About the Players
The Montana Governor’s Humanities Award recognizes individuals and organizations who have made significant contributions to the public humanities. In September 2021, Chrysti “the Wordsmith” Smith received this award after 31 years of radio production. You can watch Chrysti’s comments, as well as those of 4 other Montana awardees here.
Chrysti M. Smith
Chrysti M. Smith has been reading and collecting dictionaries for decades. As host of the radio series Chrysti the Wordsmith, she shares the stories she teases from the pages of her myriad dictionaries and word books.
Combining her passion for words, dictionaries and radio (her favorite medium), Smith introduced her radio series in 1990 while studying for a Sociology/Anthropology degree at Montana State University-Bozeman. The series is now heard on the producing radio station, KGLT-FM Bozeman, Yellowstone Public Radio in Billings, Montana Public Radio in Missoula, KCPR in Salt Lake City, and worldwide on Armed Forces Radio and Television Network.
Smith was born and raised in Poplar, on Montana’s celebrated Hi-Line, and now lives in Belgrade, Montana. She is a featured speaker with the Humanities Montana Speaker’s Bureau and serves on the Board of Trustees at her local Belgrade Community Library. She still loves to read from the hundreds of papyrus dictionaries on her bookshelves.
Philip Gaines
Phil Gaines, consulting editor of Chrysti the Wordsmith, received his Ph.D. University of Washington in Discourse Analysis and Forensic Linguistics. His primary research interest lies in the analysis of trial attorney discourse. Gaines has provided professional expert opinions on such linguistic issues as the comprehensibility of employee benefit explanations, ambiguity in insurance contracts, and the effectiveness of communication between police officers and traffic law violators. At Montana State University, he teaches courses in linguistics, rhetoric and writing.
Theme Music by Stuart Weber
Stuart Weber’s passion for the guitar was ignited early on when at age twelve a cousin loaned him a flood-ravaged folk guitar. Undaunted by its poor condition, Weber began a ravenous period of self-study, which carried him through his teenage years and beyond. His latest recording, Piece of Road was ranked at #4 in Textura Magazine’s prestigious top ten list for best EPs of 2020.
A native of the Northern Rocky Mountains, Stuart is deeply influenced by the spirit of the American West. He credits the long harsh winters of Montana for giving him time and space to develop as an artist.
Brodie Cates
Doing the recording, editing and mixing of Chrysti the Wordsmith is Brodie Cates. Brodie found himself being drawn to production & radio by the allure of music. Not a musician, he got as close to the magic stuff as possible in various radio stations…finally ending up in the free-form paradise that is KGLT. Production director since 2005, Brodie sees every recording project as songlike — working with some form of rhythm, lyric and melody. Likely he’ll disappear into some blissful overtone one day, leaving a tidy pile of archival wavs, flacs & mp3s to be sorted through.
The Show’s Theme Music
“The inspiration for the theme music heard on Chrysti the Wordsmith came while I offered to relieve the great and venerable Missoula matriarch Ms. Rusty Jacobs of the tiresome duties of handing out treats to trick-or-treaters on Halloween.
After Rusty had retreated to her bedroom to watch TV, I sat playing my guitar on her white, horsehair loveseat in her living room. Stately homes like Rusty’s, located in the heart of the university district, were highly prized by candy-crazed kids and the traffic was heavy. I would no sooner play a lick when the doorbell would chime again and I would drop the guitar and spring into action.
Prior to handing me hosting duties, Ms. Jacobs had filled a giant bowl with, not candy, but pencils! She was very pleased at her break with tradition, and especially delighted to see that the pencils came in so many colors. They were, however, not a hit with the mob at the door.
By the end of that evening, after I had disappointed hundreds of kids with my offerings, most of the music we now associate with Chrysti’s theme was composed. For a brief time it had the working title ‘Pencils.’”