Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913
Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913
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This column originally ran Aug. 27, 2014. We are reprinting it due to its author's recent win for Best Column Writing at the 2015 Montana Newspaper Association's Better Newspaper Contest. In church last Sunday, I felt a very light touch on the back of my hair. Wondering what was touching my hair, I suddenly realized it was my almost 3-year-old granddaughter, who was ever so carefully using one tiny finger to gently go from about the middle of my hair to the end of the strands. And then I smiled as I heard her whisper to her mother, "Mom, I...
It was a good week for us here at the Courier, at least when it comes to wins and placement in the Montana Newspaper Association's Better Newspaper Contest Awards for 2015. Our own Sandy Laumeyer took First Place in the Column Writing category. Her submission was titled "The Touch of a Hand." Congratulations, Sandy! The Courier also took Second Place for Best Newspaper Promotional Ad for a selection from our popular special section, "Hi-Line Farm & Ranch." Second Place for Best Sports Story went to former publisher Jim Orr for his entry, "The...
I live in Fort Peck, but I spend much of my time in Billings. Because of that, I didn't read last week's Courier until Sunday. I was very disappointed in the review of Krakauer's book. Although DK Holm's level of detail indicates that he actually read the book, somehow he missed Krakauer's overall message, which is that rape is on college campuses is commonplace and handled poorly by the justice system. Just reading the book jacket makes it clear that what happened in Missoula is representative of a "national plague of campus rape." Holm's...
Branding of the current year calf crop has been finished by a lot of our rancher friends. Who remembers the days of a wood fire for the purpose of heating branding irons? I know that many of us have seen an occasional branding using a wood fire, but have you ever wondered about the early day brandings, and just where the wood for these branding fires came from? Sometimes, in the eastern part of our state, we can drive for miles without seeing a tree so it is pretty certain that preparing for those early day brandings must have included wood...
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The time is rapidly approaching when the US Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) has to do something or get-off-the-pot concerning listing the greater sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). However, a reprieve may be in the making as Congress debates a bill that would postpone listing for another 10 years. I would bet the Service and their supporters are quietly lobbying hard for passage of this bill since it not only lets them off the hook (I will try to explain why this is...
Had a great idea last week. Or rather, Facebook tipped me off to a great idea. There are a lot of potholes around the place generally and someone shared a pic of a flower that had been planted in what appeared to be one of the many road gashes here in town. I loved the idea for the paper and thought I’d loop the city into my scheme by encouraging them to fill one pothole per week for an ongoing series sponsored by Glasgow Flower and Gift. I got our sponsor on board (thanks, GFG!), sent a reporter to place a daisy in a local pothole. She took a...
Virgil, Good piece on children and how they learn to speak! YES!! It all starts at home – the parents or guardians are responsible. If your kids didn’t learn it til after they started school or daycare, you can put the blame on the parents or guardians of the kids in your child’s class or daycare. It’s sad, very sad, that parents have such low self esteem and disrespect for their children. Disrespect for other people all together! If I hear someone speaking with profanity around children, I will confront them. But really, do they even care?!...
Beautiful, harsh, breathtaking, difficult, inspiring. What do these words describe? The prairie. With the arrival of spring, bright yellow sweet peas begin to open their petals to the sun, followed by bluebells covering the prairie with beauty and color. Not long behind, the cactus starts flowering, adding their brilliant colors to the palette. An abundance of life can be found on the prairie. Throughout the day and into the night you can hear one symphony after another. Life on the prairie presents challenges that take courage and strength to...
The place was Kingman, Arizona, U.S.A. I was coming out of the Petro Truck Stop about five miles east of Kingman one evening when a moth dive-bombed directly into my ear. Now, Grannie always said, “You’ll go crazy if a moth flies into your ear.” I always thought phshaw to that until I had it happen to my ear. The bug fluttered a bit, stopped, waited a few seconds or so and fluttered again, stopped ... fluttered ... stopped ... fluttered. If this goes on for 30 to 40 minutes your whole body tenses up waiting for the next flutter. It CAN make...
The Valley County Refuse District #1 is made up of eight citizens, representing two from Glasgow, one from Opheim, one from Nashua, one from Fort Peck, one from Hinsdale, one from Lustre and one county commissioner. Meetings are the third Tuesday of every month, at the Valley County Courthouse in the community room. They start at 5 p.m. and are open to the public. The 2015 board members of the Valley County Refuse Board are Dan Carney (chairman), Dan Durell (Glasgow representative), Glen Guenther (vice chairman and Fort Peck representative),...
Glasgow Mayor Becky Erickson invited me to lunch at Sam’s Supper Club for an informal chat May 28. The setting for our meeting clued me in to the fact that I could leave my notebook at the office, as I tend to do when meeting potential subjects of my own reporting on a friendly level around town. I didn’t expect the full court press on stories for the paper, in other words, and I didn’t get it. Erickson’s main concern was personal: “I hope you aren’t finding it difficult to make friends and meet people,” she asked, kindly, during what we both...
I am a local to Glasgow, Montana and am currently a senior attending the University of Montana working toward a Major is Art Education. I plan on teaching at the Secondary level. With teaching art it is very difficult for me to choose one medium that I focus in because I have to be well rounded in all art mediums. Therefore I enjoy working will various mediums, however, my personal bodies of work currently have revolved around ceramic pieces. Most of my work is experimentation with creating...
