Greetings, Beacon nation! It’s a dizzying exercise to continually look backward and then forward, and then backward and then forward. It also runs counter to the Socratic instruction manual for mindfulness. But it’s the nature of a Wednesday news cycle. And with so many stories to reflect on this week, and so many others on the horizon, my head’s been on a swivel as I piece together this midweek report.

Most Beacon readers were content to start their week looking back on a few days of festival fun, and Hunter D’Antuono, the Beacon’s media director, was happy to indulge them with his perennially popular Under the Big Sky photo gallery. But I was eager to look back even further to 2019, when Hunter and I covered the debut of UTBS in the old-school style of New Journalism by opting for full festival immersion. That inaugural experience produced the sort of purple prose and stemwinder sentences that often make me squirm when I revisit them, although I can still hear Band of Horses’ Ben Bridwell “cast his spooky falsetto spell” over the crowd, and I could surely spend all of eternity in the mesmerizing moment that Jenny Lewis, pictured below, “wiggled onto a pedestal riser, sizzling in a pink-sequined dress and sporting Buick-sized, rose-tinted sunglasses that glittered in the sunlight, craning her slender arms and rattling a half-moon tambourine (also pink)” before lowering her shades, gazing at the audience and whispering: “Oh, there you are.”

Sometimes, getting lost in the past can help illuminate the path forward more clearly. Beacon readers might have agreed with that sentiment as they turned their attention from festival frivolity to the serious business of infrastructure upgrades, proposed solutions to ease Glacier National Park’s maintenance backlogs, the shifting sands of federal environmental regulation, or the renewed efforts to loosen the cap on mining waste entering Lake Koocanusa. Before clicking on those headlines, however, our audience members also contemplated the new menu at Backslope Brewing in Columbia Falls, and wondered what former NFL quarterback and Flathead Valley football prodigy Brock Osweiler has been teaching the next generation of local children. We don’t publish that lighter fare to hide the vegetables; we publish colorful features and human interest stories because they’re critical ingredients in a well-balanced media diet.

But don’t fill up yet! There’s still plenty of courses to come. I’m Tristan Scott, here to supervise the feeding frenzy and deliver your Daily Roundup.

We won’t be offended if your storytelling appetite isn’t satiated after this week. In fact, we encourage variety! To that end, a trio of nonprofits — the Whitefish Review, Yaak Valley Forest Council and Vital Ground — is teaming up to mark the 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act affording protections to grizzly bears.

On Monday, July 28, at 101 Central in downtown Whitefish, the Whitefish Review, Yaak Valley Forest Council and Vital Ground will host a storytelling slam called “Your Grizzly Bear Story — A Night to Celebrate and Continue to Protect the Great Bear.” All ages are welcome, and no experience is necessary.

“Share your best three-minute grizzly bear story, and we’ll link one story after another to weave together a narrative of human experience with the great bear,” said Brian Schott, founding editor of Whitefish Review.

To kick things off, several members of the literary journal’s heavyweight class of alums will be on hand, including Rick Bass, author and executive director of the Yaak Valley Forest Council, whose organization works to defend grizzlies in the Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem, the smallest and most fragile population of grizzlies in the West, and Doug Chadwick, the Whitefish-based wildlife biologist and author of “Four-fifths a Grizzly” and “The Wolverine Way.”

“Because grizzlies roam very large home ranges that stretch from valley bottoms to mountaintops, a landscape that is intact and secure enough to support a healthy population of these great bears is also going to provide habitat and a future for a broad array of the other native creatures that belong there,” according to Chadwick. “And — with luck and care — those parts of the world will always remain good enough, big enough, wild enough, and free enough ….for us.”

Storytellers should submit their stories by emailing [email protected] with a brief synopsis of the tale they wish to tell. Spontaneous stories are also welcome, organizers said, but pre-planning will help.

Doors open at 7 p.m. for cocktail hour. The evening kicks off at 8 p.m. with 3-minute stories by Bass and Chadwick, as well as Matt Holloway, the Whitefish Review’s fiction editor. Then it’s time for the community to tell their tales. A $10 donation at the door to help offset some of the event’s costs is appreciated. The evening is sponsored by Whitefish Credit Union, 101 Central, and The Whitefish Community Foundation. For more information, email [email protected].

Meet Annie! Despite her name, she’d like very much NOT to be an orphan for much longer. And you can help! We know there’s a fur-ever family ready to welcome this big, beautiful English mastiff into their home.

To find out more about Annie and other pet adoption opportunities at the Humane Society of Northwest Montana go to: www.humanesocietypets.com. To donate to the Humane Society of Northwest Montana, visit the organization’s donation page here.