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Wednesday Buffet: Back to School Guide!, Schweitzer’s Barn Burner, Obama Look-Alike

By Beacon Staff

Good morning, today is the anniversary of the Anglo-Zanzibar War, the shortest war in history.

The fattest edition ever of the Beacon hits the stands this morning, a whopping 56 pages with our Back to School supplement that’s got just about everything sports fans, parents and, of course, the kids need to kick off the academic calendar like a bunch of Rhodes scholars. Myers Reece and Julius Macker look at Glacier High’s first ever senior class, Flathead Valley Community College’s Running Start program, the increasingly difficult task of paying for the basic costs of running a school and the unsung heroes of the public school system, the janitors. In other education news, Montana students continue to top the national average when it comes to SAT scores.

Elsewhere in the Flathead, a Montana Highway Patrol trooper was killed in a head-on collision near Columbia Falls Tuesday. The search for a missing backpacker in Glacier Park is planned to continue for another week. And business columnist Mark Riffey offers advice on how to come back from a disaster, like a fire or water damage, at your business.

In state news, Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s speech is being widely lauded in the national media has having brought the house down at the Democratic National Convention. In it, Schweitzer lambasted the energy policy of Republican presidential candidate John McCain – and the state GOP says the speech offers a glimpse of Schweitzer as the partisan attack dog he really is. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama watched Schweitzer’s speech on the couch of a family in Billings last night. NorthWestern Energy is seeking permits for a new natural gas-fired power plant near Anaconda and it hopes to start building the plant by next year.

And finally, what political convention wouldn’t be complete without some weird candidate impersonators? Check out this dude who’s a dead ringer for a Obama. And have a great day.