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People lined up an hour early June 25, to be the first in line to be tested for coronavirus during the county's first surveillance testing event at the county fairgrounds. In total, Frances Mahon Deaconess Hospital tested 256 individuals for the disease over a five-hour period in a statewide effort to detect the virus in asymptomatic people. Assisting FMDH was the Montana National Guard, who supplied 14 soldiers and airmen to help control traffic, distribute information and collect and... Full story
When Valley County Sheriff Deputy Jesse Vaughn responded to a call about a man in dark clothes walking northbound along Highway 117 between Fort Peck and Nashua in the evening hours of June 9, it was like every other call, that is to say, he had no idea what to expect. When he found the man in the dark and approached him it did not go according to plan. Vaughn told the Courier, at first he was trying to help the man find a safe alternative to walking in the dark, but after some awkward...
Valley County recorded its first COVID-19 case last week. According to the health department, a local man in his 60s tested positive for the disease while he was outside of Valley County and is being isolated in the county he tested positive in. At press time, no further information had been released about the case to include how long he had been out of the area before testing positive and how many suspected contacts he may have had with local residents while infected. According to the press release, they were working to identify and contact “a... Full story
It is no secret that Glasgow’s roads are in disrepair. A drive down 2nd Street South will confirm a stretch riddled in potholes, dugouts and cracks. For years the city has contended with the quick pace of roads crumbling and decaying while revenues drop and resources dwindle. Director of Public Works Rob Kompel and Glasgow Mayor Becky Erickson sat down with the Courier to discuss the city’s 2020 plan for roads and to lament the lack of money to rectify the situation. To illustrate the problem, Kompel presented a series of past year revenue to...
The Glasgow Kiwanis Swim Team Thunder hosted the western half of northeast Montana's Federation Swimmers on June 20 and 21 at Hoyt Park for the season opener. Traveling to Glasgow were dozens of swimmers and spectators from Lewistown, Roundup, Chinook and Malta. Highlighting the weekend, head coach Ethan Schrader,provided the following standouts: Haylly Turner, 15 years old, swam her best 50-meter Freestyle in a time of 32.33 and took first in the event. She also took fourth in the 100-meter...
The Glasgow City Council moved one step closer to adding a resolution to the November general election ballot that would allow residents to raise chickens inside the city’s limits. The motion to draft a resolution for both chickens and to eliminate the ward-based city council with an at-large city council, were first discussed and passed last week in a working session on June 10 and were finalized at the June 15 regular city council meeting. The move will allow the city attorney to go forward with drafting a ballot resolution that would put t...
A primary record 62.71 percent of the registered voting population in Valley County cast ballots in the all-mail state primary on June 2. In total, 2,943 of 4,693 voters cast their ballots with 686 cast for Democrats, seven for the Green party and 2,250 cast for Republicans. In local races, Casey Knudsen held on to his nomination over challenger Joyce Stone across HD 33. Stone managed to carry the portions of the District that reside in Valley County by 53 votes (493 to 440). She lost the overall bid significantly as Knudsen carried 68 percent...
Glasgow native Ethan Shrader has returned to the Bonnie City for the summer to take on the head coach role for the Glasgow Kiwanis Swim Team. Shrader, who currently teaches English at Butte Central High School, said he took the job after Michelle Huntsman asked him to apply to the open position. Shrader has been a competitive swimmer since he was six years old and first showed up for the GKST Thunder some 22 years ago. He has raced or coached in some way ever since and even went on to swim...
For the Valley County Landfill, illegal dumping is not a new thing. In fact, an article in the Courier from 1995 and an article in the Good Evening Glasgow in 2000 each address illegal dumping or the assessment of fees for dumping “above and beyond household garbage” at sanitary landfills around the county. The issue has been so widespread in fact, that the first camera monitoring systems went in 20 years ago and the fees—the exact same ones in place today—were established around that same time. “We just didn’t put any teeth into them,” expl...
They were short but not sweet. They were not loud or flashy. And, due to the state of the world, they were not even crowded. Rather, they were quiet and solemn; humble yet proud; filled with the dignity and respect befitting the men and women the veterans of Valley County were duty bound to honor this past Monday-the ones that never came home. After laying flags on the gravesites of veterans that have passed on May 22, the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3107 and American Legion Post 41 regrouped...
It was, by all accounts, a beautiful day on May 20. Temps had soared into the 80s, the dew point was high and the wind was low. So, Joe Simmons decided to take his dogs for some exercise. He had just returned at about 9:15 p.m., put the dogs in the kennel and went to go inside. Just about the time he was putting his hand on the garage doorknob to open the door, he heard a roaring sound and turned to look out the carport opening to see his boat blow by in the wind. Just about that same time he...
“I don’t like going around asking for free publicity,” explained Casey Knudsen, speaking to the Courier about why it had taken so long to do the interview. “It’s hard right now to go around asking for money from people and asking for free publicity is like asking you for money.” Knudsen is currently the sitting representative for Montana House District 33 which spans from Havre to Glasgow mostly north of Highway 2 until it hits the Glasgow area where it encompasses a large portion of Glasgow’s westside to Highland Drive. Knudsen was elected i...
