Good morning; on the Beacon today, a Republican who has served three terms in the state House, Jon Sonju, goes up against a Democrat new to politics, Mary Reckin, in the race for Kalispell’s Senate District 4. Biology and geology teacher Hans Bodenhamer and the members of Bigfork High School’s Cave Club know what it is like to encounter a 6-foot-long cluster of spiders while spelunking in Glacier National Park. A Montana man accused of attacking another man with a knife at a North Dakota gas station, thirty-one-year-old Peter Maki of Kalispell, will avoid prison but will spend the next 20 years receiving treatment for mental illness under supervision of the court. Wild Bill sings the praises of the Glacier National Park shuttle system. Mick Holien writes about the good chance, according to a source close to UM, that the Western Athletic Conference may soon invite up to three Big Sky Conference schools into their fold in 2012.
A Montana tea party association’s board will reconsider kicking its president out of the group for an anti-gay exchange on Facebook after several members resigned over his dismissal, a board member said Wednesday. The Deepwater Horizon oil well blowout that killed 11 men and resulted in the largest oil spill in US history was the result of a series of human and mechanical failures by “multiple companies and work teams,” including the companies’ own representatives, according to a report by BP released Wednesday. A federal bankruptcy judge says he will not reward the “greedy antics” of financial giant Credit Suisse by ordering the repayment of a $229 million loan it arranged for the exclusive Yellowstone Club. Although he is concerned about “the lack of vitality in the U.S. labor market,” and calls the current unemployment trend “disturbing,” the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis said he does believe a modest economic recovery is happening in the United States. A Hamilton man just released from prison was arrested Tuesday on what could be his 13th DUI. More than 160 former red bus drivers are gathering in Glacier National park this week for a reunion. The 27,000-acre Spotted Dog Ranch, purchased last week by the state for $15.2 million and renowned for the estimated 1,800 head of elk that winter there, is now open to the public for hunting. The Schweitzer administration submitted the state’s application Wednesday for $30.7 million in federal education funds from a recently passed jobs bill, but the details of when schools will be able to spend the money still haven’t been determined. An architect hired by the legislative branch has recommended that the state construct a 30,000-square-foot building on a parking lot across the street and south of the Capitol to meet future space needs of the Legislature.