Last week Tom Brokaw appeared on the Dr. Oz show to talk about his cancer diagnosis. Because of prior commitments, I missed seeing it. I’m sure it was a very moving interview, as Brokaw is a master of words. As a cancer survivor since 2010, and now once again fighting it, I decided to put to paper some of my thoughts about having cancer. Cancer is an ugly word and an ugly disease. Not only does it destroy one’s body physically, it can also destroy a person emotionally, mentally, spiritually and their family as well. It can take away all hop...
What do you consider to be the most endangered species in America? Could it be the number one topic of the day: the American Bison? Or, could it possibly be the Gray Wolf, the Sage Hen, Whooping Crane, Black-Footed Ferret, Pallid Sturgeon or the Sprague’s Pipit. And what about the Side-Hill Gouger and the Jackalope? (Very rarely seen these days and nearing extinction much like the T-Rex) There are 104 species of fish listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) along with 29 species of snails. At last count there were 63 mammals listed as bein...
It has been a crazy spring but a lot of you have your gardens planted already. Do you remember what a chore planting a garden was? Some people were lucky enough to have a horse that pulled a walking plow to work the ground for planting. Others had to spade the garden with a shovel (spade). I remember my mom hiring a couple of young neighbor boys to spade our garden, but at the time we lived in town so maybe using a walking plow pulled by a horse was not an option. Never having to do much more than experiment with either method, I can’t say that...
FWP Information and Education Program Manager for Region 6 Marc Kloker (left) and Lakeridge Motel and Tackle owner Gene Moore will provide expertise and insights into area fishing beginning next week. Our own novice sportsman James Walling will write the regular feature with their assistance. Look for it in the sports section....
Our controversial contributor Virgil Vaupel is well known for his curmudgeonly tales spiced with vitriolic viewpoints. I've been here less than a month and there is much we disagree about already. You'll read plenty about that in columns to come. Since he sounds off this week on a subject about which we largely agree (shocker!), I'm taking the opportunity to talk about how much I admire the guy. During a recent lunch at the Cottonwood, Mr. Vaupel raised the bar on my estimation of his talents. For starters, he introduced me to a journalism...
The 64th Montana Legislature is almost in the books. History will formulate the decisions that were made into a true factual scenarios. I enjoyed the session. Yes there were long hours, steep learning curves, enduring decisions, and I supported and objected to bills that I feel are best for my constituents and Montana. Some have become law and many have not. There were 1,187 bills introduced, 592 died in the Senate and/or the House. The Governor has had the final say on the remaining 595 bills. I served on three House committees this session....
Hi! You asked our opinion about astrology or astronomy, and I vote for astronomy hands down! Astrology is either totally fake, or of Satan. Astronomy is marveling at God's wonders. Thanks so much for asking! P.S. Thank you for getting rid of a lot of the typos in the paper! It is much more pleasant to read." -Janet Eidson To Virgil Vaupel: "Truth and humor combined, I like it. We seem to be on the same page most of the time." -Brian Westberg...
In today’s society it seems language skills have gone out the window with the baby's bathwater. TV and the movies are teaching the young certain words and phrases they shouldn't be hearing at their age. Mom and dad are using words that would make a drunken sailor blush uncaring about whose little ears are in earshot so it's no wonder America's youth has trouble communicating without profanity. I heard a young mother of three drop the f-bomb as a noun, verb and adjective all in the same sentence. I was impressed to say the least. That said, p...
Last year I wrote a little bit about remembering those who never made it home on Memorial Day. If you don’t realize the big difference between Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day, talk to any service member that saw combat. Memorial Day we remember those who were lost, those who were killed in battle. Sometimes those who were lost in wars long before are forgotten. As relatives die off and decades pass by, sometimes graves are passed by, stories are lost. Sometimes families have moved on and don’t have the opportunity to visit those headstones. Just...
A longtime friend, Bill, sends me a trivia question each day. So far I’ve managed to answer each one correctly. One of the more recent questions was to give the name of a game he described. the answer was jacks, a game I played for hours on end either by myself or with friends when I was a child. In commenting that I had given the right answer, Bill said it’s sad how video games and computer games have become so popular. He noted how, when we were children, we could entertain ourselves for hours and hours using our imagination. In the winter, a...
It is the time of year when most farmers are working to get crops planted if they are not already in. Observing some of the huge outfits that are currently used for most field work made me think of what it must have been like for my father’s and grandfather’s generation. Are there any retired farmers, or for that matter, ranchers, that remember putting in their wheat and barley? Or preparing hay ground for the season, that remember not fertilizing? That is right, no commercial fertilizer. That probably meant there was no need for soil sam...
Astrology columns drive me crazy. People love them, I know, but it's not science. And these things are often in a newspaper, so even though every reader knows full well that the stars are about as reliable as a fortune cookie when it comes to the subject of, say, one's personal destiny, it still looks official somehow. Sanctioned even. That seems ridiculous to me and makes me worry about the state of things generally. One alternative is an astronomy column. I've been hunting around for a few stargazers with a background in actual science to chi...
