From bus routes to ball games, diesel prices are squeezing rural Montana school budgets

At Beaverhead County High School in the southwest corner of Montana, superintendent Josh Patterson had a dilemma last month when the school’s football team, the Beavers, qualified for a state playoff game in Whitefish. Patterson had to get students back and forth from Dillon to Whitefish, a roughly 12-hour round-trip bus ride.