Good morning; on the Beacon today, as the holiday season approaches and temperatures continue to fall, many food banks in the Flathead Valley are seeing customer numbers spike and some supplies run thin. The Bigfork Vikings host Fairfield for the championship on Saturday Nov. 20 at 1 p.m. Federal wildlife agents are offering a $2,500 reward for information about the apparent shooting deaths of two gray wolves in northwestern Montana’s Flathead National Forest.
House Republicans on Wednesday elected Rep. Mike Milburn of Cascade as their new speaker. A 26-year-old firefighter from Dillon says he started a fire in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest and later worked on the Forest Service crew that extinguished the blaze. House Democrats elected Nancy Pelosi to remain as their leader Wednesday despite massive party losses in this month’s congressional elections that prompted some lawmakers to call for new leadership. Consumer prices rose moderately in October but there was little sign of inflation as the cost of autos, clothing and hotels fell. The Griz take on the Bobcats this weekend as MSU is led by two freshmen. Democrats may be in the minority at the upcoming 2011 Legislature, but that doesn’t mean they can’t work to solve the economic and budget issues facing the state, their leaders said Wednesday. A press release issued Wednesday by the White House said that Darrell James Bell, who spent 31 years with the BPD, has been nominated to head up the U.S. Marshals Service’s Montana District. A Montana group that financed three conservative ballot measures in 2006 has settled a long-running dispute with the state’s chief campaign cop, agreeing to disclose the source of $1.2 million used to support the measures.