It only takes a few notes for 17-year-old cellist Amos Chon to name the background music playing at a local café: “This is Hungarian Rhapsody No. 4,” he says. “I love this song. It’s on my iPod.” Chon’s music preferences are probably centuries away from his peers, literally. He listens almost solely to classical music, […]

HELENA (AP) – A son of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is scheduled to meet with voters in Helena and Bozeman on Monday. Josh Romney is scheduled to be at the Great Northern Hotel in Helena at 1 p.m. Monday and at the Holiday Inn in Bozeman at 5:15 p.m. Montana’s Republican caucus is part […]

As the bell clanged, students clogged a cramped two-way double doorway, like traffic backed up on an urban interstate. Twenty-foot lines formed on either side as friends walking abreast shuffled to squeeze through, inadvertently slamming each other with packs or notebooks. That doorway forms the breach between two parts of Whitefish High School – the […]

WASHINGTON (AP) – The air in Libby, Mont., has become significantly cleaner in the last several years since 1,130 wood stoves were repaired or replaced with newer models. The stove industry partnered with Lincoln County, the state of Montana and the Environmental Protection Agency in 2005 to change out old, inefficient wood stoves that filled […]

Good morning and happy Robinson Crusoe Day, a day to be “adventurous and self reliant.” On the Beacon this morning, Becky Lomax reports on Whitefish’s push for funds to makeover the high school. The much maligned Flathead County planning board is searching for new members, and despite all the criticism the board weathers, no one […]

The sudden torrential rain, pounding on the roof of our trailer, snapped me out of an exhausted sleep. How could it be raining? This was New Year’s Eve in Sun Valley, Idaho, in 1947. We had towed our small house trailer a thousand miles from Los Angeles to Sun Valley to spend our second winter […]

The Kalispell Police and Flathead County Sheriff’s reports for Thursday included the following: 7:26 a.m. A deer died in Columbia Falls. 7:37 a.m. A small child was reportedly locked in a running vehicle in Whitefish. 7:50 p.m. A man was arrested on a warrant for a previous unpleasant incident. He had apparently used his pickup […]

Live Music: Friday: Can’t Hardly Playboys at Red’s; Andre Floyd at The Lodge; Silver’s Platter at The Cottage; Bluestone Trio at Blue Canyon; Kiniption Fit at the Great Northern; Mobile Beat DJ at Red’s Saturday: Craig Wickham at Belton Chalet; Andre Floyd at The Lodge; Silver’s Platter at The Cottage; Kiniption Fit at the Great […]

Whitefish Winter Carnival bolts out of the starting gate with royal coronations long before the actual weekend celebration. After all, the festival is one big excuse for a town party smack in the middle of winter. Might as well drag it out as long as possible. Based on Whitefish’s own homegrown fragments of Norwegian mythology, […]

The Flathead’s long election season officially began last week on a frigid Tuesday morning, as several candidates wasted no time in hustling down to the county building to throw their hats into the ring. With many of the state’s top incumbents looking strong, the political landscape’s emphasis this year could turn decidedly local. Democratic Gov. […]

Good morning and happy birthday to pop star Justin Timberlake. He turns 27 today. It seems like just yesterday he was an odd-looking, yellow-haired adolescent in N’Sync. On the Beacon this morning, a look at one option being mulled that would give disenfranchised residents who live in the “doughnut” surrounding Whitefish a vote. Martin City’s […]

The new childcare center at Flathead Valley Community College has “Early Childhood Education Center” in large letters across the outside of the building. The chairs, tables and most of the toilets in the building only come shin-high on most adults. Even the lights in the entranceway are kid cool – silver hot air balloons, planes […]

When they’re done tackling each other, the two teams get together for beer, pizza and, later in the evening, some raucous rugby songs. Knowledge of the correct lyrics is not required. Singing is. Such is the routine for the Flathead Moose, a rugby team based out of Kalispell. Dave Nearing, who plays and serves as […]

Pardon the cliché, but when you want to know why something is happening, you follow the money. That’s what I did this week, and at the end of my search, I found the most expensive deer in the world. You could have some of these high-priced deer in your town, too. What’s happening in Helena […]

Despite planning being a hot-button topic in the Flathead Valley, county officials are still looking for two people to serve on the Flathead County Planning Board, more than three months after they first advertised the openings. Five of the nine planning board members’ terms ended in December, and two more resigned halfway through their two-year […]