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Squirrel responsible for Missoula power outage earns environmental engineering degree at MSU

in News
Squirrel responsible for Missoula power outage earns environmental engineering degree at MSU
Vesuvius Chuck, pictured above, was responsible for a power outage incident in Montana in September.
Jen Clanceyby Jen Clancey
April 1, 2024

EBS STAFF

Vesuvius Chuck, better known as V. Chuck, became the first squirrel to earn an accelerated degree in environmental engineering from Montana State University in March. Notorious for his Sept. 19 stunt in Missoula, in which he caused a power-outage for roughly 14,500 Northwestern Energy customers, he said he has plans for something even bigger post-graduation. 

“He’s really brilliant. A terrifying little creature,” Dr. Mackler-Johnson, a professor of environmental and chemical engineering, told EBS. “One time I gave him a C and he said he would chew apart the power lines in my entire neighborhood.”

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A peer of his added that Chuck is a hardworking student, if not a bit too determined. “We took an intro geology class together and that dude’s got a weird obsession with volcanic rock,” the student said. The source preferred his name remain off record but added that on one field study, Chuck had the student collect two backpacks full of igneous rocks and carry them out. 

“He didn’t even say thank you,” the student noted. 

In his valedictorian speech, Chuck reportedly mentioned a move to Big Sky, noting its unique geologic features and access to high-altitude cable lines, on which he has a habit of balancing.

“I have big plans for Big Sky,” he is quoted in his valedictorian speech, which happened in an early ceremony last month. 

Attendees noted that Chuck spoke with a Gatsby-like accent, despite having grown up in a Douglas fir in the backyard of a Missoula duplex. 

“One time I tried to shoo him away from my bird feeder and he said ‘Scurry off, old sport’,” Missoula resident Jacob Lapiz said. “Like—where did he learn that?” Today, Chuck reportedly resides in a pine tree adjacent to Ben Affleck’s property at the Yellowstone Club. 

“It’s always been my dream to be neighbors with that white guy in ‘Argo,’” classmates recall Chuck saying in his valedictorian speech. 

We may never know where this squirrel learned his talents for engineering, or what he has planned for Big Sky, but given his track record, he will undoubtedly make his mark. 

Generators are in limited supply at Ace Hardware. 

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