Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913
Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913
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The Courier brought home six awards from the annual Montana Newspaper Association Better Newspaper Contest in Lewistown this weekend, including three firsts: Sports Editor Georgie Kulczyk won first place for Best Headline Writing and second place for Best Sports Feature Writing. Sean R. Heavey won another first place this year for Best Lifestyles Photo (see image above) and third place for Best News Photo. Courier regular Carlos Valle placed second and third in the Best Feature Photo category. Congratulations to our winners! And thanks for...
We all know how fickle Mother Nature can be. I don’t think there’s one month I haven’t seen weather that is unusual. Take this month -- June -- for example. Normally we have a pretty decent growing season. But one year, the growing season was only 69 days. We had a foot of snow in mid-June. I’ve seen snow fall in every month except July and August. One year, it was so cold in July, I remember wearing my winter coat as I watched the free show at the fair. I think that was the same year as when it snowed in June. We’ve not had much rain so f...
I’ve been running ever since it became glaringly obvious, at a very early age, that I was basically physically incapable of playing any sport requiring hand-eye coordination, and I love it. I find it to be wonderfully exhilarating, while simultaneously being extremely peaceful, which makes it the perfect stress reliever and way to get my “me time.” Unfortunately though, my runs, so vital to my mental stability and necessary training for my collegiate cross country and track seasons, are interrupted way too frequently by random catcalls from...
From a safe distance we were able to witness the distilled truth of how barbarous, fiendish and merciless the world can be. No parent should live to bury their young, and fortunately, for most of us, the closest clash of reality with this ever happening occurs only in a fever-pitched dream. But last week, for Mr. and Mrs. Warmbier of Ohio, their son was delivered from North Korea in a vegetable state and has now passed away. As the story started to trickle into the news, it became apparent that this unfortunate event is a stark prompting that i...
Every year over one hundred thousand people ride the Empire Builder, many stop in Glasgow. Those people frequent the small businesses, spending their hard-earned money and sustaining good-paying jobs for Glasgow and the surrounding areas. For 88 years the Empire Builder has brought folks from across the country to the Hi-Line, and under the President’s proposed budget the Empire Builder, and the economic activity that comes with it, would go away. As the Courier reported, the President’s budget would leave 140 million Americans without acc...
I found myself thinking about Sunday church services the other day. Many changes have come about since my Sunday school days. My Sunday school experiences was not related to one church. Growing up in a small community, plus several moves during my youth, gave me the opportunity to become acquainted with customs of several different religions. Do you remember attending a Catholic service when you were expected to wear a hat, or head covering to church? And if you weren’t Catholic, there were other things that were different for the young P...
The 65th Montana legislature ended in late April by balancing a $10.3 billion-dollar- budget for the biennium of 2018 and 2019. My first session was in 2013, and we had about $550 million of general fund cash on hand. However, because spending was not curtailed and the revenue projections did not materialize, at the end of May 2017, only $76M remains in the general fund cash balance. A year ago at this time we had a balance of $343M. The budget is based on revenue and expenditure estimations. If estimations deviate then you are not balanced....
Two years ago this week, we embarked on our new adventure to Glasgow from Grand Forks, N.D. With a two-week old baby girl in tow, and a caravan consisting of a U-Haul and three vehicles stocked full with most of our belongings, we started the long nine-hour journey. Moving weekend didn’t start out very easy or stress-free, never mind the fact we were also moving a baby and all of her belongings. We started the moving process a day later than planned, because the U-Haul wasn’t available when it should have been, all of our belongings did...
Sunday was a delightful day for me. Our son, Carl, and his family treated me to the Sunday matinee of Arsenic and Old Lace at the Fort Peck Summer Theatre and dinner afterwards at the Gateway. The people who worked so hard to bring live theatre to our area deserve a huge amount of thanks. Over the years, so many local people have taken up the challenge of appearing on stage, giving everyone who attends the theatre a sense of pride and even ownership in this phenomenal project. So if you are looking for somewhere to take your guests this summer...
If you're not a "local" from the Nashua community, and you've visited the Nashua cemetery for whatever reason, you may wonder or perhaps have even commented that it's a pretty lonely-looking place to be buried. No, it's not surrounded by beautiful bushes or proud-standing pine trees landscaping its outskirts, but there is lots of other never-ending beauty. We enjoy harmony of wild birds, sightings of Bald Eagles passing through, a night owl perched high on the white cross, the distant sound of cattle bawling, the sights of the gorgeous Montana... Full story
Many people do not know that most Montanans living with disabilities are veterans. As a caregiver, I've seen firsthand the difference the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid expansion has made in our community when seniors and people with disabilities were finally able to get healthcare. Senator Daines needs to oppose the American Health Care Act. If passed, it would slash funding for Medicaid and hurt working families and seniors especially those living Glasgow. Medicaid expansion has a positive impact on our community because it provides health... Full story
wouldn't want to live anywhere else. Sure we have some people that we wish would bless other communities and counties with their presence; and yes we have some individuals who like to inform God and the UN of everything that goes on that they don't approve of (which is just about everything); BUT. I love this place! The people aren't hicks, they are pretty savvy when it comes to modern electronic devices, their usage and pitfalls; they won't give you the shirt of their back, instead they go out and buy you a new one; the past, it's just that, t... Full story
No matter what side of the aisle you come from, an open, honest and curious mind has most likely confronted the ideas of climate change. When it is described on the news as a revelational end times dilemma by Al Gore and other pundits it deserves a fair look. A recent effect of globalization brought the world together in 2015 to implement the Paris Agreement, also known as the Paris climate accord, to revolutionize the regulation of carbon emissions globally. By fulfilling a campaign promise, the President of the United States removed our count...
