The Blackfoot Valley's News Source Since 1980
The Blackfoot Valley's News Source Since 1980
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It might not have been cold and snowy in Ovando last Friday, but Christmas was in the air as the Old West Christmas Fest brought scores of people to town. As with so, so many events in 2020, concerns about the lingering COVID-19 pandemic prompted organizers to scrap the annual festival last year, with hopes for better luck in 2021. And better luck they had, despite some scaling back. "My big thing is I want to make sure everyone knows it's kind of a building year after...
A young group of grapplers took to the new red Lincoln Loggers mats at the Lincoln Community Hall Tuesday, Dec. 7 to get a handle on the basics of wrestling as the new season got underway last week. The club received the new mats, emblazoned with the team logo, through donations from throughout the community Something Schwalm and the team are thankful for.They replaced the worn second-hand mats they had been using since the wrestling club was formed by the late Bob Zadick in...
The Annual Lincoln Christmas Bazaar saw a busy day Saturday, Dec. 4. This year's Christmas Bazaar marked the first since Ann Pryor retired in 2019 after 30 years organizing the sale by crafters and artisans. For Jill Sallin, who took over as organizer, the bazaar was a bittersweet affair. She watched the ebb and flow of the crowd from behind a table laden with quilts, rugs, potholders and other useful creations handmade by her mother Jesse, who passed away last month. Jesse...
The recent effort to simplify hunting regulations in Montana has sparked debate around the state and could bring significant changes to boundaries of the deer and elk hunting districts in the Lincoln area. Hunters in Lincoln had the chance to discuss the proposals at a season setting meeting at Lambkins Wednesday, Jan. 5. Led by Randy Arnold, the regional supervisor for Region 2, the meeting drew only a few participants. Although the meeting also touched on the elimination of...
Emergency services in Lincoln now have more reliable communications thanks to two Emergency Medical Services grants from the Montana Department of Transportation awarded to the Lincoln Volunteer Ambulance and Lincoln Volunteer Fire Rescue. The Lincoln Volunteer Ambulance successfully applied for a $45,000 grant in 2020 to replace their aging and dilapidated radios. Faced with the same radio problem, Lincoln Volunteer Fire Rescue also applied for and received a grant of about...
The buzz of snowmobiles punctuated the clear morning air around the Ponderosa Snow Warriors clubhouse Saturday, Jan. 22 as trucks and trailers pulled into the parking lot on Sucker Creek Road for the club's annual pancake breakfast and fun run. "We're getting a pretty dang good turnout," said Snow Warriors President Forest Mercill. Even as the breakfast crowd wound down sleds continued to arrive for the ride. "Roughy about 150 hands sold today. A lot of out of state sleds, a...
How can Lincoln develop without losing its identity and changing into something the community itself won't recognize? That has been, in one way or another, the core conundrum in various efforts to make plans for Lincoln's future over the last 50-plus years. It remains at the heart of the upcoming effort to develop a comprehensive community master plan for the town. The recently formed Master Plan Steering Committee began the process of tackling that issue during a Zoom...
Drivers in a rush to pass other cars as they head into or out of Lincoln will need a little more patience in the future with the Montana Department of Transportation's approval of an extension of no-passing zones on both the east and west ends of town. A recent review of data and field observations of traffic and driveway densities on Highway 200 near Lincoln provided justification for the extension. MDT conducted the observations on Highway 200 on both ends of Lincoln at...
A couple weeks after the end of hunting season, RJ Keaster put the finishing touches on the last of wild game processed this year by his new family business Keaster Cuts. RJ and his wife Kathryn bought the business, formerly known as T&A Meats, from Aaron Daniel earlier this year to earn extra money and pay off some debt. RJ learned to process wild game both through his experience as an avid hunter and through his time spent helping Daniel at T&A Meats. "(Daniel) has been in...
A criminal mischief investigation is underway after a vehicle ran through the fences at the Hooper Park baseball fields. At about 6 a.m., Sunday Dec. 19, a vehicle identified as a pickup truck on video from the Lincoln School apparently ran through the chain-link fence around the west baseball field at Hooper Park, did a couple circles on the field before driving out through a different section of the fence. The vehicle also ran through the gate in the fence around the east ba...
Kate Radford bid farewell to Lincoln this month as she left her position at the Lincoln Library to return to Boise, Idaho, where she began her new job Dec. 13 as the Information Services Supervisor at the Boise Public Library. Radford, who worked at the Boise Public Library before coming to Lincoln, was offered the job where she will manage a number of programs, such as the library's Idaho history collection, adult programs, interlibrary loans and homebound services. She will...
The future of paved roads in Lincoln may be in doubt if property owners in town don't get on the ball and sign the petitions for the chip seal projects planned for next year on the town's two Rural Improvement District. "These roads are not asphalt roads. They're double shot chip seal, so ... it's important to keep up with maintenance of that. Once it starts to unravel, it can unravel quickly," said county Special Districts Program Coordinator Jessica Makus Lincoln's two...
