BOZEMAN – Montana State’s 1984 national championship football team is the driving force behind raising the estimated $900,000 needed to install artificial turf at Bobcat Stadium. Tom White, a member of the ’84 team and a member of the board of directors of the Bobcat Quarterback Club, said he and his former teammates started an […]

A Columbia Falls teenager who was critically injured in a two-vehicle crash a year ago has died of his injuries. Skot Watson, 17, had been in a coma since shortly after the March 14, 2007 crash. He died Thursday at home, his family said. Watson was a passenger in a minivan driven by a 16-year-old […]

In Helena, Democrats and Republicans are getting along nicely to mitigate the effects of the 2009 property tax reappraisal in a cooperative manner. The Revenue and Transportation Committee is entrusted with finding solutions for local businesses and homeowners to the property tax reappraisal. As one of the legislators on this committee, I see folks rolling […]

Small thinning projects currently underway in the Flathead National Forest are drawing wide praise as a way to reduce wildfire danger, while also pumping some money back into the local wood products economy. But not all of the landowners adjacent to the logging projects are happy. Gregg Alexander, who owns land on Teakettle Mountain near […]

WASHINGTON – Democratic Sens. Jon Tester and Max Baucus of Montana on Thursday opposed a Republican attempt to block lawmakers’ pet projects for a year. The Senate killed the GOP amendment, which would have placed a one-year moratorium on such “earmarks,” using a procedural maneuver during debate on the federal budget late Thursday night. The […]

BOZEMAN – Montana’s wolf population increased 34 percent in 2007 to an estimated 422 wolves in 73 packs, the state’s Fish, Wildlife and Parks department announced Thursday. The wolves were equally distributed between northern and southern Montana, according to the department’s annual wolf report. But the bulk of the population growth was in northwestern and […]

HELENA – Hillary Clinton, and likely Barack Obama, will campaign in Montana next month at an annual dinner held by the state Democratic Party. State Democrats said they would put 2,400 more tickets for the April 5 dinner up for sale on Monday morning. The first batch of tickets, for floor seats in the Butte […]

Good morning and happy birthday Albert Einstein. On the Beacon this morning, several thinning projects in the Flathead National Forest have irked landowners on Teakettle Mountain. A Whitefish man has been charged with felony criminal endangerment after the man’s neighbor said he tried to run him over with a tractor. After several fires ignited in […]

When Flathead High School Theatre presents “The Secret Garden” this weekend, most of the play’s crew hopes to remain unseen, rather than steal the spotlight. “If everything goes perfectly, the audience doesn’t even notice what you do – they get caught up in the atmosphere and just think it’s magic,” senior Victoria Zimmer said. “But […]

The former superintendent of Glacier National Park will try his hand at politics, announcing Friday that he is running for the Legislature in House District 3, which stretches from Columbia Falls to West Glacier. “I know this area – the park, the local economy and unique needs of this area,” Mick Holm said in a […]

HELENA – In Montana, where individual rights are prized and the federal government is often seen as too big-brother, elected officials have banded together to fight off implementation of a national ID program. Leading the charge is Gov. Brian Schweitzer, an outspoken Democrat, who has tried unsuccessfully to rally his colleagues across the country to […]

The Kalispell Police and Flathead County Sheriff’s reports for Thursday included the following: 7:34 a.m. A dog running loose on Deer Trail in Whitefish was peppered with birdshot. The dog survived. 8:04 a.m. The barking dogs on Haywire Gulch were upsetting the neighbors. 8:39 a.m. A man called in because his gun was stolen. 8:47 […]

HELENA – Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will campaign in Montana next month at an annual dinner held by the state Democratic Party, party officials said. “We’re incredibly excited,” said party spokesman Kevin O’Brien. “Right now is a great time to be a Democrat in Montana.” The party says it expects about 4,000 people to […]

With a second failed bond attempt under its belt, the Bigfork School Board is hoping to get a better gauge of why exactly the community said no. “The one thing I got out of the negative editorials is ‘what part of no don’t you understand’,” said board member Mike Roessman at the March 11th school […]

As I sit here debating whether to attend a chili festival in Bigfork, I’m torn. You see, unlike most people, I nearly died at a chili cook-off in Georgia a few years back, after sampling some atomic chili ladled out of a toilet bowl. I barely survived, and ever since, I have a new appreciation […]