I’ve always been a rather anxious person. As a kid, my parents learned the hard way that I needed to be told the exact schedule for all family trips, or else I’d be a sobbing, cranky mess in the back of our periwinkle blue van. In high school, I was that person who studied for hours for a subject that I already knew better than my family tree. I was able to survive my freshmen and the start of my sophomore years of college with my overly detail-oriented and obsessive attitude without having a nervous breakdown, but only because I was mar...
Moving from the wooded hills of southeast Iowa to the prairie of northeastern Montana was quite a change for me. What I missed the most was the sparsity of trees. Going down the hill of Highway 438 to join U.S. Highway 2 in October of 1968, I was struck by the pangs of homesickness when I saw the bright gold of trees along the Porcupine Creek. Suddenly I missed all the colors of the fall foilage where I grew up -- all the differerent shades of red, gold, green, brown, and orange. I soon learned this was just the first of many differences I...
I had to laugh at the site of Gianforte and Daines on horseback touring a coal mine near Colstrip. It is laughable because the Montana way of life, the outdoors or agriculture, and coal are not the best of bedfellows. The other issue with Greg Gianforte, Steve Daines, Ryan Zinke and Donald Trump supporting the coal industry at all cost is that it isn’t their call to make. Utility companies are the main consumers of coal, and we are the main consumers of energy. Coal has grown in price and as a result has become nonviable as a competitor to n...
It’s time to clear the air. Protocol was broken; there are rules for suplexing journalists. It must be done within the bounds of self-defense and even then it must be done using strict caution and measured judgement. Last week, on the eve of the election, our congressman-elect assaulted a reporter from The Guardian, a British daily paper. Allegedly it was unprovoked and no matter how good a man Greg Gianforte is, this type of action is never excusable, legal or stately. He knows this. Contrary to leftist thought, the Republican Party is not t...
I first heard the song Hometown Girl, by Josh Turner, on hour 12.5 of my 14 hour drive back to college after spring break. I was inching my way through the boondocks of southern Minnesota in a freak spring snowstorm, trying not to die, and desperately attempting not to think about how badly I had to pee. With no aux cord in my car, I had to resort to a more retro way of distracting myself from the emotional, and increasingly, physical pain of my situation. I turned on the radio. The station I got the best signal on happened to be a country...
It’s been one week and one day. My initial shock hearing that Chris Cornell died quickly moved to terror the next day when I heard it, he had committed suicide. Suicide? My stomach reeled. Chris Cornell’s band, Soundgarden, had been a favorite of mine in the grunge scene that came out of Seattle. I was heartbroken!! Reading the news stories, I learned that he had long battled depression. Much like another musical influence of mine, Kurt Cobain, Chris had looked to substances to mask his pain, only to find a different demon there. Twe...
The night before the special election, as the news broke of Gianforte losing his temper, a friend posted a report on social media by rawstory.com, titled ‘Reporter decked by Montana candidate Greg Gianforte was just hauled off in an ambulance.’ The very first comment was “pretty sure this is a fake article!,” immediately followed by “I believe they will say anything at this point.” The first commenter did eventually allow that this report was ‘partly true.’ Other comments included “too bad he didn’t break more than his glasses,” “more med...
From Valley Dems: On the heels of Gianforte's act of violence, the vandalizing of a Rob Quist sign in a private yard seems unremarkable. The sign was pulled and destroyed and left. Left as a threat? Felt like it to the homeowner. Small acts excused and normalized lead to the acceptance and normalization of larger acts. We need to return to the recognition that democracy is based on a two-or-more party system. Each side has a right to voice their opinion without fear and in recognition that no one party gets it all right all the time. Our...
It saddens me that this week we will memorialize a father, a husband and a Broadwater County Sheriff Deputy whose life was taken at far too young of an age. This being May, it is also the month of memorializing those who served and gave their lives in battle for this country. Not to make this about myself, but I served three tours over seas with the Marine Corps, and after returning to Montana, I tried my hand in law enforcement for a few months before taking the National Guard Recruiting job here in Glasgow. I will say that the two jobs -...
On Saturday (May 20) I attended the political rally for Rob Quist with special guest Bernie Sanders in Butte, Mont. It began with two locals sharing their healthcare stories. A woman who had battled cancer three different times, is now facing loss of healthcare due to pre-existing conditions. While “high risk pools” are the Republicans’ answer to this problem, those pools will drive up the cost of healthcare for people in need that many will have to simply choose against enrollment. When this woman dealt with high risk pools before the ACA,...
Do you remember picking up the telephone and getting an operator? I only vaguely remember those days. If you have more accurate memories, please forgive me and feel free to give me a call. As I recall, once you picked up your phone receiver, the operator answered by saying “number please” at which time you gave her the number you wished to be connected to. If you lived in a small community, which had a local telephone office, you might not even have to give the number you needed. All you might need to do was ask to be connected to the loc...
The headlines read: "Well-Known Educator Killed in Car Accident." But there was much more to that. Russell Grandel, geologist, his wife, Mary Ellen, R.N., along with their nearly 2-year-old son, Frazier, were hit by this man who came at them from the opposite lane. The Grandels were just moving into their newly-purchased home in the valley of Palmer, Alaska, and had decided to take a break by driving to nearby Wasilla. Russell, my son-in-law, saw the vehicle coming at them, but couldn’t completely avoid it. The impact was terrific. All the G...
