HELENA – A Townsend man said he had “a little excitement to start the morning” when a mountain lion launched itself through a closed window at his home and tore apart a room in his basement. Scott Vine, a 45-year-old ranch worker, said the female adolescent cat set off an alarm on his property at […]

WASHINGTON – After a week of tire gauges, Britney Spears, and Paris Hilton, Barack Obama is no doubt ready for a week in his native Hawaii, where he heads Friday for a vacation with his family. Apparently the public is also ready for a break: According to the Pew Research Center, 48 percent of Americans […]

MISSOULA – More than 19,000 season tickets have been sold for the 2008 University of Montana football season. Athletics department officials say a record 19,364 season tickets had been sold by Friday. Celine Fisher, Adams Center Box Office manager, says the number increases daily. The former record for football season ticket sales at Washington Grizzly […]

OLNEY – Inside Bill Montgomery’s airplane hangar is a kitchen, a wall full of musical instruments and a well-lit performance stage. Right now, Montgomery’s PA-12 plane sits outside to make room for the hundred plus people who will attend his fourth annual Stillwater Landing Music Gathering on August 8-10. But the real gem for musicians […]

BONNER – Stimson Lumber Co. will not resume operations at its sawmill here and has listed the property for sale at $16 million, a company official said Thursday. Jeff Webber, Stimson vice president, said that if the 170-acre property doesn’t sell in the next six weeks, the Portland, Ore.-based lumber products company will liquidate its […]

Good morning; on this date in 1974 Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency as a result of the Watergate scandal. On the Beacon this morning, the fourth annual Stillwater Landing Music Gathering kicks off outside Olney this weekend, and the venue is amazing. One of only two certified radon specialists in Northwest Montana talks about […]

Ask Roberta Chinsky Matuson about compressing the workweek into four 10-hour days and her response is enthusiastic. “I would rather work four days than five,” says Ms. Matuson, who once spent nearly nine months on a compressed schedule as a human resource director in Massachusetts. Julie Lenzer Kirk, who has also worked a compressed week […]

HELENA – The Montana Republican Party says it is opening up five campaign offices in conjunction with John McCain’s presidential campaign and local GOP groups. The offices are jointly paid for by the campaigns involved. The new offices will be in Billings, Great Falls, Kalispell, Missoula and Bozeman. State GOP Chairman Erik Iverson says the […]

It’s interesting to listen to the reactions you get when you tell someone you’re from Columbia Falls. If you mention it anywhere outside of the Flathead, the response is “Wow, you’re lucky” or “I’ll bet you really like it there” and things like that. If you tell someone here in the Valley, the responses seem […]

When envelopes containing anthrax spores began to turn up in 2001 at the nation’s top news organizations, I was working as an editorial assistant in CNN’s main newsroom in Atlanta, where my responsibilities included sorting and distributing the mail. When news broke this week that the FBI believes it has solved the case, I was […]

Live Music: Friday: Can’t Hardly Playboys at Red’s; Betty and the Boy at The Cottage; Festival Amadeus at Whitefish Middle School; Tim Torgerson at Blue Canyon; Rudy and Gena Mendez at Los Caporales; Heavy T & The Grooves at Scotty’s; Eric Fingers Ray at McGregor Lake Resort; Xtra Sauce at Ricciardi’s; Russ Nasset and the […]

John Rawlings dips into age-old processes to create his sculptures. It’s similar to the techniques used by older southwest cultures creating their black shiny pots. But where those are tiny, Rawlings’ works are huge. When firing his large single-piece two-foot slabs, the failure rate skyrockets. “It’s stressful to them and sometimes to me,” says the […]

DILLON – A soldier from this southwestern Montana town has died in Iraq, from injuries not related to combat, the Department of Defense said Wednesday. Army Pvt. Timothy J. Hutton, 21, died Monday in Baghdad. Information about the circumstances of his death was not released by the military, which said an investigation was under way. […]

After getting a nod from the county commission, Flathead residents will vote on a $10 million conservation bond this November. It’s a measure other high-growth counties in Montana have used to preserve open space in the face of booming development. Flathead County commissioners voted unanimously last week to allow the $10 million bond request on […]

Missoula County’s deputy attorney says recently released documents related to agreements between the U.S. Forest Service and Plum Creek Timber Co. don’t go into enough detail about the private negotiations between the two parties. “You’d at least expect some e-mails or memos between them,” said Deputy County Attorney James McCubbin. “But there’s nothing like that. […]