{"id":106738,"date":"2025-07-03T05:01:20","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T11:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uswps06.newsmemory.com\/northernplainsindependent\/news\/2025\/07\/03\/rich-miller\/?destination=northern-plains-independent"},"modified":"2025-07-03T05:05:13","modified_gmt":"2027-12-20T05:05:13","slug":"rich-miller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northernplainsindependent.com\/2025\/07\/03\/rich-miller\/?destination=northern-plains-independent","title":{"rendered":"Rich Miller"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> Rich E Miller, 76, of Terry, Mont., died suddenly June 13, 2025.<br \/>\n\t  Rich, a father, grandfather and great-grandfather, was born in Wolf Point, Mont., on Nov. 18, 1948, to Lynn and Thelma (Wilson) Miller. Rich grew up in Wolf Point, graduating  from high school there in 1966.<br \/>\n\t  Soon afterward, Rich enlisted  in the U.S. Army. After training in helicopter maintenance  at Fort Eustis, Va., he deployed to Vietnam soon after Christmas that year. Assigned to the 498th Medical  Air Ambulance Company, Rich served as a crew chief, earning a Bronze Star with \u201cV\u201d device, the Vietnam Service  Medal with two bronze stars, and the Air Medal with \u201cV\u201d device and four oakleaf clusters. In September 2024, Congress and the president awarded a Gold Medal to \u201cDustoff\u201d pilots, crew chiefs, and medics who \u201cserved honorably during the Vietnam  War aboard helicopter air ambulances.\u201d<br \/>\n\t  Rich returned stateside in January 1968, serving out the remainder of his enlistment at Hunter Army Airfield in Georgia. There, he met and married Sharon Brown. Although  the union did not last, it did result in the birth of their beloved daughter, Nicole  Hope.<br \/>\n\t  Leaving the Army in 1969, Rich returned to Montana and attended the University of Montana, earning a BA in political science in 1973.<br \/>\n\t  Rich and Sharon then returned  to Georgia, where daughter Nicole was born in May 1973. Rich worked for the Southern Railway until 1975, returning to Montana to assist in the family business, Lynn\u2019s Bar in Helena, later that year.<br \/>\n\t  He began a long association with the Montana gaming industry in 1982, eventually becoming executive director of Montana\u2019s Gaming Industry  Association (GIA). Rich enjoyed a broad array of experiences.  As a teenager, he helped farm for an uncle and a future Montana governor. Along with the G.I. Bill, work as a surveyor got him through college. He once even worked <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"news-destination":[14],"news-source":[11],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernplainsindependent.com\/northernplainsindependent\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106738"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernplainsindependent.com\/northernplainsindependent\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernplainsindependent.com\/northernplainsindependent\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernplainsindependent.com\/northernplainsindependent\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernplainsindependent.com\/northernplainsindependent\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106738"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernplainsindependent.com\/northernplainsindependent\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106950,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernplainsindependent.com\/northernplainsindependent\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106738\/revisions\/106950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northernplainsindependent.com\/northernplainsindependent\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernplainsindependent.com\/northernplainsindependent\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernplainsindependent.com\/northernplainsindependent\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106738"},{"taxonomy":"news-destination","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernplainsindependent.com\/northernplainsindependent\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-destination?post=106738"},{"taxonomy":"news-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northernplainsindependent.com\/northernplainsindependent\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-source?post=106738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}