Mike Henderson has a look around the computer lab at Westview School in Hamilton,during a tour through the building Monday with MAPS Media Institute instructional team.

by SEPP JANNOTTA - Ravalli Republic

If you build it, they will come.

This phrase might be the program’s current motto, the program's founder Peter Rosten said during a meeting with his presumptive team Monday.

"We are all proceeding with the expectation that this is going to happen," Rosten said, during a tour of potential classrooms for MAPS at Westview School in Hamilton.

Rosten, who put MAPS on hiatus to accommodate his run for House District 87 in the Montana State Legislature, was upbeat about the prospects for cranking MAPS back to life.

Rosten said his optimism is fueled in no small part by the people he has lined up to teach for MAPS: former KPAX-TV newsman Ian Marquand will teach journalism; Steve Slocomb will teach documentary film making; and Mike Henderson will be on graphic design and web-based communications. Rosten himself will lead students in fiction film and television production classes.

"This is all driven by the instructors," Rosten said of the vision for a new and more expansive version of his successful program to bring cutting-edge media arts instruction to the public school students of Ravalli County.

The excitement is also growing within the high schools from which MAPS would be drawing students, Rosten said.

"We have an idea about how many students want to do this, which is more than we could possibly handle," he said.

For his part, Marquand said MAPS offers both a new challenge - teaching - and the prospect of seeing kids doing some real journalism, complete with lessons in ethics, public records law and diversity of view point.

"It's not only about technique," Marquand said. "But they also will do the intellectual work as well … and once they have a finished product let's see if they can get it broadcast and contribute to the media culture in our state."

"They might just break a story or two," Marquand added.

The story that remains unresolved at the moment for MAPS is financial.

In addition to offering for-credit classes through the high schools, Rosten also plans to run an after-school program that will feature noncredit training for high school students and adults.

Knowing that having a stable, centralized facility will make the entire enterprise easier, Rosten said Westview is an ideal site for MAPS.

The building is owned by the Hamilton School District. In addition to housing its alternative high school there, the district has been renting facilities to a variety of groups, including the Keystone to Discovery after-school program and Bitterroot Ecological Awareness Resources.

The idea of having MAPS in the house appeals to Ria Overholt, who manages the former middle school building for the district.

"We want this building to be alive again and it would be great to get more kids in here again," Overholt said.

With students coming from all over the valley, Rosten said his group would most certainly fit the bill.

"In one class you could have kids from Darby, Corvallis, Victor, Stevi and Hamilton all co-mingling and working together," Rosten said. "The idea being we leave our letterman's jackets at the door and realize there's a great goal here."