Following the retirement of Aaron Daniel at the end of October, LincTel has a new General manager, Bryce Daniel. Bryce Daniel, who had been offered the position about a week before his father accepted an early retirement offer, took over the position on Nov. 1. 'We'd been gearing up for it, but it was a pretty quick transition," Daniel said. The planned transition had been in the works for several months. "I'm excited to take over. I've been here for more than 13 years," he sa...
The design for a new Dalton Mountain Road Bridge seemed to be popular with locals who use the bridge on a regular basis, but residents of the area still harbor doubts about when the old bridge, which is down to just one lane and now an eight-ton weight limit, will actually be replaced. The Dalton Mountain Road Bridge open house hosted by the Montana Department of Transportation Nov. 18 provided some insight into the state's plans for the bridge replacement, The processes and...
Sometime during the night of Nov. 21 or the early morning hours of Nov. 22, thieves broke into eleven storage units at Mini Storage of Lincoln behind Mountain View Co-Op. Gerry Malek, who checks on the storage units at least twice a day for Maggie and Tim Mulcare discovered the break ins during his morning rounds. It's unclear at this point what all may have been stolen from the various units, although hand tools and fishing poles were among the items reported thus far....
Lewis and Clark County County Commissioners approved the Lost Moose Meadows Campground Subdivision at their meeting in Helena Tuesday, Nov. 9. The decision clears the way for property owners Matt and Nichole Simpkins to begin development of a 40-space RV park on 30.74 acres about three miles west of Lincoln, just north of Highway 200. The Board of County Commissioner's decision included approval of a variance for fire protection that county planning board originally recommende...
Lincoln-area kids had a second go at Halloween Nov. 13, at the rescheduled Lincoln PTSO Halloween Carnival in the Lincoln School gym. Despite the fact the Halloween festivities were delayed by two weeks thanks to a COVID-19 outbreak at the school, Danielle Barnett with the PTSO said it was one of the things they just wanted to be able to do. "We were a little worried about whether people would want to come," she said, and though there weren't quite as many kids in costume as...
In honor of Veterans Day this year, Emily Rundell presented several Lincoln veterans with commemorative coins to thank them for their service. "I just wanted to do something special," she said. Rundell presented the coins, bearing the inscription that "A Veteran is someone who wrote a blank check made payable to the the United States for an amount of up to and including their life," on behalf of her family. For Rundell, Veterans Day has always hit close to home. She said she...
On the heels of a couple challenging years, the Birkholz family decided to chart a new course for one of Lincoln's most iconic businesses. By early next year, the Sportsman Motel will no longer be welcoming nightly guests. Instead, the motel's nine rooms will be studio apartments with yearly leases. "I was hoping to get them all done by the first of the year, but it looks like it's going to be about February," said owner Dick Birkholz, who made the decision to convert the...
A semi-annual inspection of the Dalton Mountain Road Bridge by the Montana Department of Transportation in September revealed considerable damage to piles reinforced by Lewis and Clark County in 2017. County Engineer Dan Karlin said the damage to the piles is the result of loads that exceed the 10-ton weight limit crossing the bridge. "The bottom line is we really need that to stop," he said. "That is contributing to this. If it continues, based on conversations with MDT and...
A recent surge in COVID-19 cases in Lincoln led to the closure of both the Lincoln Schools and the Lincoln Library last week. On Oct. 26, Lincoln Schools announced a return to remote learning after several teachers received positive COVID-19 diagnoses, beginning the week prior. The following day, the Lewis and Clark Public Library also announced the temporary, indefinite closure of both their Lincoln and Augusta branches, due to concerns about community spread of COVID. The...
Black plastic trash bags lined Highway 200 at random intervals Friday morning Oct. 15, as fourteen junior high and high school members of Lincoln School's chapter of the Business Professionals of America joined the Ponderosa Snow Warriors to cleanup the borrow pits along Highway 200 from the Lincoln Ranger Station to the Landers Fork Bridge. Divided into several groups, the clean up crew scoured the roadsides for trash thrown from vehicles, blown out of trucks or trailers...
A new shade structure will provide visitors to the Lincoln skatepark with respite from the sun or the rain. The shade, completed last weekend by DC Construction of Helena, was paid for by an $8000 grant from the American Academy of Dermatology and is the lates, but not the last, improvement to Hooper Park, which saw a record-setting summer season. "We did real good on revenue," said Lincoln Park Board President Nyle Howsmon. "We almost increased $10,000 over last year, which...
Virginia Lambkin Horner marked a milestone birthday Oct. 8 as she turned 100. The eldest daughter of Leonard and Mary Lambkin, Virginia was born in Great Falls in 1921 and spent much of her life in Lincoln, growing up at her parents' hotel, the now -iconic Hotel Lincoln. Brenda Vehrs, Virginia's granddaughter, said Virginia and her younger sisters Ellen (Mulcare) and Betty (Disney) were "all kind of special girls" for their time. "They all got to go to college," Vehrs said....
As Lincoln School headed into Homecoming week, the premature end to the Lincoln High School football season and difficulties in finding substitute teachers both saw extensive discussion at the Lincoln School board meeting Monday Oct. 11. Lincoln Schools Athletic Director Shane Brown said football season started off with high expectations but circumstances such as COVID-19 and poor practice attendance affected players eligibility to the point the team couldn't be sustained...
