Good afternoon and a very happy St. Patrick’s Day to all our Beacon readers.

As a Montana history lover, it feels like an opportune day to highlight that this state has a rich history with the Irish. Thousands of Irish settlers came to the state during its mining boom, many settling in the city of Butte, which remains one of America’s most Irish cities per capita today. And our first territorial governor of Montana, Thomas Francis Meagher, was an Irishman who fought for the Union side in the Civil War before making his way out West. His statue still sits outside the Montana capitol building in my hometown of Helena. Of course, there are more modern connections between Ireland and Montana as well, like a 2021 sister park agreement between Glacier National Park and Ireland’s Killarney National Park, which you can read about at the bottom of this newsletter.

Mariah Thomas here for your Daily Roundup and sending wishes for good luck to you all. In addition to my brief history lesson about some of the Ireland-Montana connections, I’ve also got an update for you from a story first brought to my attention back in early December.

A few months ago, when I talked with Mark McCrady, Whitefish Middle School’s longtime band instructor, he described something of a dire situation when it came to the instruments being used by band and orchestra students in the Whitefish School District.

Some of the equipment students are using is up to 70 years old, being held together by duct tape or with wires poking out. McCrady framed it as an issue of equity. Students using the old instruments experienced less confidence in the music program than students sitting in the chair next to them, holding a newer instrument.

“Kids are gifted in several areas,” McCrady told the Beacon. “And some of the best musicians do not come from wealthy families.”

The program had more than 400 instruments that needed updating, which it attempted to replace piecemeal for years, before the Whitefish Education Foundation stepped in to help lead a more substantive fundraising effort.

Hopefully, this is ringing some bells — I wrote a story about the nonprofit’s first-ever capital campaign, focused on the efforts to secure new instruments, just a few months ago.

But, in case you need the refresher: the Whitefish Education Foundation aimed to collect $400,000 to replace the instruments and create an endowment fund the music program can dip into to update outdated equipment in the future.

Fast forward three months, and the foundation has almost reached its goal. According to a press release, it has raised $300,000. As the Whitefish Education Foundation enters the final push to reach its goal, Jim and Lisa Stack — owners of Stack Financial Management and “longtime community champions,” per the education foundation’s press release — have pledged a dollar-for-dollar match up to $50,000.

In short, any individual donors’ contributions to the effort to get the campaign across the finish line will have double the impact.

“We are incredibly grateful to Jim and Lisa Stack for their leadership, generosity, and deep commitment to education in Whitefish,” said Jesse Kuntz, the executive director of the Whitefish Education Foundation. “Their closing match challenge not only accelerates our progress, but also inspires our community to come together and ensure music education continues to thrive in our schools.”

For those interested in donating to the final push to get the campaign across the finish line, you can visit whitefisheducationfoundation.org/mmr.

And that’s what I’ve got for you this Tuesday. Onto the rest of the Daily Roundup.