Good morning and happy birthday to my brother Nate, who turns 32, which, he pointed out, means I turn 30 next year. No! More Boomers are joining Gen X’ers in getting ink done. Kalispell Fire Chief Randy Brodehl has retired and a nationwide search for his replacement has begun. PACs have drawn the usual suspects […]

When you are retired you wonder when you ever had time to go to work for a living. You can now do anything you want to do, any time you want to do it, as long as you can afford to do it. It’s called freedom of choice. I decided that I could get some […]

Flathead County voters will have the opportunity to decide the fate of a proposed $10 million conservation bond in November’s election, after county commissioners agreed Thursday morning to place the bond on the ballot. The commissioners’ favorable vote was unanimous – the required quorum to place a measure on the ballot. Commissioner Gary Hall, however, […]

Friday night, its time for another First Friday Music session at Montana Coffee Traders in Columbia Falls. Stop in Friday, August 1st from 6pm to 8:30 pm and check out Mike’s tunes. Best of all, there’s a BBQ in the parking lot. Can’t beat that, yummy BBQ food and exceptional music! About this month’s artist, […]

6:23 a.m. A stallion was running free on Two Mile Drive. 8:12 a.m. The animal warden caught a cat in trap on Rocky Meadows Drive. It turned out to be feral cat that had been running amok in the area. 9:38 a.m. Someone sprayed graffiti on the post office in Lakeside. 10:41 a.m. A black […]

People in Bigfork have seen it for about a week, in the parking lot at Flathead Bank, at Rocky Mountain Bank, and this weekend, it’ll make an appearance at the Festival for the Arts. It’s a 2008 Toyota Prius with “Win Me” written across the side. “This is a major raffle for our 50th anniversary,” […]

A sluggish housing market, skeptical politicians and an increasingly cynical media have tarnished both Plum Creek Timber Company’s profits and image in recent months. While CEO Rick Holley acknowledged he doesn’t foresee a short-term fix for the former, his presence in Western Montana – meeting with newspapers and municipalities, and emphasizing a need for renewed […]

Are your clients are harder than ever to please? Are today’s clients more difficult to please than those from 20 years ago? Depends on who you ask. Ask anyone coming here from another continent about what strikes them first about the U.S. and size will be one of the first things they mention. Size? The […]

Good morning. Happy Birthday to late automobile manufacturer Henry Ford. It’s Wednesday, so the new Beacons are hitting the stands around town – check them out. Our lead story is a question and answer piece with Plum Creek CEO Rick Holley and Henry Ricklets, Plum Creek’s vice president Northern Resources and Manufacturing. The company is […]

HELENA – BNSF Railway told Gov. Brian Schweitzer Tuesday that it took a $175 million earnings hit this month in order to prepare for environmental lawsuits in Montana. The company said it estimated the figure after evaluating the potential effect of a 2007 Montana Supreme Court decision dealing with liability in environmental cases. Last summer, […]

In early July, I wrote a series of articles for NewWest.Net about the experience of being in my first fishing tournament, the Governor’s Cup Walleye Tournament on Fort Peck Reservoir. One reason I haven’t been in a tournament long ago is some false impressions I had about competitive fishing, mainly my concern that it had […]

After seven years at the helm of Kalispell’s Hockaday Museum of Art, Director Linda Engh-Grady is stepping down. Her successor, she says, will need to be a do-it-all type of person. “I’ll hang off ladders, mop floors and ask someone for a million dollars all in the same day,” she said, while helping artists set […]

BILLINGS – A male teacher accused of having a sexual relationship with a female student has resigned from the Billings School District. Superintendent Jack Copps says that Stacey Rambold agreed Wednesday morning to leave the district and surrender his Montana teaching license. Rambold was put on paid leave in April after allegations that he had […]

Each time a political scandal breaks, partisans look for that all-important letter after the name of the accused. In the most recent case it’s an “R,” as in Alaska’s Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican U.S. senator ever. The GOP is bumming about the federal charges against him and can only hope that a prominent Democrat […]

MISSOULA – A University of Montana student who jumped into the Kootenai River is missing. Lincoln County officials say search and rescue crews continued searching by boat Wednesday for 21-year-old Samuel Sylvester of Massachusetts. Detective Jim Sweet says Sylvester jumped from a rock outcropping into the river about six miles south of Troy last Friday. […]