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Voted #1 Radio Station in the Missoula Valley, Trail 1033's Official Podcast makes exclusive on-air interviews, performances, new music and interesting conversations available to you on demand.
Enjoy daily uploads following community interviews on the Morning Trail show with Robert Chase, occasional live performances from both new and landmark bands and artists. Check out the Lunchbox every weekday at Noon, as Mike Smith dishes up a great block of themed music, interviews and more. New music your thing? Every Tuesday 6PM-7PM, enjoy The New Show hosted and produced by Tommy Evans.
Catch so much more interesting and timely conversation and, of course, amazing music from Robert, Mike and Tommy - LIVE- on The Trail 1033FM in Missoula and around the world at trail1033.com every day from 6AM until 9PM.
See what we're up to at trail1033.com or give us a call at 406-721-6800
But absolutely no running by the pool, says our lifeguard Hannah in the Trail Studio today on KDTR FM, Florence, Missoula. Hannah, hello.
Hannah Shepherd:
Hello.
Mike Smith:
How many times have you said “no running”?
Hannah Shepherd:
Too many.
Mike Smith:
I do it even when I’m not at the pool. It’s just forced to happen.
Hannah Shepherd:
Yeah, yeah.
Mike Smith:
Hey, no running.
That is, of course, Dire Straits, “Twisting by the Pool,” and so much to celebrate with Splash Montana turning 20 years old this year. To you and everyone who’s ever been involved with Splash Montana making it work, congratulations.
Hannah Shepherd:
Yeah, thank you. We’re excited. 20 years — Splash Montana was built in 2006.
Mike Smith:
This is one of those things that’s kind of like, wow, it’s been that long.
Hannah Shepherd:
Right, right.
Mike Smith:
Like many of us.
Hannah Shepherd:
Indeed.
Mike Smith:
All of the kids that are growing up that have never known a town without Splash Montana.
Hannah Shepherd:
Exactly.
Mike Smith:
So congratulations. Let’s see, you and I were talking, and I learned something too — that is an Olympic-sized lap pool.
Hannah Shepherd:
That’s right. The 50-meter pool at Splash Montana is an Olympic-sized pool. That part was actually added in 2008.
Mike Smith:
Okay.
Hannah Shepherd:
So it’s a little bit younger, just a tiny bit.
Mike Smith:
Yeah, but all part of the complex.
Hannah Shepherd:
Yeah.
Mike Smith:
And then it is unlike — I’m like, “back in my day.” We just had, growing up in Bozeman, we had an Olympic-sized pool. Then we had another pool that, yes, it did have a shallow end, but it didn’t have sort of the inviting, walk-up, walk-in area.
Hannah Shepherd:
That’s right. Splash Montana has that great zero-depth entry where you can bring little toddlers, even preschoolers, right in. They can walk in and you’ve got that big shallow area. It’s great for teaching swimming lessons and just swimming with your little ones.
Mike Smith:
Okay. And then, of course, it’s so funny walking my dog at Playfair because you hear just the wild screams coming out of there, and I think it’s people on the water slides.
Hannah Shepherd:
Probably. We’ve got three big water slides — the tube slide where you can ride an inner tube down, plus the two little fast ones. It’s great. Kids love it.
Mike Smith:
And then the lazy river.
Hannah Shepherd:
It’s just a chill, relaxing ride, with the occasional splash from one of the buckets above.
Mike Smith:
Sprayers and buckets.
Hannah Shepherd:
They’re all super fun.
Mike Smith:
And then someone here, when we were talking about you coming in, everybody was pretty excited — especially with this upcoming heat dome and things are going to be kind of hot. So, a good time to celebrate swimming pools.
Hannah Shepherd:
It definitely is.
Mike Smith:
Someone here, I think it was Tommy, said something like, “Oh, you know, one of the greatest things about Splash Montana has to be the Dippin’ Dots.”
Hannah Shepherd:
Oh, heck yeah.
Mike Smith:
Do you still have the Dippin’ Dots?
Hannah Shepherd:
Not only do we still have the Dippin’ Dots, we just added a new Dippin’ Dot station so that it improves the speed of getting your Dippin’ Dots faster, plus it lightens up the line at the concession stand a little bit.
Mike Smith:
Oh, that’s great. Yeah.
Hannah Shepherd:
Yeah.
Mike Smith:
Back in my day, it was mostly just a quarter for the vending machine.
Hannah Shepherd:
Yeah.
Mike Smith:
So it’s really come a long way. Splash Montana at Playfair Park, celebrating 20 years of fun in the sun, gets underway. The perfect opening to it gets underway this Sunday with a meet and greet.
Hannah Shepherd:
That’s right. We’re going to have Oscar the Otter on the pool deck every hour, and he’s going to be out there handing out balloons and being available for taking pictures.
Mike Smith:
Nice. Not to spoil it… so who’s in the otter?
Otter, is it like Monty where you pick one person to do this all season?
Hannah Shepherd:
Nope. We have a couple different people.
Mike Smith:
Okay.
Hannah Shepherd:
But I’m not going to spoil the secret.
Mike Smith:
No, it is Oscar all the time. Oscar the Otter. All right.
