By Jason Stuart
Ranger-Review Staff Writer
The lumbering beast let out a continuous series of mechanical growls and roars as it pounded around the group use shelter in Makoshika State Park on Saturday, sending children either squealing with glee towards it or running in terror from the first ‘dinosaur’ to walk around Makoshika in over 65 million years.
Buzzard Day in Makoshika on Saturday saw the premiere of the park’s newest ‘attraction’ and unofficial new mascot, “Mak” the T-rex. And Mak’s journey to the park to arrive on time for the event was every bit as long and twisting as the migrations of the eponymous buzzards whose annual return to the park the day marks.
Mak’s journey to Makoshika began about a month and a half ago when the Friends of Makoshika (FOM) voted to agree on a proposal by Dave Fuqua. As the group was discussing the line-up of events for this year’s Buzzard Day, Fuqua said he proposed they seek out some kind of dinosaur suit as a means of adding some new excitement to the annual event.
“I was like you know what, we need something different, and this is something we can use all year round,” Fuqua said.
Fuqua had done some research looking for a dinosaur suit. He said he had found one in Utah that could be rented, but the cost to rent it and bring it up here would have been around $3,500. So when he found a suit for sale that was built to order for $5,000, he figured that was the far better deal. The FOM members agreed, and voted to expend the money to buy the suit, something Fuqua said he didn’t really expect going in.
“Everybody voted on it, and I couldn’t believe it. I was floating on air after it happened,” he said.
After getting the go-ahead to buy the suit, the next step was getting it here in time, which proved to be a little touch-and-go. For starters, Mak’s journey began a long way from Glendive and required an ocean voyage to reach American shores.
“It was built in China, and it made the dock (in Seattle) on June 2,” Fuqua said.
That might seem like plenty of time to get the suit here from Seattle, except that given it was a giant, mechanical contraption coming from a foreign country, Mak was going to have to spend some time with the U.S. Customs Service before being released for his trip to Glendive. Fuqua said he was furiously working the phones with Customs officials at the Port of Seattle trying to get the suit released on time, and though he found some very helpful Customs agents, he said they initially weren’t very optimistic.
“They rushed, rushed, rushed it, but (Customs) didn’t think there was any way we’d get it by Buzzard Day,” Fuqua said.
Fuqua finally got the call from Customs that the suit was ready to be released last Thursday, leaving precious little time to make the over 1,000 mile trip to Seattle, retrieve the suit and bring it back to Glendive.
According to Fuqua, Drake Orcutt “was the hero” who volunteered to drive to Seattle to retrieve Mak. Picking up a cousin in Butte on the way to help him, Orcutt drove non-stop to Seattle, picked up Mak from Customs, then turned around and drove through the night to reach Glendive in time for Buzzard Day, arriving just in the nick of time at about 4:30 a.m. on Saturday morning.
“It was a rush to make everything go and it was just in the nick of time, so like any good Disney movie, it had a happy ending,” Fuqua said.
Of course the “happy ending” wasn’t guaranteed until Fuqua and the FOM got a first-hand look at what their money and efforts had bought them. Would it be the cutting-edge mechanical suit they hoped or a cheap piece of junk? Once they had the thing in hand and saw it in person, they realized it was the former.
“I was nervous because I didn’t know what to expect and everybody’s taking a big risk on this thing, but it was everything we wanted it to be,” Fuqua said.
Nathan Powell, the former Makoshika manager who left last year to take a position in South Dakota, was back in town for Buzzard Day and was chosen to take the crash-course in learning how to operate all the levers and buttons on the interior of the suit. Later that morning, Powell was ready, and Mak made his triumphant Makoshika debut to a truly wild reception from young and old alike.
Mak will make his home from now on at Makoshika, where he will be brought out on occasion for events, though Fuqua noted the idea is that the suit will be brought out from time to time for big events anywhere in town, not just in the park, from the upcoming Fourth of July parade to the county fair and so on.
“Every time we have an event, we’ll bring ol’ Mak out,” he said.
Fuqua added that he thinks having Mak will help raise both Makoshika’s and Glendive’s profile a bit and that the community needs more outside-the-box thinking like that.
“I think it’s that kind of thinking that will help Glendive. We can’t just get stuck in a rut, we’ve got to think of new things, and this is one,” he said. “It’ll bring attention to Makoshika and it’ll bring attention to Glendive. Glendive’s ready for this ... we need this.”
Reach Jason Stuart at rrreporter@rangerreview.com.