An Overview of Missoula’s Sister-City Programs – Palmerston North, New Zealand and Neckargemünd, Germany

In 1991 the Missoula City Council passed a resolution setting in motion the preliminary
work toward establishing a sister-city relationship with the German city of Neckargemünd, located near the famous university city of Heidelberg. Neckargemünd itself, consisting of the 1000-year-old core town and four other villages that have been integrated over the past sixty years, has approximately 15,000 inhabitants, but it is imbedded in the Rhein-Neckar county which, with Heidelberg, Mannheim, and numerous other smaller towns, boasts a population of several hundred thousand citizens.

Neckargemünd is located on the Neckar River, a tributary of the legendary Rhine, some five or six miles upriver from Heidelberg and its university with 30,000 students, founded in 1386. Following a Fulbright-sponsored faculty exchange between Professors Erich Pohl (Heidelberg) and Gerald Fetz (University of Montana), a Neckargemünd delegation, led by Mayor Oskar Schuster, visited Missoula and conferred with city officials and citizens about the possibility of establishing relationships between the two communities.

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Many thanks to Mark Martin of the Missoula Cultural Council for providing this information. It’s appropriate that we provide this information in light of the upcoming trade mission to Palmerston North, New Zealand "Montana World Trade Center Plans Trade Mission to Australia, New Zealand – Export-ready consumer-good companies and others are being sought to participate" http://www.matr.net/article-9233.html . Russ

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In 1992 Missoula’s Mendelssohn Club Choir opened a European tour in Neckargemünd, accompanied there by then Mayor Daniel Kemmis and others. Another exchange of delegations in 1993 and 1994 led to the signing of the official sister-city documents on both sides of the Atlantic, and the relationship has thrived and expanded ever since. Faculty and student exchanges involving the two universities, high school exchanges involving Missoula students from all three public high schools and their German counterparts, art and photo exhibit exchanges, and numerous visits by citizens of Missoula in Neckargemünd and vice-versa are just some of the features of this international relationship. As part of this sister-city program, the Missoula Sister-City Committee for Neckargemünd has staged an annual GermanFest since 1993, and is currently planning an expanded cultural tour to Neckargemünd and other locations in Germany for early June 1999.

Missoula’s sister-city relationship with Palmerston North, New Zealand, has been in place even longer, having resulted from a 1983 meeting between then UM President Neil Bucklew and officials from Massey University. That relationship had been nourished by (now retired) UM Professor of Geography H.W. Bockemuehl, who had earned his Ph.D. at Massey. Although some faculty and student exchanges between UM and Massey have taken place over the years, the sister-city portion of the relationship was relatively dormant until recently. The MCC has worked hard to rekindle interest and activity in this relationship which has great potential, and the result has been a considerable increase in contacts and plans in both cities. During the last several months alone, several guests from Palmerston North have come to Missoula, and a new Missoula Sister-City Committee for Palmerston North has developed. It, too, is a sub-committee of the Missoula Cultural Council.

While it is not formalized at an official sister-city level, Missoula has also established lively relationships in Japan. Student exchanges involving Missoula high schools and schools in Date City have taken place regularly and frequently in the past few years, and Missoula’s Japan Club has developed several other contacts, including some in Kumamoto Prefecture, which enjoys a sister-state relationship with Montana. Missoula’s Friendship Force also sponsors group visitations and home stays throughout the world, and Missoula has several “ethnic” organizations which carry on traditions and/or maintain contacts with Scotland, Ireland, Norway, etc. And, of course, we have noteworthy groups of citizens from abroad: especially the Hmong and White Russians.

The international influence and awareness in Missoula, highlighted by Missoula’s sister-city program as well as these other relationships and activities, produces significant benefits in terms of tourism and enhances our dynamic and exciting cultural and social environment. Missoula is very much in the “global loop.” Our writers and artists, scholars and researchers, community leaders and Children’s Theater, businesses and International Choral Festival –all of which are involved in and foster international contacts and relationships– give Missoula an openness to the world which few other communities in our region or state can claim.

Only three Montana communities have sister-city programs: Livingston with Naghanohara in Japan, Great Falls with Sharya in Russia, and Missoula with Neckargemünd and Palmerston North.

Short takes on Missoula’s Sister City Program:

Palmerston North, New Zealand

• Similar in size to Missoula, it prizes its cultural environment and recreational resources.

• The Sister City committees in both communities are working on an exchange of art work that will include Native American and Maori pieces.

• “The Ambassadors” performed at an International Choral Festival in Missoula and another group is planning to attend the next Festival in 2000.

• Michelle Ward, who is doing graduate work at UM, writes reports on her Missoula experiences for the daily newspaper in Palmerston North.

• A lively pen-pals correspondence took place last year between fifth-graders at Roosevelt school and a Maori school in Palmerston North. More such exchanges are being planned for the upcoming school year.

• Despite the distance, Palmerston North holds great attractions for Missoulians. Tom Collins has been there over 32 times.

• John Hornblow, who visited Missoula in 1996, is chairman of Palmerston North’s Sister City committee and is standing for Mayor in the upcoming election there.

. The Palmerston North econ dev organization is at http://www.visionmanawatu.org.nz/

• Palmerston North’s Internet Home Page (http://www.pncc.govt.nz/) includes many color views of “Knowledge City” and includes a web link to the City of Missoula website.

Neckargemünd, Germany

• A delegation from Missoula visited this historic village in 1993 and a cultural tour is now in the planning stages for next year.

• This Sister City relationship is commemorated each year at the Germanfest ethnic celebration in Missoula. This year’s event will take place on Sunday afternoon, September 13, at the Caras Park Pavilion. Special guests will be a delegation of high school students from Neckargemünd.

• A group of Hellgate High School students visited Neckargemünd in June, staying with families there and exhibiting materials from Missoula at the village park. Photos and other materials they brought back will be on display at the Missoula Public Library during September.

• Also in the planning stages is an exchange of photographic art, including historical subjects, between the two communities.

Sister Cities International website is at http://www.sister-cities.org