BUTTE -- About 13 months ago, Justus Peterson could have really used a friend with an airplane. 

The Montana Tech senior was hoping to be two places at once — he'd qualified for the Northern Rodeo Association finals with the opportunity to win a hefty amount of money wrestling steers, but Peterson also had obligations in Butte. The Oredigger football team had a pivotal Frontier Conference game with Rocky Mountain College. 

"I was really trying to figure out a way I could do both," Peterson remembered. 

But it was unrealistic. NRA finals were in Kalispell, a four-hour drive from the Montana Tech campus. He chose his football team, and he helped the Orediggers to a 37-0 win over their conference rivals that weekend. 

It was just one example of the selflessness that has defined Peterson's college career. Saturday, the three-sport athlete — Peterson played five seasons of football for Montana Tech and now competes in rodeo and track & field for the Orediggers — will be recognized as Montana Tech's winner of the Montana Athletes in Service Award. Peterson and the honorees from other institutions in Big Sky Country will be honored by the Montana Campus Network for Civic Engagement at halftime of the Montana-Montana State football game in Missoula. 

But for Peterson, service was a tradition he was born into. Growing up on a ranch outside of Dillon, helping neighbors was part of the culture. 

"If somebody needed help branding, or if they were going out of town and needed someone to feed the horses, it's just what you did," Peterson said. "That's the kind of person you want to be, and when the opportunity to arises to give back or help someone that could be struggling or needs an extra hand, it makes you feel good as a person." 

Peterson starred in football, basketball, and track & field at Beaverhead County High School. He quarterbacked the Beavers to the state playoffs in multiple years and was a key part of the Montana Class A champion track & field team in 2019. So when the time came to look at colleges, the question wasn't if he would play a sport at the next level but which. 

Montana Tech, however, didn't seem a realistic possibility. 

Both Peterson's parents, Jenny and Jesse, were star athletes at Tech's fierce rival, Montana Western. Jenny played basketball and volleyball and later coached the Bulldogs' volleyball program for 12 seasons. Jesse was a two-time national champion steer wrestler for Western and later coached the rodeo team. 

So when Justus showed interest in playing football at Montana Tech, his folks were understandably skeptical. Jenny didn't even come to Butte for the campus visit. 

"My dad wanted me to do something that I liked. He wasn't too focused on anything like a rivalry or anything," Justus said. 

Both Justus and his father were impressed when they toured campus and learned about the academic programs, so the conversation continued. 

And when Kyle Samson, then Tech's offensive coordinator and now in his fifth year as the Orediggers' head football coach, paid the Petersons a visit around Thanksgiving of 2019, Jenny started to come around. 

"There isn't anybody Coach Samson can't recruit," Justus laughed. So in January, when Samson called Justus to tell him who the Orediggers' new head coach was, Peterson hitched his wagon to Tech.

Peterson spent his first three years at Montana Tech as a reserve quarterback. He worked diligently in meetings and film study and spent countless hours running the scout team, but the coaching staff saw ways for him to contribute on the field, too. He began playing on special teams, and prior to his fourth season, they moved Peterson to safety. 

"Justus is one of my all-time favorite players I have ever coached," Samson said. "He's extremely humble and an incredible servant-leader. He will always put the team first and was always there for his teammates and brothers." 

He became an integral part of the Oredigger defense and special teams and helped Tech reach the NAIA postseason in 2023 and 2024, totaling 12 tackles, a tackle-for-loss, and a pass deflection. 

"It was crazy to watch the growth [of the program], finding guys that truly fit at Tech and aren't about themselves, it's about a team," Peterson said."It was awesome to grow with those guys that you came in with and to walk on Senior Day with those guys, it was quite the experience. It was fun. Wouldn't trade it for the world." 

His contribution didn't stop on the gridiron. Looking for more ways to get involved, Peterson joined Montana Tech's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, an organization that connects student-athletes on campus with the administration, the NAIA's national governance, and community involvement opportunities. 

So when SAAC was looking for a male student-athlete to serve as co-president beside track & field and volleyball star Abby Clark, Peterson stepped up. 

It wasn't completely altruistic, he admitted. 

"I thought she was cute," Peterson said. 

Not long after, the two went skiing on their first date. Ever since, they've been a proverbial power couple on the Montana Tech campus, working together to organize impactful service opportunities for student-athletes, including annual blood drives with the Red Cross and canned food drives to support local families in need. SAAC also organizes and presents the TECHSPYs, Montana Tech's annual athletic awards program. 

