The main runway of Glacier Park International Airport will be closed for 12 days throughout August of next year to allow for resurfacing and improvements, necessitating substantial rescheduling of flights in and out of the Flathead during one of the peak periods of the summer tourism season. The closures won’t happen all at once, but […]

Men, bear with me for a moment, this column is for you too. When marketing a product to women, there’s one thing you simply have to try to do if you want to hit a home run. Get yourself or your product on Oprah. The reason is simple and I hope, obvious: Oprah’s viewers trust […]

7:00 a.m. It looked like someone shot a hole in the door of a dog day camp. 11:49 a.m. There was a dog chasing horses on Eckleberry Drive. 12:56 p.m. A 47-year-old man drowned in Woods Bay. 1:11 p.m. There were two little dogs near the airport tower. 1:42 p.m. A woman left her young […]

BILLINGS – Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and his Republican challenger, state Sen. Roy Brown, continued to grapple over the pace of energy development, whether taxes are too high and if Montana can weather the economic downturn as they met in their first one-on-one debate. Meeting Tuesday in Brown’s home city of Billings, the pair resumed […]

A lawsuit filed last month by three Kalispell Regional Medical Center employees alleges the hospital and its parent company, Northwest Healthcare, illegally cut a severance pay plan that allowed some employees to cash in on unused sick leave. Sheila Chipman, Ellen Hames and Deborah Wallen filed a complaint in Flathead County District Court in September, […]

Good morning; on this date in 1871 the Great Chicago Fire was ignited. It’s Wednesday and the new Beacons are hitting the stands. In our top story today, Glacier International Airport announced it will close its main runway for 12 days in August for repaving. Three former employees of Kalispell Regional Medical Center are filing […]

6:56 a.m. A 48-year-old man thought he’d made off with a $7 bottle of wine from an Evergreen market, but before he could uncork the bottle he was busted. 7:21 a.m. The scene at a building supply store on Montana Highway 2 was reminiscent of childhood for two truck drivers who couldn’t agree. Both of […]

Authorities say a former Alaska man living in the Flathead Valley died by drowning, and the death was accidental. The body of 43-year-old George Boss Jr. was found Monday afternoon, washed up on the shore of Woods Bay in Flathead Lake. The Flathead County sheriff’s office says Boss had last been seen Sunday evening, fishing […]

Big game hunters, it’s your time to rule the forests. Archery seasons are underway, and general big-game seasons will be soon throughout the New West. Thousands of hunters will be crawling around grizzly country in the predawn darkness, alone, as quietly as possible, into the wind and smelling like stale elk pee. If they have […]

Over the last several weeks, the news out of Western Montana’s forest products industry reads like an all-too-familiar litany of job losses, shuttering mills and falling commodity prices. At the end of September, Plum Creek Timber Co. laid off 24 employees when it suspended operations at its finger-joint stud plant in Kalispell. At the same […]

HELENA – For the second year in a row, Montana is No. 6 in an annual ranking of states with business-friendly tax policies. Wyoming ranked first in the Tax Foundation’s 2009 Business Tax Climate Index, which rates states based on their corporate, individual, sales, unemployment and property taxes. South Dakota is second, followed by Nevada, […]

BILLINGS – A federal judge on Wednesday issued a scathing criticism of Republican efforts to challenge the registrations of nearly 6,000 voters in Montana. The judge slammed the effort as “mischief” that targeted young Democrats and may have violated voter rights laws. Those statements came in an order released by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy […]

FAIRFIELD, Maine – An anonymous bidder paid a record $920,000 for a historic .44-caliber revolver, and Maine auctioneer James Julia said that despite the price, it was a bargain. The Colt Walker pistol made for U.S. marshals in the 1840s belonged to University of Maine graduate John McBride’s great-great-uncle. McBride, who lives in Libby, Mont., […]

MISSOULA – A 49-year-old Bigfork man convicted of sexual exploitation of children and receipt of child pornography has been sentenced to 110 years in prison. Ralph Fox was found guilty following a one-day trial and was sentenced last week by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy of Missoula. Prosecutors say a woman contacted the Flathead County […]

On Lion Mountain, a line of orange and blue flagging leads off into a bramble of brush and criss-crossed downed timber. The flagging cuts across private land, national forest, and state lands. Five miles west, the flagged route pops out onto a spur connecting with Two Bear Road and continues on several more miles to […]