The Blackfoot Valley's News Source Since 1980
The Blackfoot Valley's News Source Since 1980
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Butte, Mont. –– NorthWestern Energy released the draft 2019 Montana Electricity Supply Resource Procurement Plan for a 60-day public comment period. The plan will be filed with the Montana Public Service Commission after the public comment period ends. Montana's energy landscape is evolving, changing from a state that produces more electricity than our citizens can use 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, to a state where there is a growing risk there won't be e...
Emily Rundell holds the original artwork by Michael Brown - a color pencil drawing of amountian lion cub - raffled off by the Lincoln Heritage Alliance to support efforts to rebuild the Historic Matt King House. A buy/sell agreement on property for the builsing was signed at the beginning of the year....
This last siege of storms has made for long winter. The snow is welcome, but it may delay spring grass and the return of migratory birds. As kids, our first sign of spring was the melting snow, which was ideal for snowballs. During the better part of winter, the snow was too cold and dry to stick together. After the doldrums of the cold months, any change was welcome. We knew that the huge snowbanks formed in December would start to disappear soon. Being raised in the country...
After a snowmobile season that got off to a slow start in January, followed by a bitterly cold February and that saw the Ponderosa Snow Warriors' groomer out of commission for a month, conditions finally turned favorable for the club's annual scholarship fun run Saturday, March 9. Clear skies, bright sun and temperatures that finally rose above freezing gave the 40 or so riders who took to the trails a long-awaited nice day. Organizers took advantage of the conditions and the...
The blast of cold weather that decended on the state March 4 likely set a new state record low temperature for March at Elk Park, but Lincoln didn't offically beat its own March record low of minus 40 degrees, set in 1955. The official reading of 39 below zero on the morning of March 4, missed the record by just one degree. However, given the sheer number of unofficial thermometers around the valley that recorded 40 below on that day, most locals know this year was at least a...
The Montana Department of Environmental Quality issued a reminder that only clean, untreated wood and plant material can be burned during the spring and summer burning season, which began March 1. Materials prohibited from open burning include: Food waste Plastic Wood that has been coated, painted, stained or treated Dead animals or animal droppings Rubber materials Chemicals Asphalt shingles and tar paper Pathogenic or hazardous wastes Standing or demolished structures containing prohibited materials listed in Administrative...
Montana is a single state. But in reality, there are many Montanas – some defined by variations in terrain and vegetation, others by climate and still others by land use and population density. Area economies also vary considerably from one part of Montana to the next. From east to west, the state splits into two vastly different regions, one defined by rolling grasslands stretching across sprawling plains and the other defined by a large number of forested and interconnected...
Dear Dietitian, My cousin tells me she is taking fish oil supplements to help her with depression. Do you know of any studies on this topic? Thank you, Andrea Dear Andrea, Omega-3 fatty acids, or simply omega-3s, have received a considerable amount of attention from the healthcare field and the general public. There are several omega-3s, and two in particular have been studied, DHA (Docosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (Eicosapentaenoic acid), which are found in fish, especially...
As Speaker of the House, it is a goal of mine to have unity within the Republican Caucus and a positive working relationship with the minority party. At the halfway point of the 66th legislative session we are hitting those marks. Another goal of this session, was to put the K-12 funding bill on the Governor's desk very early in the process. In other sessions this bill was often used as a political football late in the session, sometimes as late as May. We passed it out of the...
The students I teach at the University of Montana often show up with a powerful assumption: If there is some piece of information out there, Google can find it. It’s an understandable belief for 19-year-olds who have grown up in a world where ubiquitous connection to the Internet and easy access to vast reams of webpages is expected. But for all those Wikipedia pages and Wayback Machines, there are countless documents that you, as a Montanan, have a constitutional right to see and you won’t find them no matter how many pag...
The Lincoln School Board brought their search for a new superintendent to a close at their meeting Monday night with the approval of a contract for Jennifer Packer, who will take over the position from Carla Anderson July 1. Anderson, who has held the job since 2015, announced her decision to step down from the position in December, citing health concerns. The school board, working with the Montana School Board Association began their search in January and chose Packer from...
HELENA -- The Montana House Appropriations Committee opened public testimony last week on House Bill 2, the bill that sets the budget for state agencies. Some of the most controversial changes come from the subcommittee that deals with the budget for the Department of Public Health and Human Services, which has proposed cutting more than 100 full-time equivalent positions from the agency. Director of DPHHS Sheila Hogan said the cuts will especially hurt rural areas where it's...
If you ever took a CPR class and found the old Resuci-Annie CPR dummies a little...creepy, the idea of a medical mannequin that can scream at you, move its eyes and deliver a moving baby may seem like the stuff of nightmares, but such a simulator provided important and realistic training for members of the Lincoln Volunteer Ambulance last weekend. A mobile lab from the non-profit Simulation in Motion-Montana, Inc. made its first visit to Lincoln Saturday as part of the...
