text: Townsend star Ragen to change uniforms
  BUTTE – Townsend graduate Devinn Ragen will play football in Saturday's Montana East-West Shrine Game.
  But the next time the 18-year-old Ragen puts on a uniform, it will be one of a starkly different color.
  Ragen heads off for Army basic training Aug. 18, exactly a month after he'll finish up playing for the West team at Memorial Stadium in Great Falls. He's pretty sure he's the only one on his team who has enlisted.
  "I guess so," Ragen said before laughing. "Everybody else is playing football."
  And if being an outstanding prep football player wasn't enough — just 80 young men are selected to play in the Shrine Game each year — Ragen's other commitment has certainly earned the admiration of the West coaching staff.
  "We should be proud," said Don Peoples, the West's head coach who also has filled that role at Butte Central since 1988. "That young man is going to serve his country."
  Ragen is already a hero back in Townsend. He and the Bulldogs are the defending Class B state champions, the first state title in school history.
  Ragen recalled the title game like he'd played it earlier that morning.
  "Everyone was going nuts because we'd never been there before, so everybody was pretty psyched about it," he remembered. "On the bus ride there, everybody had butterflies."
  The game was played in Worden, home of a highly touted Huntley Project team. Townsend won 14-7. Ragen, who will play center on Saturday, had three sacks on defense.
  "I'm pretty sure we had more Townsend people there than Huntley did," Ragen said. "It was just fun. It was breathtaking, that moment. … Everyone was buzzing around school about it. We all went to Universal Athletic the next day and bought state champs stuff."
  Peoples recalls the Huntley Project team from last year as a tough bunch. Butte Central and the Red Devils stayed in the same hotel during respective playoff trips to Whitefish and Bigfork last season.
  "We saw the size of the Huntley team, so Townsend, to go beat them, they must have been a pretty good football team," the Butte Central coach said.
  Ragen agreed. The 6-foot-3, 215-pounder thought a few of his teammates were worthy of the Shrine Game honor.
  "In my personal opinion, I think both (receiver) Kenny (Wilbur) and (running back) Bryce (Green) should both be here with me … but it's not my decision," he asserted.
  Green was selected as an alternate for the game.
  That said, Ragen's experience with the other graduated seniors who are in the West's camp at Montana Tech has been impressive.
  "I didn't know any of them showing up, and they're athletic," Ragen said. "They're crazy, insane. It's awesome to be able to say that I'm a part of this group, and I'm really looking forward to playing with them Saturday night."
  Ragen hopes to find himself back in Butte once his military training is over with, that time as a student at Tech. He said the Orediggers didn't offer him a football scholarship, but Peoples said he could see that changing.
  "At some point I wouldn't be surprised to see him come back to football," Peoples said. "He's a big, strong kid."