Keith Edgerton will present his talk, Copper King on KBOW’s Partyline. Listen in at 101.5FM or kbow550.net/partyline.

Keith Edgerton currently teaches modern American history, environmental history, and Montana history, at Montana State University-Billings where he has been a professor of history there for the last 27 years and where he is currently the chair of the history department.  He holds a B.A. and M.A. in history from the University of Montana and a Ph.D. in American Studies from Washington State University.  He has published and has spoken on a variety of Montana history topics including his true passion, the journey of the Lewis and Clark expedition. He has published two books, one on the history of the Montana Highway Patrol and one based on his doctoral research entitled Montana Justice:  Power, Punishment, and the Penitentiary published by the University of Washington Press in 2005.

Currently, he is at work on a biography of William A. Clark (not to be confused with the William Clark of Lewis and Clark fame).  This particular William A. Clark was one of Montana’s late 19th-century copper barons and became a U.S. Senator in 1901 in an election tainted by, to put it mildly, scandal and corruption.  When he died in New York in 1925 he was one of the wealthiest individuals in the world.

Keith lives in Billings with his “amore” and wife,  Lenette Kosovich.  They love to cook, travel, make home brew, and in the summer canoe through the scenic White Cliffs region of the upper Missouri.  Between them, they have five boys in various states of adulthood.