[BozemanLUG] A few paragraphs about BozemanLUG organic history

Fri Dec 11 16:47:35 EST 2015

Not long. We only have a couple meetings there before we moved it over to a
bank. I left the area before Scott took over the group, and a lot of these
details are fuzzy for me since it's just been so long, but I do remember
attending the first meeting of the group. We did have a fairly good group
going for a while there with scheduled presentations. I still have some of
the old LFS CDs Ken handed out. I remember Rusty doing one presentation in
particular on OpenGL (I think?). The group faded into almost nonexistence
during Ken's jail time. To clarify on Scott's comment, Ken did have a drunk
driving accident that resulted in a fatality, but it was many years before
the LUG was formed. Ken was an admitted alcoholic, and was on the wagon
during the years he was operating the LUG. His jail time was a result of
falling off the wagon and drinking again, which was in violation of his
legal arrangement. During that time, Ken's significant other scheduled the
meetings, and usually they were only her and I. There weren't a lot of
users in the user group at the time. When Ken was finished serving his
time, he took back the LUG, and succeeded in breathing some new life into
it. It seems like the group was back up around 10 regular attendees by the
time I left the Bozeman area at the end of 2004.

Mike

On Fri, Dec 11, 2015 at 2:25 PM Warren Sanders <warren at sandersonline.org>
wrote:

> Rusty,
>
> I remember Scott and I attended a meeting at this location one time too!
> How long was it hosted there?
>
> --
> Warren Sanders
>
> ------------------------------
> *From: *"Rusty Conover" <rconover at infogears.com>
> *To: *"Scott Dowdle" <dowdle at montanalinux.org>
> *Cc: *"BozemanLUG" <discuss at bozemanlug.org>
> *Sent: *Thursday, December 10, 2015 9:02:17 PM
> *Subject: *Re: [BozemanLUG] A few paragraphs about BozemanLUG organic
> history
>
> This history sounds mostly right to me, I think my first meeting was
> sometime in 1999/2000 upstairs in the coffee shop on the corner of
> main and 7th avenue. Ken talked about Linux from Scratch.  It's
> strange to think back to days before ubiquitous wifi and SSDs.
>
> Rusty
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On Dec 10, 2015, at 3:53 PM, Scott Dowdle <dowdle at montanalinux.org>
> wrote:
> >
> > Greetings,
> >
> > Ben Sutter was curious meeting-before-last... as to why we didn't have
> any students attending our meetings so I thought I'd write up a little
> history / background.  I definitely encourage reader feedback to fill in
> the cracks, as I'm not 100% certain in some areas... as are general
> suggestions on how to improve the BozemanLUG.  We have gone through this a
> few times over the years... and if anyone wants to retread any past
> territory, feel free.
> >
> > The BozemanLUG started sometime in late 1998 or early 1999 by a guy who
> has since died of cancer (Ken Dyke).  I lived in Billings from 1998-2005
> and would a few times a year... drive to the Bozeman meetings to attend.  I
> liked Ken but he wasn't a saint.  He had a drunk driving accident at some
> point where someone was killed.  I don't know the details on it but it did
> cause some discomfort in the group... especially since I think there was
> some jail time associated with it.
> >
> > Anyway... about a year before Ken died, he moved to Helena and I moved
> to Bozeman.  Ken basically asked me to pick up the BozemanLUG for him...
> because he had grown tired of driving into Bozeman himself trying to keep
> it going... and wanted to start something up in Helena.  I'll not going to
> go into the history of the HelenaLUG though.
> >
> > Anyway... yeah, I took it over in late 2005.  Between the origin and the
> 2005 the meeting place had changed several times... but for the longest
> time it had been meeting at a realtor office near the corner of 19th and
> Koch.  That meeting place was reasonable and it was free... but I had to go
> over there before the meeting and pick up a key.  As I stopped driving to
> work and taking the bus... the trek over there to pick up the key was
> becoming annoying... so I decided to just to move the meeting over to a
> room I managed for my job... which, as you know... happens to be affiliated
> with MSU and the Computer Science Department.  Over the years we have had
> various students and MSU employees attend BozemanLUG meetings... but given
> the mid-term temporariness of their residence in Bozeman... very few of
> them hung around.
> >
> > Since I work for the CS Dept. and teach a SysAdmin class every Spring
> (for the last 6 or 7 years), I have always felt somewhat uncomfortable
> telling students about the group and the meetings... because I felt it
> might in some way be seen as pressuring them into it... and I wasn't always
> confident in the quality of our meeting contents... so I thought in many
> cases they'd be disappointed if they attended anyway.  We have had some
> students get interested just because they saw us in the lab area... and
> heard a little bit about what we were talking about... and decided to butt
> in and join us... but since more students have been in the rooms this past
> year and I didn't want to disturb them, we have been meeting in my office
> area... minimizing potential contact with students.
> >
> > Anyway, the BozemanLUG has never been the MSU-LUG nor the CSDept-LUG or
> anything like that... so that's why we haven't really put much effort into
> making it one of those.  I understand we could probably get much better
> attendance by students if we put more effort into advertising it... as well
> as much more effort into securing quality presentations on a regular
> basis... but the later has been a bit of a challenge that none of us
> long-timers have been very interested in investing in... nor have we found
> any new-blood that was willing to take on the challenge.
> >
> > With all of that background, for the foreseeable future, not much will
> change... and I hope that is ok.
> >
> > TYL,
> > --
> > Scott Dowdle
> > 704 Church Street
> > Belgrade, MT 59714
> > (406)388-0827 [home]
> > (406)994-3931 [work]
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Discuss at bozemanlug.org
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