Good morning; on the Beacon today, it was a tragic weekend in the snow, as a skier, snowboarder and snowmobiler were killed. Scott Allen Meyer, 29, died after falling into a tree well at Whitefish Mountain Resort. Also on Jan. 8, ski area employees found a 68-year-old man unconscious in the middle of a ski run at about 1 p.m. and started CPR. He was taken to North Valley Hospital in Whitefish and was pronounced dead. And Bruce Lee Jungnitsch, 53, was killed in an avalanche while snowmobiling near Hungry Horse Reservoir. Joe Arnone is preparing to mount his bike for a 12-hour ride on Jan. 29, entirely on a stationary bicycle inside Kalispell’s Sportsman and Ski Haus, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. What better way to celebrate the New Year than by sliding across the frozen surface of the Woodland Park pond with family and friends?
The suspect accused of killing six people and wounding Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was decribed as a disturbed young man who was rejected by the military and frequently disrupted his college class. An ambitious list of priorities for new House Republican leaders is topped by a plan to boost the natural resource industry by limiting lawsuits filed against development projects, along with plans to spur business growth in several other ways. Attorneys from Montana and Wyoming are scheduled to square off before the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday in a cross-border dispute over the region’s scarce water supplies. The Missoula City Council is considering draft regulations when it comes to naming public parks and trails with corporate names in exchange for money. Glacier Bank officials say they are rebuilding their Eureka branch on the site where fire destroyed their building in October. Taking aim at a $14 trillion national debt and annual federal budget deficit of about $1.3 trillion, U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., has co-sponsored a constitutional amendment to require a balanced federal budget — a move he has made every Congress since he first entered the House in 2001. Montana’s job market appears to be improving but is changing from construction work to employment in health care and education, state officials say. Mike Dennison breaks down how the Legislature’s budget battle reflects the differing philosophies of Democrats and Republicans. A Belt native who is a wrecker operator in Afghanistan was selected as the Regional Command (Southwest) Marine of the Year on Jan. 2.