The Blackfoot Valley's News Source Since 1980
The Blackfoot Valley's News Source Since 1980
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The Montana History Foundation is launching a new program called History Hikes & Walks in Helena to connect residents and visitors with the city's landscape and history. The series kicks off Memorial Day weekend and runs through Labor Day. History Hikes & Walks promotes heritage tourism, outdoor recreation, and downtown businesses. "Bringing people together for history is one of our main goals and the History Hikes & Walks program does just that," says History Foundation...
BOZEMAN – USDA Deputy Under Secretary for Rural Development Justin Maxson announced June 11that the Department is accepting applications for grants to help start, expand, or improve rural cooperatives and other mutually-owned businesses in rural America. USDA is making $5.8 million in grants available under the Rural Cooperative Development Grant (RCDG) program to help improve economic conditions in rural areas through cooperative development. Nonprofit corporations and i...
In a wildfire briefing at the state Capitol attended by more than a dozen land use and wildfire response agency leaders, Gov. Greg Gianforte said he wants to double the number of treated acres on Montana's forests and pressured the National Park Service to extinguish all wildfire starts on park service lands. Gianforte said the state is undergoing a forest health crisis due to insect outbreaks, disease and heavy fuel loading that leads to an elevated wildfire risk. Increasing...
A semi carrying a load of building materials on a flatbed trailer tipped over near Roger's Pass Montana Highway Patrol Trooper Jeff Groschelle said the flatbed truck was traveling too fast as it entered the first big corner east of the pass, tipped over and spilled its load of building materials. "A lot of people misjudge that corner," Groschelle said. Lincoln Fire Chief Zach Muse said most of the material - a type of fiber cement board called Hardie Board - wound up in the...
Lighting that moved through the area on the evening of June 3 caused two small fires near Lincoln that required a response by firefighters. Bill Cyr with the Montana DNRC reported at the June 4 Lincoln Government Day that one fire was on the McInnis property along the Blackfoot River, near Highway 279. The second was near Moon Drive in the Lone Point area. Cyr said they also had reports of two other fires, but had no information on them. One was reportedly in the Stemple Pass...
The June 4 Government Day meeting served as the first in a series of projected meetings in Lincoln to discuss the funding for maintenance of Lincoln’s hard surface streets. Lincoln is generally on a seven to nine year cycle for chip sealing to preserve the paved streets in town. The streets in town were last chip sealed in 2014. They were originally slated to be redone this year, but due to COVID-19 meeting restrictions, Lewis and Clark County officials opted to push it back a year to ensure they could hold the necessary p...
Now in its 73rd year, The American Legion Boys State program is accepting applications for 2021. Boys State will be held June 6th- 11th, in Helena. The American Legion Boys State is a unique summertime educational program for boys entering their senior year of high school. The program focuses on participation and personal experience in a model state, complete with governmental bodies and elected public officials. It is designed to mirror the structure and operation of state go...
Hooper Park officially opened for the season Saturday, as a crew of about 15 volunteers spent the day raking,hauling pine needles, cleaning, sprucing up the campsites and helping plant trees. Improvements at the park got underway recently, with additional projects slated for later this summer. With COVID-19 restrictions being lifted around the country, the park is already seeing quite bit of use. The new skatepark is busy and Little League teams began playing for the first...
Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton is appealing to the public for help following recent activities in the North Hills near Helena that are giving gun-owners and shooters a black eye, increasing the chances of a wildfire and putting access to the area at risk At the May 7 Government Day meeting in Lincoln Dutton explained that in recent weeks people have been shooting irresponsibly and holding pallet parties in the area, which was recently rehabilitated by the Bureau of Land Management following a 2019 wildfire. The...
The Lewis and Clark County Sheriff's Office awarded Lincoln's Aaron Birkholz with their Achievement Award during Lincoln's May 7 Government Day meeting, for his role in resolving an armed standoff in March. The Sheriff's office recognized Birkholz for successfully convincing Gary Scheele, who found himself in a five-hour standoff with law enforcement March 2, to put away his weapons and surrender to deputies. Scheele had made repeated angry calls to 911 regarding his concerns...
The May 7 Lincoln Government Day meeting featured updates on several Public Works and infrastructure related projects Speed and passing zones The speed limit on Highway 200 east of Lincoln will be going down…a little. Lewis and Clark County Public Works Director Eric Griffin said the Montana Highway Commission, during their April 22 meeting, approved lowering the highway speed limit east of Lincoln out to Airport road from 70 mph to 60 mph. The decision is in keeping with the speed study completed by the Montana Department o...
The Lewis and Clark County mask mandate came to an end Friday afternoon, May 7 with Gov. Greg Gianforte's signing of House Bill 257 into law. The bill, co-sponsored by Becky Beard, R-Elliston, removes the ability of city, county and local health boards or officers to compel businesses to deny customers access to their premises, or to compel businesses to deny customers access to goods or services However, it still allows businesses to require face coverings and does not...
