Creative Pulse – Out of My Shell Part 2

Tell Us Something

Charlene Brett takes her 2 children and 2 golden retrievers into the backcountry for a backpacking weekend and survives a terrible overnight thunderstorm. Charlene calls her story “A Backcountry Weekend Adventure”.

Charlene Brett is a K-5 teacher in the Bitterroot Valley and has been teaching music for 14 years. She is a fan of the great outdoors and enjoys escaping into various high-mountain lakes in both Montana and Idaho in the summer to fly fish. When not backpacking with her family (or her 3 “mom” friends – “Moms of the Traveling Backpacks”), you can find Charlene hiking on her property with her two female golden retrievers and her tortoise-shell cat …who thinks she is a dog. On those cold Montana evenings, she enjoys working on 1000-piece outdoor image-style puzzles.

Jessie Novak is an indoor person who goes on an outdoor adventure with her sister Stephie in Lewis and Clark Caverns. Jessie calls her story Finding Joy.

Jessie Novak is an art teacher, quadruplet, and enthusiastic dog mom. Growing up outside of Missoula with her 3 siblings and father, she realized that the only ways to control the chaos of life was living in a small town and teaching, so she decided to do both. She relocated to Billings, received her teaching credentials, and quickly moved to the other end of the state to a tiny town called Noxon. In a town where everyone knows everyone, she teaches K-12 Art, hikes, attempts to grow a large garden (when there isn’t 6 feet of snow), and spoils her fur-child Peggy Sue rotten.

Sydney Holte lands a student teaching gig in India and an unfamiliar green sauce causes her great gastrointestinal distress on her first day of student teaching. Sydney calls her story Green Sauce.

Sydney Holte was born and raised in Minnesota and now teaches elementary music in Billings, Montana. She enjoys camping and fly fishing whenever she can with her husband, Jacoby. Singing and musical theater have always been a large part of her life as well. She loves canned goods, peeing in lakes, and drinking coffee before the sun rises.