Support came through for the Glacier Discovery Square community center, with donations topping $13,000 in three weeks to fix the facility’s broken boiler. Flathead Electric Cooperative contributed a bulk of the money needed to fix the system with an $8,000 grant through its Roundup for Safety program. First Best Place shut down the boiler in […]

Much of the problem with the U.S. economy is that the Federal government has too much power. It has the ability to choose the winners and losers in the market place, and as we witnessed in Libya, in the international arena as well. This is the reason corporations and other special interest groups, like unions, […]

With 15 million Americans out of work, record home foreclosures, the largest number on food stamps and 25 percent of our school children living below poverty level, one might think it’s a good time to end foreign aid and instead concern ourselves with our own country. But no, foreign aid has become such an ingrained […]

HELENA — The Land Board agreed Monday to roll back a scheduled increase on leases for state-land cabin sites. The state has been struggling for several years to establish a new method of setting rates for the prized sites. The Land Board finalized new rules that reduced a scheduled increase in order to comply with […]

Fewer than 50 people are believed to speak Salish fluently on the Flathead Indian Reservation and most of them are in their 70s, leaving a deeply uncertain future for the language in Northwest Montana. With that in mind, Rosie Matt, Chaney Bell and Echo Brown have started up the Salish Institute, a grassroots movement dedicated […]

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans a more thorough examination of whether an insect found only in alpine streams in Glacier National Park deserves federal protection under the Endangered Species Act. The agency on Friday announced the decision following a petition filed by environmental groups concerning the status of the meltwater lednian stonefly. The […]

Several years ago, a child went missing in Columbia Falls. Jordan White, now Flathead County’s undersheriff, remembers his phone conversation with the missing boy’s mother as a pivotal point early in his career. “She said, ‘Why don’t you have a helicopter out looking for my child?’” White said. It was one of the first times […]

Last week I focused on the Travel Channel’s “No Reservations,” my pick as the best food show on television. This week I’ll highlight some of my other faves, and not so faves. I’ll also offer my thoughts on the reality-television trend that emphasizes strange ingredients, unrealistic deadlines and pretentious judges who seem to get off […]

Steve Hawkins has a lot of stories to tell, enough to fill a book, or even two. Hawkins, 59, has been a guide and outdoorsman his entire life and now he is retelling his stories in a new book, “When the Woods Were Wild.” For years, people told Hawkins, who lives in Eureka, that he […]

ROME, Ga. — Carroll College had lost just once in seven previous title game appearances and it looked as if the Saints were going to pull out another NAIA championship. St. Xavier, though, had other ideas. After Carroll drove from its own 18, Dane Broadhead couldn’t connect on four passes after a first down at […]

HELENA — When Barry Beach was convicted of murder in 1984 for the killing of a female schoolmate, Miami Vice was a hit TV show. A car phone was a rich man’s boxy appliance. Beach’s mullet hairdo was in vogue. Nearly 28 years later, Beach has returned to freedom and a new world. Not only […]

On the US military’s last plane out of Iraq Saturday night, troops on board are in a festive, if slightly skeptical mood. The Air Force crew manning the C-17 cargo plane has been told on previous missions that theirs will be the final flight out of the country in which America waged war for 8-1/2 […]

A 42-year-old Kalispell man accused of sexually assaulting the 5-year-old son of a Kalispell woman he was living with has been acquitted, but he remains jailed on a separate rape charge involving an 11-year-old girl. A jury deliberated for six hours Thursday before finding Jason Dean Franks not guilty of rape and sexual assault. Prosecutors […]

In a city like Kalispell, which lacks interstate access, railroad service is an important economic asset, according to the Flathead County Economic Development Authority. To help maintain a strong rail presence locally, the FCEDA is negotiating the purchase of 40 acres of county land on Whitefish Stage Road that could be turned into a rail-served […]

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — Sam Houston State answered critics who claimed the Bearkats were too young, too inexperienced and simply not good enough to be considered among the best in the nation. Tim Flanders rushed for a school-record 287 yards and a touchdown and Sam Houston State advanced to its first national championship game with a […]