Message from our Founder
January 2026
by Jenny Barriger, Owner | Founder
The Genius of Place
At the start of my 19th year of publishing in Billings, I find myself thinking about the soul of this community we call home. It takes me back to something I read a while ago about the word 'genius'. In ancient times, genius didn’t mean intelligence or accomplishment. The Romans used it to describe the spirit of a person, the part of them that was uniquely theirs. And they believed places carried this spirit, too. They called it genius loci, the soul of a place.
They saw every person and place with their own inner spark. It was a deep understanding and feeling that every place shaped the people who live there, whether they knew it or not.
I’ve lived in Billings for 26 years, and over time I’ve fallen in love with the genius of this place. Not because it’s perfect. No community is. But because it is woven into the fabric of my life and has become part of who I am at my very core.
I see Billings’ spirit everywhere. In the quiet of a cold morning downtown, as you walk to buy this week’s fresh bread. In the energy of a Friday night high school football game, cheering for your favorite team. At the downtown farmers market, where we greet each other like family. It shows up in the laughter and live music spilling from a busy restaurant patio in the summer, and in the warmth of a crowded local coffee shop in the fall.
It’s also something as simple as running errands and knowing the people you pass. Friends who visit me always comment on how many people I know when we’re out. I tell them it has nothing to do with me. It’s Billings, that is just how we live life here.
In recent years, I have also come to see Billings from a different perspective. My kids were toddlers when I published my first issue. They’ve since moved away for college and careers, yet when they come home, they arrive with a list of everything they want to experience that they can only experience here. A walk on the rims, dirty soda or coffee in hand. Meals at their favorite restaurants. Catching up with friends at local spots they know well. They carry the spirit of this place with them, even thousands of miles away.
That’s the genius of Billings. And it’s inside all of us.
It can fade into the background in a world that moves too fast. We forget how special local life is when we can scroll and order anything we desire with no effort at all. But when we pause long enough to notice what’s right here, there is appreciation. And when we nurture it, when we show up and support the people building meaningful things, life feels fuller. Connections deepen. Local stops are no longer taken for granted; they are seen as essential.
Billings is uniquely its own. It is our state’s city, yet still small town, surrounded by the rural landscape of Montana. It is a unique treasure that belongs only to this place and the people who call it home.
As we step into a new year together, my promise to you is to work together with my amazing team to keep finding ways to lift our community and support the life we live here. My hope for you is simple. Join us. Notice it. Celebrate it. Get involved and feel connected to the spirit that makes Billings your home.
Here’s to another year of living the genius of this place, together.
Happy New Year, from all of us at Simply Local.
Originally printed in the January 2026 issue of Simply Local Magazine
Read this article in the digital issue of Simply Local here!