Independently, Peterson registered with the Be the Match registry for stem cell and bone marrow transplants. He's been matched with a 68-year-old Leukemia patient, and the potentially life-saving donation process is in motion. 

Peterson also devoted hours upon hours assisting with the Orediggers' summer youth football camps. The impact of those camps has been lasting. Peterson said he's been stopped multiple times around Butte by former campers who remembered his kindness and just wanted to say thank you. 

"It's a special feeling to know that you made that kind of impact," he said. 

Somewhere along the line, Peterson's rodeo heritage presented another itch that needed scratching. It shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone given his roots. Jesse enjoyed a long rodeo career after his collegiate successes, taking his young family all over the west to compete. Jenny's father, Benny Reynolds, won the 1961 World All-Around Cowboy title, appeared on ads for Wrangler jeans and Lipton tea, and is in the ProRodeo Hall of Fame. 

But aside from growing up riding horses like most ranch-bred kids do, Peterson didn't have any rodeo experience. He began practicing with friends around Dillon two summers ago. 

"The first time I took off on a horse was to jump my first steer," Peterson said with a laugh. But he was hooked immediately. He decided to chase his next challenge in "bulldogging," rodeo slang for steer wrestling.

Peterson's rookie year on the Northern Rodeo Association couldn't have gone much better. He won runs at the Polson, Bozeman, and Shelby rodeos and placed in a number of others, but all that was on the down low on the Tech campus; if he twisted an ankle or busted a knee bulldogging, it would not have gone over well with the football staff. 

"I was doing that on the weekends while doing summer football workouts," he remembered. "It was just a really fun summer, and I won some money. I decided this was what I want to do." 

But after his football career ended when Tech lost in the NAIA second round last season, Peterson already had his eye on the next challenge — college rodeo. He filled out the necessary paperwork and got the blessing of then-chancellor Dr. Les Cook to restart the dormant Montana Tech rodeo club, making the Orediggers a team of one in 2024-25. Despite competing a partial schedule, Peterson found his way onto the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association's Big Sky Region leaderboard. 

In the meantime, Peterson also joined Montana Tech's track & field team. An all-state hurdler in high school, he couldn't pass up another opportunity to represent the Orediggers. He finished eighth in both the 110-meter and 400-meter hurdles at the Frontier Conference championships in the spring. 

Then rodeo season swung back around. Peterson found a new horse, Tabasco, from Arizona, and he recruited some experienced riders to haze (Hazers ride alongside the bulldogger to help get the steer into optimal position for the takedown.) for him. He set a lofty goal — the NRA steer wrestling title and annual earnings record. 

"I knew what the earnings record was, and I knew that I had a horse and what I needed to do," Peterson said. 

His experience in other sports gave him the confidence to chase such a goal. 

Peterson got off to a hot start on the NRA circuit and won some early money on the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association circuit as well. Peterson carried that momentum through the year and entered last month's NRA finals in Kalispell at the top of the standings. A couple more good runs, and the earnings record was within reach, too. 

After a tough first go, Peterson came through in the second round with a runner-up run. 

In the third round, Peterson found himself with a less-than-ideal draw. It was a steer that left him with a no-time earlier in the season. But this time, the run came together. Peterson brought it down in just 4.8 seconds, enough to win second in the go and, more importantly,  enough to clinch the season title and the earnings record. He brought home $10,148.97 throughout the season. 

"With football and running track that spring, it helped me stay focused and to be in situations where you need to do this, and to have to do it, and to not let that get into you mentally and affect your performance," Peterson explained. "I think that really helped with the situations that I put myself in." 

With that behind him, Peterson is now focused on making the most of his final collegiate seasons in both rodeo and track. He currently sits third in the NIRA's Big Sky steer wrestling standings and is in the hunt to qualify for College National Finals. In track, he now has his feet under him again and hopes to chase all-conference honors and a national-qualifying time in the hurdles or 4x400m relay. 

"It's a lofty goal, but it would be really cool," he said. 

In the meantime, he will continue to serve his community when he sees people in need. 

"I've always lived by the motto, 'Leave it better than you found it,'" Peterson said. "That mindset has guided me since the first day I set foot in Butte. I truly love this community and its people, and volunteering allows me to give back to a place that has given me so much."

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