Rhode Island elementary student seeks info on Montana

(Editor’s note: The following letters were sent to the Bigfork Eagle from a middle school student and his teacher in Rhode Island seeking information on Montana for a class project.)

I want to take this opportunity to thank you for reading this letter and the letter from my student. The project they are working on can be a tremendous success with your help and the help of your readers.

Let me take a minute to tell you about our school and students. Pawtucket, R.I., is an urban school district founded in the birth place of the mill industry with the first water-powered mill. Slater Mill is not more than a five-minute was from our school.

Like any urban school district, Pawtucket has its share of challenges. Roughly 80 percent of our students qualify for the free or reduced lunch program. However, Goff Junior High School is the only high performing junior high school in the district. The students take an active interest in school and responsibility for their studies.

By publishing their letter and hopefully your reader’s response, they will be able to produce a written report, poster board, and oral presentation.

Hopefully when you decide to publish the student’s letter I am requesting an edition in the mail or be notified when it will run so I can look at your online edition. It would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time and help in providing a worthwhile and rewarding project for my students.

Brian Gilmore,

Seventh-grade geography teacher

The student’s letter

Hi, I’m writing this paper from little Rhody (Rhode Island). I am a seventh grade student at Goff Junior High School in Pawtucket, R.I.

In geography class it’s our responsibility to make an oral, written, and poster-board project on a certain state in the U.S.

I chose my report on Montana. Could you please publish this letter in your newspaper so that readers could help me on my project?

Mr. Gilmore, my geography teacher, said that firsthand information from citizens of our chosen state would be much more helpful than books and the Internet.

If the readers could send me some information, pictures and tourist information it will help a lot. You can send it to Goff.

Austin T.,

Pawtucket, R.I.