If Tyler Matsdorf '04 found himself a little homesick when he arrived at Bates from Billings, Montana, the problem soon disappeared when he enrolled in Social Problems, an introductory sociology course taught by Victoria Johnson. The course required each student to participate in an internship focused on a social problem. Matsdorf chose farming.

"I found a little piece of Montana right here," he says, referring to State Senator John Nutting's 300-acre dairy farm in Leeds. Matsdorf, an experienced farmhand who is accustomed to cruising a 20,000-plus-acre cattle and horse ranch in Roscoe, Montana, adjusted to his Eastern environs by interning on Nutting's family-owned farm. "It was therapeutic for him," Nutting says, referring to the pleasure of physical farm labor.

On alternate Sundays, Matsdorf handled whatever chores needed to be done on the Nutting property. Chopping and stacking wood, unloading hay, milking or cleaning the 100 Holstein cows, "he pitched right in and did whatever needed to be done," says Nutting, chair of the state's agriculture, conservation, and forestry committee. Despite some obvious differences — Nutting is a lifelong Democrat, while Tyler cites a Republican pedigree — a strong friendship between the two blossomed quickly. "It helped me to get a different perspective on farming, to talk with a farmer from Maine, and especially one who has so much influence," Tyler says.