Good morning; on the Beacon today, Katherine Ohlson is a gifted young photographer at Flathead High who won a scholarship to the National Association of Photoshop Professionals fall conference at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. A small fire west of Kalispell near Three Mile Rive was fully contained before sundown on Thursday evening. Glacier National Park is waiving entrance fees for all visitors on Sept. 26 for National Public Lands Day. While three-time defending champion Billings West is still the team to beat this year in Class AA boys golf, the Glacier Wolfpack are proving once again they are contenders for the state title. And Mick Holien believes if the season Griz football game against Western State is any indicator, this season is going to be extremely enjoyable.
U.S. Sen. Max Baucus remains optimistic he will get bipartisan support for his health care overhaul plan, and predicted it would cut in half the cost an average family would pay to buy mandated health insurance. A Livingston middle school student teacher has been dismissed after she reported accidentally bringing a gun to the school. A legislative fiscal analyst says Montana has ended the 2009 fiscal year with a budget surplus of nearly $23 million more than expected. Flathead County fire officials in northwest Montana say they have been seeing a lot of human caused fires in the past weeks. Gov. Brian Schweitzer said Thursday that the Department of Commerce awarded $300,000 to Porter Bench Energy LLC and $125,000 to NorthWestern Energy, part of which will help NWE assess the feasibility of building up to eight biomass electricity plants. And a must-read story by Kahrin Deines if the Billings Gazette on on how law enforcement authorities are linking a dramatic increase in the number of methamphetamine labs discovered in Montana this year to a tactic for skirting the state’s purchase restrictions on medicines containing pseudoephedrine.