Glasgow Mayor Becky Erickson teamed up with the Montana Aviation Research Company and TC Energy to fund an essential item giveaway on May 14. The event stuffed 400 plastic totes with items like laundry detergent, bleach, disinfectants, dish soap, Dial soap bars, toilet bowl cleaner, a cloth, deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrushes, paper towels, facial tissues and first aid kits. All 400 totes were given away in just about an hour. According to Erickson, cars had started lining up for the...
The residents of the Glasgow School District delivered a decisive victory to its students, teachers, staff and administration in the vote for the school’s general operating levy on May 5. With a vote margin of 214 votes, the district’s levy passed with 1,049 voting yes and 835 voting no. Seventeen ballots were turned in where the voter did not vote one way or the other for the levy making the total number of ballots cast 1,901. It is the first time since 2015 that the voters in the district approved a general levy. Also on the ballot were two...
Glasgow natives Brenner and Jason Flaten snatched the first-place prize at the 2020 Yellowstone Challenge Catfish Tournament this past weekend. The tournament, which was founded by one of this year's champions, Jason Flaten, in 2007, takes place along the Yellowstone and is headquartered at Cowboys Bar in Huntley, Mont. This year 51 boats took over the waters of America's longest free-flowing river to net massive cats, but only one team could become the champs. The Flatens managed a basket of 29...
It was May 11, primary ballots had just arrived, and Kevin Taylor was looking forward to voting for his candidate of choice in the Montana HD 33 representative race, but there was a problem. Taylor's preferred candidate was not on his ballot. Figuring he must have gotten a state-wide ballot and would later get the local ballot he filled out his votes and returned it by mail. Then he talked to Valley County Republican Central Committee Chair Sara Swanson about the vote, asking if he would see...
For GPD Senior Patrolman Josh Nolan it was a simple solution to a complex problem. What do you do when you have to train and evaluate a brand-new officer (Jonas Tommeson), but COVID-19 measures have reduced the overall number of incidents you are responding to? The answer: you create realistic scenarios, stick your trainee in the middle of them and don't tell him it is an exercise. That is what Nolan did on the evening of April 18 on Glasgow's northside. He orchestrated a training exercise that...
CEO of First Community Bank in Glasgow Sam Waters wanted to find a way to give back to the community. As a bank in northeast Montana there were a number of opportunities for them to do just that, but Waters was looking for something different. Waters decided to reach out to the Glasgow Stockyards, the Valley County Food Bank, purchase a bull at auction, pay Treasure Trail Meats to butcher and process it and then donate the nearly 1,000 lbs of hamburger to the local food bank. According to FCB's...
After weeks of social distancing guidelines, stay-at-home orders, quarantines and business, bar and restaurant closures, Montana Governor Steve Bullock announced on April 14 that the state will begin a phased reopening of the economy. It's a move that has delighted and frightened many at the same time but comes as Montana experiences some of the lowest COVID-19 infection rates in the country. Montana also has experienced few deaths, especially when compared to neighboring midwestern and northwes... Full story
The residents of the Glasgow School District delivered a decisive victory to its students, teachers, staff and administration in the vote for the school’s general operating levy on May 5. With a vote margin of 214 votes, the district’s levy passed with 1,049 voting yes and 835 voting no. Seventeen ballots were turned in where the voter did not vote one way or the other for the levy making the total number of ballots cast 1,901. It is the first time since 2015 that the voters in the district approved a general levy. Also on the ballot were two...
Army veteran and Assiniboine-Sioux Tribe member Lance Fourstar's voice was being carried out over the prairie by a stiff westerly wind as he chanted a traditional Native American song accompanied by a drum and flute. The sounds traveled out overtop of the Keystone XL pipeline's border crossing from Canada as diesel engines revved and back up signals beeped in the distance on April 14. As Fourstar sang, an elder woman danced and played the flute, and a youth played the drums while the other...
In a press call on April 17, Governor Steve Bullock said that Montanans were flattening the curve related to the spread of coronavirus in the state. He followed up the announcement by stating that a plan was being considered to begin reopening the economy sometime after April 24—which is when the current statewide orders are set to expire. “We’ve worked to protect our vulnerable populations and removed as many people from the chain of transmission as possible, both to reduce infections but also to save lives,” said the governor. “In short we... Full story
Looking ahead and self improvement. Before a viral outbreak in China became an epidemic, before that epidemic spread across the world and became a pandemic, and before it was even considered likely that the novel coronavirus, that causes COVID-19, would even appear in Valley County, the County Health Officer Dr. Anne Millard was already preparing for such a scenario. That is because Dr. Millard had seen a need in the community over two years ago and filled her already sparse spare time with... Full story
To say 2019 and 2020 were good years for the Glasgow Scotties wrestlers would be to understate it just slightly. At the end of the 2019 season, the Scotties had put up two individual state champs-Colton Fast and Dylan Nieskens-and claimed a silver trophy. It was a catalyst for 2019-2020, which propelled the Scotties onto a championship season amplified by 10 state qualifiers, seven state placers and three individual state champs-adding Cooper Larson to 2019's list. It was unsurprising then that...
Frances Mahon Deaconess Hospital received a shipment of medical personal protective equipment (PPE) needed to help with the hospital’s efforts in detecting, preventing and possibly fighting COVID-19 in Montana. To date, FMDH has received two shipments from the Strategic National Stockpile through the State of Montana Public Health and Safety Division. The shipments arrived separately the week of March 30. The first shipment contained one box of large gloves containing 50 pairs; one box of x-large gloves containing 50 pairs; two boxes of s... Full story