Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913
Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913
Sorted by date Results 1926 - 1950 of 2308
Hello, this is Sen. John Brenden sending a letter to the folks in my Sen. District #17. Since the last election, my senate district has increased to include Chinook and everything north in Blaine County and everything north of Highway 2 in Havre, angling northwest by Fresno, ending about straight north of Hingham, but not including Hingham. My district goes from the North Dakota border about 282 miles west and that is 51 percent of the 545-mile border with Canada! It is the largest state senate district in miles that borders Canada; it...
There have been two more state bison meetings since last I wrote. One was July 14 and 15 in Billings to propose testable alternatives for an Environmental Impact Statement, and one was Oct. 9 in Great Falls to develop those alternatives. There was a lot to be depressed about at those meetings. A depressing number of people travelled from western Montana to Billings to say they want a herd of bison, and they want to keep it in our backyards. They didn’t comprehend why that was an issue for us. Depressingly, the bison discussion group r...
After being confined in a closed space for the first nine months of our lives, when we finally find the exit our first action involve movement of arms and legs a-flailing wildly as the doctor slaps our bottom. Our first wobbling steps into mobile freedom are accompanied my shrieks of laughter and buckets of tears from parents and other assorted family and neighbors. The second milestone has been achieved and our little brains aren't even able to comprehend what we've just done. Folks my age can recall with fondness the “Baby Tender.” It was...
Ranchers are busy rounding up their cattle and getting the calves ready for market. Roundup can take from a few days to several weeks. One of the most impressive sights is when the cattle are being gathered up and moved to corrals on the Wittmayer Grazing Association. Watching association members on horseback urging the cattle on evokes thoughts of long ago roundups. While my husband was out on the range helping to round up the cattle, I was in our pickup, driving along our fence lines checking for any break in the fences and repairing them....
I know that the Thanksgiving turkey has not even been prepared yet, but we are forced to think of Christmas every time we go into a store or pick up papers or magazines. Thinking of Christmas makes me remember when every young child wanted to find a train set under the tree. I say that knowing that there were little girls that wanted a train set just a badly as the young boys. Many daddies were bitten by the bug also, and it was not uncommon to see a very extravagant train set up in a grandpa’s basement. The most well-known scale model train se...
In a nation filled with acronyms, I have just coined a new one familiar to all of us. It is EYT. We all suffer from it every two to four years and it leaves most of us with headaches, self-doubt, voters angst and a myriad other side effects, including but not exclusive to constipation, diarrhea, male pattern baldness and ED. (Expectational Dread; Not the other ED.) EYT (Election Year Trauma) hits us usually just moments after we step out of the voting booth wondering, “Did I do the right thing? Is it too late to change my vote? I didn't r...
It's the hot topic on every social media outlet, on the television, on radio and all over the nation's news business. Rising panic on Ebola in the United States. I learned in the last few weeks that this panic is so great, that you could lose friends over a joke on Ebola, I also learned that trying to get on an airplane and joking about Ebola is a big no-go. So why all of a sudden a panic on the virus? Maybe it's because people who have suffered the true flu understand the pain a virus can leave you in with no help in sight. The truth of the...
Election time brings to mind my early years of voting. I do not remember how, when, or where I registered to vote, but I do remember that we had a very community-minded lady in our area who was always on top of getting the young people, or those new to the area, registered to vote. I understand that she kept voter registration cards at her home year round and she would deliver the newly filled cards to the courthouse. No same-day voter registration but dedicated, patriotic, volunteers worked to make sure people did vote. Most all of the rural c...
Halloween – a time for costumes, ghosts, goblins and monsters. It's always so fun to see the children dressed up as their favorite character. For me, Halloween brings back the smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and the Friday night horror movie. Every Friday during my teenage years, I made chocolate chip cookies. All but one dozen of them would be put away. That dozen cookies were put on a plate and covered to keep them fresh and moist. Because they were for me and Dad when he got home from work. My dad worked the second shift in a...
The internet is such a powerful tool in modern life, it’s hard for a lot of people to imagine going through their daily routine without using it in some capacity. But for some people in rural communities, accessing the internet isn’t as easy as just connecting to the wifi network. I recently had the chance to fly to Washington DC along with other rural advocates to talk about net neutrality and broadband access in rural areas. We shared stories that we heard from rural folks across the country with representatives and regulators, and dis...
Dear Editor: I've been raised here in Valley County for the most part of my life and I have always been drawn back to this part of the country. I have made a family here. I would like to think of myself as an honorable man, as has been taught to me early on, and not one to destroy, vandalize or just have total disregard for others. I have family up north resting and would be uneasy if they were disrespected alive or deceased. I had ventured up north to do a thoughtful and selfless act for another and somehow made myself out to look like a...
Dear Valley County Voters: There has been a great deal of articles with ambiguous information and questions regarding a variety of issues that relate to budgets and the administration of Valley County. These statements could be misconstrued and lead someone to believe that the Valley County Commissioners are not doing their job, and that is not the fact. The Valley County Commissioners' office is open to anyone to come in and visit. All financial activity is recorded and available to the public. It is the responsibility of people who look at...
Dear Editor, We as concerned citizens need to vote for ordinance 32014-1 to help stop the introduction of free roaming bison in Valley County. We feel that bison not fenced in could cause safety concerns to our residents, resources and our private lands. We need to remember that free roaming bison are not fenced in and they can go anywhere without restriction. If passed, people or organizations that want to bring bison into Valley County will have to file an acceptable conservation plan to the Valley County Conservation District. No one is...
