Ty Hampton
Reporter

photo by Tim Kupsick

Whether it was the change in latitude from humidity-ridden Tulsa, Okla., to the unbearably cold winters of Bozeman, Mont., or the pivotal timing of the move in his youthful development, Ty, at age 13, would never be the same.

Ty bitterly sleep-walked through much of middle school and high school in Bozeman, a community he refers to not so affectionately as the greatest little sheltered yuppie ski-resort town in the Northwest. He rarely took any interest in his studies, other than the occasional art class, until as a senior he stumbled across the notion of writing for his high-school newspaper, Hawk Tawk.

With a year of writing under his belt, Ty headed to Missoula to attend the University of Montana with journalism on the brain. He felt it was his only strength academically. It wasn’t until the end of his first semester in college when he met his future girlfriend, Tiffany, that Ty started to shed his apathetic view of the world and embrace life.

Ty began taking pride in hard work as he put in long hours at school and on a number of minimum-wage jobs to get himself through college. Ty and Tiffany, an aspiring young pharmacy student, are going on three years of dating, and he credits her for his newfound motivation to achieve the humble level of success he has had through his senior year at UM.

Ty is in his second semester of writing for the university newspaper, the Montana Kaimin, and has covered topics ranging from the politics of the university’s student government to the Rolling Stones concert at the football stadium in early October.

Ty landed an internship over the summer reporting, editing and compiling stories for Bugle magazine, a hunting and conservation bi-monthly based out of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation’s Missoula headquarters.

Last spring, Ty received the Ronald Miller Scholarship award from the UM School of Journalism for students who have established themselves in and out of the classroom.

In his spare time, Ty is a music fanatic and enjoys a good rock concert or two, traveling far and wide to seek out his favorite bands. Ty has also taken an interest in short-story writing and screen writing as creative-writing and media-arts courses have filled his school hours in around his journalism ventures. Ty’s immediate goals are to graduate in the spring, with hopes for additional internships and a newspaper-reporter job in the near future.

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