Four years ago Flathead County Commissioner Gary Hall voted to give the city of Whitefish control over land use and zoning regulations in areas outside its city limits. Today Hall wants to rescind that decision. Since the 2003 vote to expand Whitefish City Council’s regulatory powers, the relationship between Hall and the council has soured. […]

During Christmas break her junior year in high school, Jennifer Servo called her mother out of the blue from an Army recruiting center in Kalispell. “You need to come down here and sign the papers so I can join,” Sherry Abel recalls her daughter saying. Servo, a Columbia Falls native, was always a free spirit, […]

In football, the two minute warning seems to work fairly well to wake up teams from Denver/Dallas and kick them in to high gear. How many times did Staubach, Aikman and Elway cause more scoreboard damage in two minutes than in perhaps the rest of the game? Plenty. One thing you couldn’t do in that […]

The Kalispell Police and Flathead County Sheriff’s reports for Tuesday included the following: 11:38 a.m. Two cell phones were stolen from Chinook Wireless on U.S. Highway 2 E. 12:01 p.m. Money was stolen out of a home on Willow Glen. 12:41 p.m. A mirror was broken off a man’s car on Truman Creek Road. 1:13 […]

Good morning and happy Balloons Around the World Day, an occasion to celebrate the art of balloon twisting and decorating. The new Beacons are on the stands, and topping our print edition and Web site today, Myers Reece revisits the unsolved murder case of Columbia Falls native Jennifer Servo, five years after her death. Reece […]

When this Web thing first took off, it quickly made stars of those who previously didn’t have a platform to opine but certainly deserved one. Soon, many Web loggers, or bloggers, were household names. Now, in what The New York Times describes as a “particular wrinkle of Internet culture,” a few of those who comment […]

When leaves yellow on birch and frost spots the ground early morning, one’s stomach naturally yearns for soup—fall’s best comfort food. Local Whitefish chefs are pulling out their recipes for soups that satisfy with the season. “We’ve been selling five to six gallons of soup a day since it got cold,” says Thomas R. Romagnuolo. […]

State education officials took questions today about why, while Montana’s universities are enjoying a two-year tuition cap, community colleges are not receiving the same perk. Commissioner of Higher Education Sheila Stearns and Board of Regents Chair Lynn Hamilton are hosting community forums discussing the Montana University System in the Flathead Valley Wednesday and Thursday. Stearns […]

Everyone from high school students to community groups are getting involved in air quality study in the Flathead Valley, as testing for one University of Montana ends and another begins. Tony Ward, a UM research assistant professor, made a dual-purpose trip last week, introducing Whitefish High School chemistry students to an air quality sampling program […]

In the last 6 months or so, new life has been infused into the Flathead Habitat for Humanity effort in Columbia Falls. Since late spring, they’ve broken ground on 4 homes, 3 of which are dried in (meaning – the roof, windows and doors are in so the inside stays dry). The Governor and his […]

The media storm by Montana’s U.S. senators opposing mining proposals in the Canadian Flathead has been difficult to avoid lately, but the third member of the state’s federal delegation has been conspicuously silent on the issue. U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., attributes his low profile – not to a difference in opinion on the mining […]

KALISPELL (AP) – Parole has been denied for a Kalispell man serving a 110-year prison sentence for murdering his wife at the couple’s bowling alley in 1979 and trying to make it look like a robbery. The state Board of Pardons and Parole heard testimony on Jerry Forsyth’s application last week and made its ruling […]

Columbia Falls High School: 559 – Rushing yards by junior Josh Wilson, second in the conference 225 – Average weight of Libby’s linemen, who led the way to Libby’s 359 rushing yards in 41-21 victory over Columbia Falls 98 – Length in yards of Scott Palmer’s kickoff return for a touchdown 20 – Goals scored […]

Kalispell City Council Monday night voted to set a fee downtown builders may pay in lieu of setting aside space for parking. Because parking in downtown Kalispell is so scarce, anyone building an addition to an existing structure, or constructing something new must either provide a parking space for every 400 square feet of the […]

Thirteen-year-old Barry Simon died Saturday. The Missoula boy had caught the attention and admiration of hundreds across the state during his fight with a rare genetic disease called Fanconi anemia. During his past two years of medical treatment in Seattle, hundreds, most of who had never met Barry, wrote letters and sent email—one couple even […]