For the third year, Eastern Montana Glasgow Head Start will trick or treat for a cause. A group of Head Start kids will go out into the community to collect items for the troops on Halloween in hopes to make a soldier's day a little bit brighter. What started a few years ago as a way to support local units overseas has continued. Head Start site coordinator Pam Ost explained that it was ta teacher, Kerry Henches, who thought it would be a good opportunity to dress up and pay it forward by giving treats to others in the community. As time has...
Dear Editor: I'm addressing this letter to big game hunters, both resident and those from out of the area. I'm writing this to ask you to please don't shoot the antlerless whitetail deer in the area between Hinsdale and Nashua, for 5 miles on each side of the Milk River. These deer were hit very hard during the winter of 2010-2011, and then suffered an EHD epidemic that same summer, all of which resulted in a 95 percent die-off. That is the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks' statistic. Since then, the numbers have not appreciably...
I am writing this column from Billings, where I am undergoing five radiation treatments. The drug I was taking to keep my breast cancer at bay failed. I was told by two oncologists that some active cancer cells developed a resistance to the drug, allowing them to travel to my right hip. After tests and discussion, it was decided to give me two new medicines and do five days of radiation. This development was totally unexpected. I had been having quite a bit of pain in my right leg. On Oct. 4, I went to the ER because I couldn't handle the pain...
As flood waters receded in late August, Valley County Disaster and Emergency Services Coordinator Rick Seiler started working on figuring how much damage existed. Those numbers began to rise in Valley County, along with those in nearby Musselshell, Petroleum, Blaine and Carter counties and the Fort Belknap Reservation. The preliminary assessment of damages in Valley County added up to almost $958,000. Combined all areas are at about $1.6 million in damages, with Fort Belknap reporting around $53,000, Carter County $37,000, Musselshell $55,000...
Have you traveled in your home area lately and thought about the original location of the highway or road you were traveling on? The highway between Nashua and Glasgow, for instance. I remember that highway as being one of my first highway driving experiences. Seeing some of the old highway grade brings to mind how narrow the road was and how big the cars were that we drove. How about the highway between Glasgow and Malta, or even Opheim and Glasgow? Of course all roads of the early times followed the lay of the land and were built with...
Much of rural and small town Montana depends on the economic impact of recreation and tourism. Camping, hunting, fishing, birding, hiking, guiding and other activities in 11 Western states, including Montana, brought in $623 million in direct spending and $1.06 billion in indirect spending, according to a recent Western Values Project study (http://www.cfra.org/western-values-project-study). And nearby communities also benefit economically from the nearly 68 million visitors that spent time time on land administered by the Bureau of Land...
Last week I ran away from home. I left 1,500 bales of hay in the fields waiting for Donna to pick them up. I cleaned out my fridge of all stuff that would perish in my absence. I packed eight shirts, eight pair of socks, eight pair of shorts, four pair of Wranglers, boots, shaving kit, cell phone plug-in thingie, two guitars and assorted other stuff and hit the open road. My first stop was in Sapphire Village to visit my Aunt Carol and Uncle Jim before they head south for the winter. Jim promised I wouldn't have to do any work. Sometimes the...
Do you remember the original date of Columbus Day? I did ask several of my acquaintances on Monday if they remembered the date, but ended up checking it out on the Internet. I was right, it used to be celebrated on Oct. 12 for many, many years. Now it is another three-day holiday and not recognized by some due to racial prejudice. Some of us do remember from our history lessons that Columbus was actually Italian. And thinking of school history, I remember learning a poem about Columbus, but the only lines I can come up went something like...
There seems to be so much focus on bullying these days. You see viral video posts of kids being beat up by kids, movies about kids being cyber bullied and constantly hear about bully prevention. It's seems to be some kind of new fad to stand up against bullies. So here's the question, do you stand up against bullies, or do you sit silently. It's always been my philosophy that communication is the world's biggest problem. I sometimes sit on the edge of my chair biting my tongue at meetings or in a room full of people because I so badly want to...
Dear Editor I'm not sure about the rest of the world, but in the area from Billings to Malta, there are lots of kind and thoughtful people. I am temporarily wheelchair bound. Family, friends and perfect strangers have been so helpful. People rush to open doors for me. One little boy in Billings said, “Look Mom, that lady has wheels.” I'm so pleased with all the kindness. But, myself, I have reverted to the 2-year-old whose favorite phrase is, “I can do it myself,” as she puts her shoe on the wrong foot. Haven't done that yet, but it's still e...
Before you make any decisions about renaming the Irle School, you need to learn more about Mr. R. L. Irle. Mr R.L. Irle came to Glasgow in 1929, I believe. Just in time for the beginning of three crisis to strike Valley County, Montana, and the entire world. In 1929 the "Roaring 20's" were coming to an end. We were headed into the greatest Depression to ever hit this country. Money was literally not worth the paper it was printed on. Farmers, ranchers, businesses were all going down. This Great...
A name is identity, a heritage, a tradition and a trust. It is something that is cultivated and earned over years, even generations. In education, a name is a memory or an association with a force that sparks many of us to strive to reach our potential in life. R. L. Irle’s story may be forgotten to many, but we all know he was an educator. By giving that recognition to a neighborhood school affirms our recognition in all educators in our community. It is a unique and personal place for our most treasured young students. For almost 60 years, t...
