Even if the stage was familiar, something felt very different when Off In The Woods entered the Polson High School auditorium a few weeks back, bass player Sean Burress said. A lot has happened since they last played on the old wood stage. In the three or four years since Burress, Jon Schumaker, Layne McKay […]

I am writing a column this week in place of editor Kellyn Brown, who left for the sunny beaches of Mexico over a week ago, pale-skinned and bright-eyed, and by this reading has now returned, a few shades redder and wondering where all of that glistening sand went. Welcome back. Kellyn deserved a vacation. Anybody […]

Tuesday 11/08 7:37 a.m. Reportedly, there was a black bag surrounded by a large pool of blood on Foothill Road. A closer inspection revealed a spilled bag of potting soil. 8:32 a.m. Someone saw a cow on the bike path near Cemetery Road. 9:31 a.m. A Pine Needle Drive man suspects that sugar was dumped […]

BILLINGS – The White House plan to seek alternate routes for a Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline presents a tangle of new problems for the project’s backers, and any of those obstacles could still sink the proposal before the first spade of dirt is turned. Shifting the path to avoid a major aquifer could increase the number […]

We are a country that loves stories of redemption. A person can engage in dog fighting and kill the animals when they have outgrown their use, explaining as his excuse that he grew up in that kind of culture. Then he serves a prison sentence and returns to the pay-for-play ranks as one of the […]

Local police and fire department officials recognized the public safety officers responsible for helping save a young boy’s life in Columbia Falls recently. At a Kalispell City Council meeting on Nov. 7, Police Chief Roger Nasset and Interim Fire Chief Dave Dedman gave public service awards to the 10 police officers and firefighters who had […]

WASHINGTON – On Veterans Day eve, an uncharacteristically unified Senate emphatically passed a bill to help unemployed veterans and government contractors that includes the first, small slivers of President Barack Obama’s jobs agenda that he is likely to sign into law. Thursday’s 95-0 vote gave lawmakers the opportunity to fly home to holiday events and […]

HELENA – U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg’s lawyer says the Republican congressman is dropping his lawsuit against the city of Billings for the way firefighters handled a 2008 wildfire on his land. The decision late Thursday followed notification from the city that argued the firefighters did their job right during the summer fire. The city rejected […]

Kalispell City Manager Jane Howington told her staff on Thursday that she would be leaving at the end of December, a city official confirmed. Howington, who was hired in 2009 and guided a turnaround in the city’s budget, will take over as the city manager in Newport, Rhode Island, according to the Newport Patch. Howington […]

POLSON – Ten employees of Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Polson were laid off this week due to a serious budget shortfall. Chief Executive Officer James Kiser tells the Missoulian the employees were notified of the layoffs Wednesday and Friday was their last day. Kiser says charity care has increased 25 percent, bad debt […]

GREAT FALLS – Wildlife authorities say an elk hunter from Kalispell shot and killed a charging grizzly bear in the Badger-Two Medicine area on the Rocky Mountain Front. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks bear specialist Mike Madel says the man was hunting alone in the Hall Creek area Wednesday when he walked past a 20-year-old […]

Ashley Johnston can still hear her older brother’s voice. Johnston has a burned CD with two voicemails from Kane Funke, her only sibling who missed graduating from Flathead High School because he left early to enlist in a delayed-entry military program in Washington. Lance Cpl. Funke was killed while serving in Iraq in 2004. He […]

The weeks leading up to ski season can be torturous. The mountains sit there slowly gathering snow as we wax our skis for the tenth time this week. November might be the slowest month of the year. Luckily, outdoor enthusiasts and recreationists have a few awesome upcoming events to bide the time with. There’s the […]

As it always has been since I was a little kid in the early 1930s, sometime in November the wind will come honking out of the north, the rain will fall and the snow will come to the mountains. And isn’t that enough? Sometime 50 years ago, give or take 10 years, I first showed […]

Some western Montana residents felt the earth shake Friday morning. The U.S. Geological Survey reports an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 4.2 was reported at 11:51 a.m. about 13 miles southeast of Clinton. Anne Little tells the Missoulian the tremor felt like a truck hit her house. “Just boom, and then it was gone,” […]