Good morning; on the Beacon today, the members of the Flathead Quilters Guild will have a chance to showcase their talent on Sept. 24 and 25 at the guild’s 29th annual quilt show at the Flathead County Fairgrounds. Bigfork’s Vikings are undergoing a football revival. Authorities say they have seized 91 pot plants from a medical marijuana caregiver’s home near Marion. Authorities have found a fishing pole believed to belong to a Hungry Horse man missing since he took an afternoon fishing trip to Glacier National Park. And Mick Holien recalls a simpler era of sports that maybe wasn’t so simple.
Three Montana mines have been hit with dozens of safety citations in recent months as federal officials step up enforcement against mines that have had repeated problems. The Montana Board of Regents on Thursday approved University of Montana Provost Royce Engstrom as the school’s next president. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina, once a journalism student at the University of Montana, is back in Missoula for Homecoming activities this week for the second time since he was appointed to President Barack Obama’s staff. The Montana Farm Bureau Federation, a water users group and a Libertarian think tank are among those asking the U.S. Supreme Court to accept the appeal of PPL Montana, which wants the nation’s high court to overturn a state court ruling that says PPL owes Montana millions of dollars in rent on its hydroelectric dams. Republican Public Service Commission challenger Bill Gallagher on Thursday fired the latest salvo over the candidates’ financial holdings, noting that Democrat Ken Toole owns mutual funds with shares of companies regulated by the PSC. A Colorado pot grower trying a first-in-the-nation drug defense based on Obama administration memos about marijuana saw his case take a serious blow Wednesday when a federal judge felled the effort.