Good morning and happy birthday to one Donald Fauntleroy Duck, who debuted in Wise Little Hen 74 years ago. “Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!” On the Beacon this morning, there’s a story about Montana delegates. Montana Dems will send 17 delegates who support Barack Obama and eight backer of Hillary Clinton to the Democratic […]

On a knoll rising above this quaint Yellowstone gateway town, a pregnant bison, only weeks from giving birth to her calf, straddles an invisible boundary and feasts tranquilly upon a profusion of spring grass. Although it’s early in the tourist season for America’s first national park, a carload of visitors halts and eagerly snaps photos […]

In the past month, in an effort to reduce the urge to break into tears at the pump, I’ve been reading stories that detail the good or quirky trends resulting from rising gas prices. For instance, reporter Dan Testa recently wrote about how, even in truck country, fuel-efficient vehicles are becoming a higher priority and […]

How best to please Woods Bay residents, and reach the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation’s goals will open up for dialogue Thursday night in Bigfork. Most people have spoken out against the proposed 440-acre sale of State School Trust Land in Woods Bay. The DNRC came out with a proposal to sell that parcel […]

WASHINGTON – Leaders of the National Park Service will gather next month at a private resort in the Utah mountains for a summit meeting that some career officials say feels more like a $1 million exercise in political promotion. The national meeting, set for July 16-17 at Snowbird, Utah, will bring together more than 400 […]

HELENA – State officials are warning people in the area of Montana’s Capitol that newborn deer must be left alone. The state Department of Administration issued a memo saying that employees and visitors at the Capitol area in Helena should not disturb fawns. Besides human handling being bad for the animals, the memo says, the […]

Having worked in and run a few restaurant kitchens, I can tell you that the language is every bit as salty as you may have witnessed on food-based reality shows on television. I can also tell you that many of the characters that work in restaurant kitchens are not exactly the most elegantly raised individuals. […]

Trial is scheduled to begin Monday for a Kalispell man accused of driving drunk and causing a 2006 crash that killed a motorcycle rider. Terry Dean Miller was charged with negligent homicide and failure to remain at the scene of an accident, after a crash on Aug. 11, 2006, that claimed the life of 40-year-old […]

The Kalispell Police and Flathead County Sheriff’s reports for Thursday included the following: 3:29 a.m. Deputies responded to call about a man acting like a loud-mouthed drunk in an Evergreen neighborhood. The long-haired man, who has been arrested for previous escapades involving alcohol, a bicycle, and a Taser, was offered a ride home by deputies. […]

Weaving around the green pastures of football, soccer, baseball and softball fields, the walking trail through the Kidsports Complex is a near oasis of tranquility for those looking for a quick getaway. The surrounding business developments, housing and U.S. Highway 93 traffic is barely noticeable during an early morning walk along the well-groomed gravel and […]

I’ll bet most of you don’t know that Montana Coffee Traders in Columbia Falls is open in the evening on the first Friday of every month. But it’s true. On the first Friday of every month the kitchen stays open late with a special dinner menu, and a rotating group of brilliant musicians holds an […]

Greg Trunkle hangs suspended in a cable car above the swollen brown North Fork of the Flathead River. Despite the water dropping below flood stage, it churns brown like a chocolate milkshake. For over an hour, Trunkle dangles above the rushing water to read the river, sliding a mere five feet at a time across […]

A state wildlife official estimates that half the bighorn sheep transported off Wild Horse Island died over the winter on the Kootenai Falls sheep range. The sheep were moved off the island in Flathead Lake in mid-January. Thirty-eight sheep were captured on the island and moved to the Kootenai range in far northwestern Montana. Jerry […]

At the south end of Kalispell, the electronic marquee for the Econo Lodge reads, “Flathead High School freshman academy is unfair.” It’s the most visible expression of a group of parents who feel freshman academic schedules unfairly favor Glacier High School students. At question are the schools’ freshman academy programs. Introduced in the Kalispell school […]

BILLINGS – A state judge has ruled that a $27 million jail in Hardin can accept federal or out-of-state prisoners — offering potential relief for a project beset by difficulties since its completion last July. The publicly financed but privately operated jail has sat empty because it has no contracts for inmates to fill its […]