of subjects relating to health, citizenship, science and technology. 4-H was started to create opportunities for rural youth, but it has since expanded to include young people from urban areas as well. 4-H is for young people ages 9-19 and a program called Cloverbuds serves younger children.
There are 4-H clubs in most every county in every state in the nation. About 400 4-H youth from 20 clubs in Yellowstone County participate in the MontanaFair.
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| Considering retirement? Look at Social Security |
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By T.J. GILLES
For The Outpost
People born between 1943 and 1954 have had the option of taking early Social Security when they turn 62 and receive a 25 percent cut in benefits instead of waiting another four years for their full benefits.
In 2006, the Journal of Certified Public Accountants reported that more than 70 percent of eligible Americans were taking the early out and throwing in the working person’s towel when they turned 62.
That was in times of near-full employment, before recessions and corporate bailouts.
Asked if even more are opting out early given current economics, Gary Amundson of Montana State University Billings said: “I think that’s right. The number is higher now,” as people may have lost their jobs and are facing meager prospects for future employment at a living wage.
”The key question is, ‘How long will it take to break even?’” Dr. Amundson said in a telephone interview. He ran some quick calculations and came up with hypothetical figures of 10-12 years to break even on the early out.
Each year after they turn around 50, most people receive an annual personalized computer letter from Social Security that gives them figures on what they’re worth to spouses and minor survivors if they were dead or disabled – and how much they’d get if they’d take the early out at 62, which includes anyone born in 1948 or before.
“You’ve got to look closely at those statements and run the calculations” on the Social Security website, said Dr. Amundson, who teaches personal financial management at MSU Billings.
There are further penalties if an early retiree makes more than $14,200 a year, he said. After that amount, for every $2 received, the person’s Social Security check is reduced by $1.
“Some people just say ‘Screw it!’” and opt out at age 62, he said, and let others do the work or work part-time and still draw their benefits.Others are made uneasy by members of Congress who are calling for raising the retirement age to as high as 70, as some European countries already have done in the midst of their governments’ money problems.
The arbitrary age of 65 first was established by Otto Von Bismarck in Germany in the 1870s, and that same socialist retirement age came to the United States during the Franklin D. Roosevelt presidency of the 1930s, when U.S. Social Security was established and a vast minority of people actually lived long enough to merit “rocking-chair checks” from the Treasury Department.
“You’ve really got to pencil it out,” said Dr. Amundson. “That’s something everybody has to wrestle with … . A guy’s got to look at insurance, 401-Ks, all that stuff” before making a decision.
“Your payments are based on your best 35 years of earnings,” he said, so there’s another factor to consider, along with retirement somewhere between 62 and 66, which would mean slightly higher monthly checks.
Social Security offers personalized calculators at www.socialsecurity.gov and other sources can be used to calculate life expectancy based on health history and lifestyle matters such as smoking, drinking or exposure to pollution.
Communities of expatriates have developed over the past decade or so in places like Baja California of Mexico, where adobe has been replaced by trailer parks and RV parks, and Costa Rica, where a person who can prove a monthly income of $500 or more can become a permanent resident of a stable country where English is spoken as much as Spanish.
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