Columns

As we continue to emerge from the pandemic, there’s a sense of relief and optimism that things will return to normal.  Long-awaited family gatherings, birthday parties and graduation ceremonies are finally happening in person. Sporting events have fans in the stands, airports are busy, and we all are in the process of reclaiming those elements of life we’ve missed the past year.   However, with that optimism is the reality of the impact the pandemic had on local communities. Local businesses that struggled through the past year, if they were able to stay in business at all, are still trying to recover and regain lost revenues. These locally owned restaurants, shops ...

How is it that a picture of our dog ended up on our neighbors’ Christmas trees? I smile every time I think about it. Her name was Holly. Holly Noel. Born on Halloween, she was a Christmas gift to my husband Boone. He’d wanted a hunting dog and I’d always wanted a golden retriever. I foun...

It’s not too late to sign up for our Annual Summer Reading Program. We have lots of great prizes and incentives from local businesses, and so many awesome programs coming up. On July 15 we have Georgia Smies from Salish Kootenai College to talk about aquatic invasive species and the impact they could h...

I   like so many Montana hunters have been blessed to enjoy a lifetime of world-class hunting and fishing. It’s why so many of us live here, and it speaks to the decades of work that Montanans have put into conserving and managing our public wildlife for the benefit of everyone. But after this ...

The world is changing faster than ever before. If we want Montana to continue to be a place where you can make a living and raise a family, we must build the infrastructure we need to seize the opportunities of the modern economy.  Right now, Montana ranks as the worst state for broadband Internet co...

In response to the State Superintendent of Public Instruction’s recently published opinion and the opinion of the Montana Attorney General regarding critical race theory, the undersigned members of the Montana Legislative Indian Caucus offer the following response.  In 1972, the Montana legisla...

It’s been five months. Five long months, but there are still so many things to do. So many goodbyes left to say. Most of them are symbolic and silent, but they are goodbyes nonetheless. Between just him and me.  Everyone else has said their goodbyes in their own way. They were done long ago. I&...

I wanted you, and I had you. It was beyond wonderful. But you had to leave and now I am alone. It was so comfortable between us. There was never any question of tomorrow. When I called, you answered. When you texted, I texted back. We never doubted one another’s loyalty. You were there for the birth...

Numerous enough to notice, infrequent enough to startle at seeing, they stimulate reverence, sorrow, sympathy, curiosity and caution. They affect us all to one degree or another. They are the white crosses marking the sites of fatal traffic crashes along the highways of Montana. For over 68 years, these whit...

Fairness is not a partisan issue. Fairness is the goal of the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act currently being considered in the United States Congress. The bill has bipartisan support in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. H.R. 1735 / S.673 is critically important to protecting t...