The Blackfoot Valley's News Source Since 1980
The Blackfoot Valley's News Source Since 1980
Sorted by date Results 651 - 675 of 785
The Lewis and Clark County Sheriff’s office is leading an investigation into how a critically injured Great Falls man wound up in the woods in Lincoln Gulch north of the old Lincoln Cemetery, two miles from where his rental car was discovered four days earlier. Sheriff Leo Dutton told the BVD the injured man, who’s name has not yet been released, was discovered Aug 24. by an individual walking up a trail doing some metal detecting. The man with the metal detector, who also happened to be from Great Falls, heard moaning and...
Residents of Lincoln who are concerned about missing the deadline to comment on the draft environmental impact statement and draft revised forest management plan will have more time to get make their concerns about the plan known. The new deadline to comment on the draft is Tuesday, Oct. 9. According to a press release issued Aug. 30, Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest Supervisor Bill Avey chose to extend public comment period on the Forest Plan revision by one month...
Parents had the chance to meet their kids' teachers, get an idea of what the student's will be learning in the upcoming school year and enjoy a meal at this year's Lincoln Public School Open house. It had been a challenge to get parents to make it to the annual open house at the beginning of the school year, due in part to the fact they're scheduled between 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. That is until they opted to add a meal. "We tried a number of different things to bring parents in so...
Annette Gardner, who took on a new position as Lincoln Public School's reading coach this year, also sported a new look at the school open house Thursday afternoon. Decked out - and nearly unrecognizable - in a platinum blond wig and other, shall we say, enhancements, Gardner was promoting a new effort to sign up young children for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library. A book gifting program, it mails free, age appropriate books for kids from birth through the age of 5,...
Lincoln Lynx new head football coach Travis William said the team is looking good at the start of the season, with more players taking the field than he's seen in a long time. "We've got a good balance, good mix of guys," they've all got the right attitude and they're ready to work," he said during practice Thursday afternoon. Although the Lynx got shut out 70-0 in their season opener against Noxon Friday, Aug. 24, Williams said the team nevertheless worked together...
After about a year and a half on the market, the Wilderness Bar and Scapegoat Eatery are under new ownership. Kelly and Jody Riesbeck of Helena closed the deal on the landmark Lincoln bar last week, taking over ownership Aug 28 from longtime proprietor Ethel Peterson. "We just love Lincoln and the bar excites us," Kelly Riesbeck said. He said they've been interested in buying the business for about a year. "It's always been an interest in our family. My Dad really wanted to...
Lewis and Clark County Commissioners took the advice of county staff at their meeting in Helena Aug. 16, and voted unanimously to deny the request to create a rural improvement district for the 4x4 Road east of Lincoln. The RID would have covered the cost of applying soil stabilization or dust abatement to the main 4x4 Road, at an annual cost of $72.21 per benefitted property The discovery that one such property in the proposed district is a parcel of School Trust Land,...
Lewis and Clark County Public Works is making plans to repair the large washout on North Lincoln Gulch Road, without the assistance of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Public Works Director Eric Griffin said last month the project was a priority for this year and expected to work with FEMA on the repair, but concerns about the federal agency's level involvement prompted his department take a new approach. "We don't quite know if FEMAs gonna come in or not come in or...
The Lincoln Ranger District is working through the planning process for rerouting a one mile stretch of Copper Creek Road, located about a mile and a half north of Snowbank Lake, from it's current location near the waterway onto a bench upslope and away from the creek bottom. The goal of the reroute is to help reduce potential impacts to important bull trout habitat in the area. Bull trout are listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. The Forest Service...
Although Ted Kaczynski's cabin has looms large in the narrative of his story over the past 20 years, the full-scale reproduction of it, sitting in the original location with its door facing away from anything resembling civilization, highlights how almost shockingly small and nondescript it was. Stepping into the 10 foot by 12-foot building, with it's low ceiling and an interior packed with items that replicate what the FBI discovered after Kaczynski's arrest in 1996, the...
After 35 years, the annual Bob Purdy Memorial Softball Tournament is still growing strong. The tournament got its start in 1983, shortly after Bob Purdy, a strong advocate of sports, died in a logging accident. Sponsored by the Wheel Inn, this year's tournament saw the maximum number of teams -15 – sign up, but only 14 participated. The Wheel's Laurie Richards said they had several teams on standby, but the team that pulled out did so at the last minute due to too few p...
Downtown Ovando came alive last week as the Blackfoot Challenge hosted a Summer Party in the town square to celebrate the organization's 25th anniversary. The celebration kept things small and local, reflecting a renewed effort by the Blackfoot Challenge to reconnect more directly with the communities in the valley. "It became apparent in 1993 that we'd sort of forgotten a lot of stuff. We forgot about this, about bringing communities together," Blackfoot Challenge Chairman...
It was a busy weekend at Hooper Park during the 35th Annual Bob Purdy Softball Tournament, and for the second year in a row players had to make do with porta-potties and a lack of running water. Although Thompson Contracting of Libby delivered the park's new concrete restrooms on schedule at the end of July, issues with plumbing and the state-mandated public water supply system have kept the facility shuttered. Nevertheless, the end may finally be in sight. (Knock on wood.) At...
