The nightly sunset puts a special glow over the town of Terry, Montana presenting a very picturesque setting ready for a master’s brush. Kids are practicing at their special brand of soccer in Murn Park in the center of town or riding their bikes up and down the paved streets.

BNSF trains can be heard in the distance as they get closer to town tooting four horn blasts, one for each crossing, as they transport much needed coal from Montana to the East and return empty back again to reload at the nearby loading facilities.

The nervous whinnying of a horse is not unusual in Terry and local residents give it little attention as the owner pulls her truck towing the horse trailer up to the front of the Badlands Café and Scoop Shoppe on Logan Avenue. It’s just another day in small town, USA and all is well.

Inger Koppenhaver with her husband Jerry and their three small children first arrived here about four years ago. They immediately fell in love with the town the minute they laid eyes on it and quickly found out that it truly is the place where everybody knows your name.

Terry is a community of 600 people and is nestled up against the beautiful backdrop of the Terry Badlands Wilderness Area. The Yellowstone River tracing the Lewis and Clark trail is just below the hills right outside the city limits. Fishing, hunting, and children’s activities thrive in the area and most of the town’s people are involved with those activities in one way or the other.

Inger Koppenhaver said it was the “Norman Rockwell” feel and looks of the town that inspired her and her family to leave Phoenix, Arizona to settle down and raise their family in this safe haven away from all the hustle and bustle of the big town they left behind.

Her mother-in-law Arline Koppenhaver and she are now the co-owners of the Badlands Café and Scoop Shoppe in Terry. Arline shared that it was the wide open spaces calling her and her husband Paul and made up their mind to move from Western Montana to Prairie County in Eastern Montana to start up their K/3 cattle ranch about 10 miles outside of Terry.

This area offers lots of hunting and fishing opportunities with many people making return trips in the fall of each year. Others travel to Terry because they have been inspired by the story of Evelyn Cameron the frontier photographer, who documented early pioneer life in Terry and the surrounding area of Eastern Montana with her trusty 5X7 Graflex camera. The PBS documentary, “Evelyn Cameron: Pictures of a Worthy Life,” was filmed here with the Terry Badlands Wilderness Area used as its backdrop.

Inger tells about two visitors stopping off at their café to share their stories with her. One of them was from the East Coast and the other one was from the West Coast. They said that they were glad to have discovered one of the best kept secrets for Old West history buffs. They had been inspired by the recent PBS presentation to include Terry, Montana, the Evelyn Cameron Gallery and Prairie County Museum as one of the pinpoint stops on their cross country road trip adventure.

A lot of pioneer history with local color and community is what sets Terry apart from other small towns. Inger and Arline both enthusiastically agree that visitors should, “Come and visit us in Terry to find out what the buzz is all about!”

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Dateline: Terry, Montana
October 4, 2009 7:00 AM MDT
By: Bob van der Valk