So then on Monday, the Beach Ball Blast — what is that?
Hannah Shepherd:
So we’re going to just have lots of fun beach balls in the pool, throwing them around. Different sizes of beach balls. That part will be a little bit of a surprise as well.
Also on Monday, we’re going to have all sorts of safety lessons going on every 20 minutes. We’ll have a different safety topic that you can come up and learn, and there are nine different safety topics. We’ll have prizes for people who do all nine.
Mike Smith:
And you are probably full of tons of advice for safe swimming, whether it be the pool or out in the wild. You probably have a lot of great ideas about that.
Hannah Shepherd:
Yes, indeed.
Mike Smith:
Okay. Let’s see, Tuesday — Marco Polo.
Hannah Shepherd:
Polo.
Mike Smith:
Okay.
Hannah Shepherd:
We’re going to have scavenger hunts throughout the day during both sessions. Those ones are going to be a little bit more aimed at the youth.
Then from 7 to 9 in the evening during adult night, we’ll have an adult scavenger hunt that has just a little bit harder questions and more adult prizes.
Mike Smith:
So basically adult night means that adults are there without kids.
Hannah Shepherd:
That’s right. It’s a way to get away from the kids but still play at Splash Montana.
Mike Smith:
It’s unsupervised adults. It’s getting yelled at by the teenage lifeguard for doing something wrong that night, which just happened to me.
Okay. Wednesday, Bump Set Splash. What’s that all about?
Hannah Shepherd:
We’re going to have volleyball in that big grassy area over by the lake, by the 50-meter pool. We’ll have volleyball going on all day long.
And then during the team night from 7 to 9 in the evening, we’re going to have water volleyball in the pond.
Mike Smith:
Cool.
Hannah Shepherd:
And there’ll be a little bit of a volleyball tournament going on. So get signed up for that if you’re interested.
Mike Smith:
And then a cornhole tournament on Thursday as well.
As well as, let’s talk about Friday — “Make a Splash at Splash.” This is going to be fun. I know some people that would destroy the cannonball tournament.
Hannah Shepherd:
That’s right. We are really looking forward to this.
This is our Splash Big Slam from 7 to 9 p.m. on Friday night. We’re going to have some special judges come out. We’re going to do some cannonball contests, some sliding contests, some diving contests.
And there’s going to be all sorts of prizes, different age groups, so lots of people can win all of the different things.
Mike Smith:
So that’s on Friday.
And Hannah, can you tell me with all your aquatic experience, does the cannonball make a bigger splash than the jackknife?
Hannah Shepherd:
I would say actually a jackknife — or what should we call it when we’re kids?
Mike Smith:
We call it somehow.
Hannah Shepherd:
You grab the other shin and pull it up to your chest. That’s the jackknife.
Mike Smith:
Leaning back like that and using your back, it really pushes the water.
When I was a young lifeguard and people were trying to pick on me by splashing me in the stand, that’s what they would always do.
Hannah Shepherd:
Yeah.
Mike Smith:
One of my biggest bummers was one summer I was a teenager growing up in Bozeman, and I ended up with a job on a farm.
I learned a couple of things that summer. One is that farmers work really hard, long hours.
I ran into a couple of friends of mine who were on the swim team that summer and I was like, “What do you got? I am exhausted. What do you guys do?”
And they were like, “We’re lifeguarding.”
Hannah Shepherd:
Yeah.
Mike Smith:
And I thought, that can’t be exhausting. The idea that they were twisting by the pool while I was out there on the farm.
So what sort of advice would you give to somebody who wants to become a lifeguard?
Hannah Shepherd:
First is, obviously, you’ve got to know how to swim.
And we do, when we hire our lifeguards, we fully train you. You don’t have to pay for the class if you’re one of our hired lifeguards.
So just come and take a class from us and you can become a lifeguard.
Mike Smith:
And then you can have summertime employment for a time.
Hannah Shepherd:
And not just summertime, because we also have Currents Aquatic Center, which is opening around—
Mike Smith:
Okay.
All right. What’s happening with the 20th anniversary celebration, Splash Montana?
Besides just everybody cooling off during this hot, hot weather that’s coming our way.
Hannah Shepherd:
I think we pretty much covered it. We have daily events. We have prizes for almost everything.
Just come on down and enjoy whichever events you’re really interested in, as well as definitely come to that Splash Big Slam on Friday night.
Mike Smith:
Okay.
As a competitor or a spectator.
Hannah Shepherd:
That’s right.
Mike Smith:
Okay.
Splash Montana birthday bash, celebrating 20 years of fun in the sun, gets underway on Sunday.
You can find out more at the website, which is the Splash Montana city page. We’ll also put some stuff up on the Trail website.
542-WAVE is how you can find out more as well.
All right, parting thought, Hannah.
Hannah Shepherd:
So my parting thought is just that I want you to know the best way to stay safe in and around the pool, or in and around water, is to swim with your kiddos.
Mike Smith:
Super smart.
All right, Hannah, I hope it’s an awesome success. Give my best to everybody over at Splash Montana.
Hannah Shepherd:
I can’t wait. Looking forward to it.
Mike Smith:
Thanks for coming and stopping by the Trail.