With Lincoln School's first class of 15 preschoolers set to arrive in less than a week, Sondra Grigsby said it's been a big challenge starting a preschool from scratch. "Luckily, I've worked in preschools before, but it's been a few years," said Grigsby, who has a degree in early childhood education and has worked as Lincoln High School's grade 7-12 Special Education teacher for the last 15 years. "We did a bunch of touring of preschools prior, but it's a bit of a set up start...
With only a few small fires burning anywhere near Lincoln, the thick pall of smoke that descended on the area seemed to arrive out of nowhere, but was actually the result of wildfires burning in British Columbia, Washington, Idaho, and Northwest Montana. The miasma of smoke settled across most of the state during the weekend and prompted the Montana Department of Environmental Quality to issue an air quality alert for all 56 Montana counties Sunday. Air quality in western...
Cooler weather and rain that moved into the Lincoln area over the weekend helped firefighters improve containment of the Trail 467 Fire, which was 90 percent contained at 23 acres Tuesday morning. Progress on the fire allowed the Forest Service to re-open the section of Continental Divide Trail in the Granite Butte area Monday morning. As mop up of the fire continues, a portion of the Helmville-Gould Trail west of the CDT remains closed to the public Helena-Lewis and Clark...
As Lincoln School students head back to their classrooms next week, they can expect to see a few changes to the rules, as new policies enacted by the Lincoln School Board go into effect. Among the most notable changes are those dealing with attendance and cell phone usage. After Lincoln Junior High School's accreditation status was put into the "Advice" category earlier this year, due to issues with absenteeism and failing grades among 7th and 8th graders, Lincoln School...
Last week's meeting on the draft revised Forest Plan and draft environmental impact statement for the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest highlighted concerns many in the area have about the future of access to National Forest land around Lincoln. The Forest Plan Revision Team hosted the meeting at the Lincoln Community Hall July 30 to answer questions about five alternative versions of the draft plan and DEIS, and to provide information for people on how to comment on...
**Update 8-17** After a day of minimal fire behavior Thursday, firefighters made progress in fighting the Trail 467 Fire, which was listed 23 acres and 50 percent contained Friday morning. Plans call for skidgins to improve the fire line and fuel break while personnel continue to mop up Friday. Aircraft weren't needed Thursday but remain on standby as Red Flag conditions are in the forecast Friday afternoon, due to the possibility of dry thunderstorms and erratic winds.. There...
Last year, the Continental Divide Trail Coalition based in Golden, Colo. recognized Lincoln as their first Gateway Community in Montana, and as Marty Bannon sees it, Lincoln's location on the CDT, the Great Divide Mountain Bike Trail and the nascent Montana Trail 406 is something Lincoln can really capitalize on as trail use continues to climb. "You've got three of the most remote and challenging trails that meet right in Lincoln. There's nowhere else on the CDT where they...
The new branch manager and loan officer at Lincoln’s Citizens Alliance Bank spent part of his Sunday morning with his wife flipping pancakes and cooking sausage and eggs for the Lincoln Heritage Alliance/Upper Blackfoot Valley Historical Society pancake breakfast at the Lincoln Arts Festival last weekend. Shayne Lindsay and his wife Jan have only been in Lincoln for about a month, but showed up to help with the fundraiser as a way to get involved in the community. “The longer I’ve been in my career and the older I’ve gotten,...
Bailey Grantier returned home to Lincoln Friday night, Aug. 3 after several days at the University of Utah Hospital, where she had surgery to repair three fractures to her jaw following a July 29 dirt bike accident at Pipestone Pass. Kevin Grantier, Bailey’s father, described the accident was kind of a “freak deal.” He said she was riding in an area not far from where they’d unloaded when she hit a rock or a rut hidden by grass that caused her to pitch over the front of her bike. When she came down, she landed on another...
In 1942 Steve Stocks joined the Coast Guard at 17 years old. Four months later he was on a brand new fast transport headed to a base of operations on an island on the south end of New Guinea that had only recently been liberated. "I went to an Island called Good Enough Island on the southern end of New Guinea," Stocks said. "The Japanese had just been chased out of there by the Australians." The trip took 19 days. Over the course of the war, Stocks made similar trips a dozen...
A proposed Rural Improvement District on the 4x4 Road east of Lincoln drew about 30 people to the Lincoln Government Day meeting Aug. 3, but with only one County Commissioner on hand it didn't qualify as a public meeting on the topic. An RID for the road has been in the works for several months after residents who use the road submitted a petition to create a district for soil stabilization and dust control on the 4x4 Road, which provides access to the county's 7 Up Ranch...
An apparent electrical short in a Chevy Blazer Jed Hinkle was preparing to take in for scrap ignited fire that destroyed most of the vehicle monday morning, Aug. 6. Hinkle, owner of Pete's Towing, had removed the battery from the vehicle and was preparing to move it from his yard when the fire started. He pulled the SUV out into his driveway, away from the other vehicles and buildings and called 911. Aaron Birkholz, assistant fire chief for Lincoln Volunteer Fire Rescue, said...
