Happy Birthday, Wade.

The Valentine’s Baby all grown up.  High School graduation, Red Lodge, May 2008.

My brother was a Valentine’s baby, born on the 14th of February, 1990.  He never really embraced the teasing – I don’t think Cupid’s Child was a nickname he wanted to stick.  Regardless, he was the greatest Valentine’s gift my mom and dad ever received, and for me, today has never been a Hallmark holiday.  It always represented another notch – another year of experience growing up with the one best friend of my life who had been there for every memory from diapers to adulthood.

Valentine’s Day is an optimistic holiday, and I intend to keep it that way.  Whether today is about prospective romance, or, in my case, about honoring the memory of the most important person in my life, today is a day we celebrate past events that led us to present with an attitude of excitement toward the future.

And today I am excited for the future.  This scholarship project is the best development of the past year of my life, and it will be my sincere honor when awards go out this fall.  But for that to happen, this project still needs your help.  By the end of May, the fund needs $25,000 on hand to make its first awards, or we will have to hold the funds for another year.  That means we need to raise about $7,000 over the next 100 days to get scholarship money out in the fall to support veterans at Montana State who have sacrificed for our collective well-being.

Please consider a one-time or ongoing gift to the Wade Christiansen Purple Heart Scholarship Fund.  Donating is as simple as a few clicks.  Every single dollar preserves the memory of our good friend while supporting higher education in Bozeman for his brothers and sisters of the military.  That’s a two-for-one great deal.  100 percent of your contribution serves military members and their families, and 100 percent of your contribution is federally tax deductible.

Thanks for reading, thanks for your support of the fund, and thanks for being a friend of my brother’s.  Happy Valentine’s Day.  And happy birthday.

-Matt