Butte - Osprey nests can cause power outages and even fires, and their proximity to energized equipment puts the birds at risk of electrocution. NorthWestern Energy has installed hundreds of platforms to maintain service reliability and to provide a safe place for ospreys to raise their offspring. This is the time of year when osprey begin to build nests and NorthWestern Energy asks member of the public who observe nest building on power poles to report their observations by...
HELENA, Mont. – Montana will regain its second congressional seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, according to the 2020 Census state population count released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. The count reveals that Montana's population grew from 989,415 people in 2010 to 1,085,407 people in 2020 – an increase of 95,992 residents over 2010, or nearly 10 percent. "Thanks to the efforts of Montanans across the state, the 2020 Census shows what we've known to be true – M...
5 Montana Legislature Adjourns after Near-Marijuana Meltdown and Bill-Resurrecting Blitz The 67th Montana Legislature adjourned on Thursday, April 29, following a week filled with policies brought back from the dead and capped by a failed high-stakes gamble by conservative Republicans to rewrite a major portion of the recreational marijuana plan passed just days earlier. Both chambers adjourned "sine die" -- a Latin phrase meaning "without assigning another day to meet" --...
The Lincoln Valley Community Foundation endowment was established in 1996 and provides grants to local nonprofits. Money for the fund was originally provided as gifts from the Lincoln Valley Chamber of Commerce and the Phelps Dodge Seven Up Pete Joint Venture Mine, according to Jessica Stewart-Kuntz. Stewart-Kuntz is the Vice President of the Montana Community Foundation, which oversees the fund. The bulk of the money came from the LVCC, which had been raising money to build...
The Montana Historical Society (MHS) invites families in Western Montana to apply for listing in the Centennial Farm and Ranch Register. While owners of such properties across the state are encouraged to participate, to date, applications from qualifying farmers and ranchers in the western part of the state have lagged far behind their eastern counterparts. Farms and ranches held in the same family for more than 100 years will receive a framed certificate signed by the...
Republican Lawmakers Locked in Battle with State Supreme Court over "Judicial Transparency" As the Montana Legislature nears the close of its biennial business, Republican lawmakers are mounting a case against the judicial branch and the state Supreme Court with accusations of judicial bias and improper record keeping, while Democrats call the inquiry a "witch hunt." Since the start of the 2021 Legislative Session, lawmakers have proposed numerous bills seeking changes to the...
Montana State Parks awarded a Recreational Trails Program Grant to the Lincoln Ranger District for construction of a trail segment identified by Envision Lincoln in the In-Town Trails Plan developed in 2018. It will be the first trails from the plan to come to fruition. A one-mile, figure-eight loop, the trail will be built on the15-acre parcel of Forest Service property adjacent to the east side of Blackfoot Pathways: Sculpture in the Wild. "It will connect the sculpture...
LINCOLN, Mont. April 21, 2021 - Rob Gump has been selected as the new district ranger for the Lincoln Ranger District, the western most district on the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest. Gump will begin the new position in mid-June. "Rob's background working on fire-dependent ecosystems as a silviculturist-ecologist, managing recreation, Wilderness and trails programs, and his leadership and collaborative-mindset made him a great fit for the position," said Forest...
Despite receiving bipartisan support and passing through the House with at 60-39 vote on March 2, a joint resolution to support the designation the Montana Trail 406 was indefinitely postponed and declared "probably dead" on April 1 after failing to pass the Senate with a 23-27 vote. "Probably dead? I was shocked. I felt like I had been kicked in the gut. We had no inkling that that's what was coming," said local business-owner Laurie Richards, who helped establish Lincoln as...
The Lincoln School Board has two seats open for election this spring, and four candidates have thrown their hats into the ring. To provide voters with additonal insight into the candidates, the BVD asked each of them a series of four basic questions Ballots went out in the mail last week, giving voters the option to return them by mail or drop them off at the at the Lincoln School Monday through Thursday between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., or on Election Day May 4, between 8 a.m....
The Lincoln Airport Foundation met April 16 to discuss several upcoming changes and improvements, as well as safety concerns and the return of the Lincoln Fly-In this summer. Through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act and subsequent funding such as the American Rescue Plan, the Lincoln Airport is set to receive more than $29,000 to support a variety of projects. Additionally, Montana Aeronautics Division Administrator Tim Conway said the Yellowstone Airport...
Legislature Considers Lengthening Driver's License Renewal Cycle, Raising DUI Penalties Lawmakers in the 67th Montana Legislature are debating and advancing a number of bills seeking to revise the way drivers are licensed and increase punishments for repeat DUI offenders. Members of the House Transportation Committee held a hearing on Senate Bill 336 Monday, April 12, after the bill cleared the Senate unanimously a week earlier. Sponsored by Sen. Chris Friedel, R-Billings,...
Jeff Hollingworth joined Hi-Country early this year as the new Chief Financial Officer and jumped in to join the Lincoln Valley Chamber of Commerce as secretary around the same time. At Hi-Country, Hollingworth's current project is to get everything entered into a new enterprise resource planning software that will help combine and share information across all of Hi-Country's departments. "That's mostly what I do during the day. Other than that, I work with Steve [Fehrs] a...
