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Independently owned since 1905
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Fire season is here; now it is a matter of getting through it with minimal impact. With no measurable precipitation recorded in this area in over three weeks now and fires beginning to break out across western Montana, fire control officials are bracing for another busy fire season, and urging people to be very careful with fire until the danger passes. All local fire agencies – the U.S. Forest Service offices in Plains, Trout Creek and Superior, the Montana DNRC out of Plains, and the BIA C...
Over the Hill players like to think stroke play produces strokes of genius from its very smart – okay at least very wise – players. Undeniably the most seasoned group of golfers going right now in this area, the Over the Hill gang took over River’s Bend for another friendly round Monday morning and a good time was had once again by all the Over the Hillers. Dave Garr tamed the Bend with the best low gross round of 39, and Mike Smith (31) and Barb Wooden (33) did the best with their handicaps figured in to shoot the low men’s and women’s...
They don't all live in Sanders County now, but the current and former runners from good, old Montana county No. 35 definitely made their presence felt in the annual Missoula Marathon Sunday. Leading that list of Sanders County do-gooders, Jacob Naegeli, who was once a star runner for the Thompson Falls Blue Hawk high school team but now lives in St. Paul, Minn., finished tenth overall in the Men's Open race and second in the Men's 25-29 age class with a time of 2 hours, 42 minutes, 50.60...
It was a Scratch and Scramble day at River’s Bend Monday for the Over the Hill gang. Scratching their ways past the 37-strong field of men and women canvassing River’s Bend, Dave Garr and John Pritzkau finished first in the scramble, Jerry Neal and Darrel “Torgy” Togrimson took second, and Buck Adams, Charlie Hooten and Rusty Haggard teamed up to place third. In other links business of the day, Mike Gilmore shot a straight-up 40 for the best low gross, Adams posted the low men’s net of 32 and Lana Nolen carded the low women’s net of 35. In i...
Anyone that knows Shey Hannum knows that she is a fighter from her days as a standout Thompson Falls athlete. Her competitive spirit, her passion for trying her hardest was always on full display when she was a Lady Hawk, be it in volleyball, basketball or track and field, and she earned All-State honors in all three of those sports as a result. Shey, pronounced ‘Shy,’ now needs to tap into that willingness to fight as she is recovering from the effects of spinal surgery after she broke two vertebrae in her neck in a swimming accident on the...
Into the fire season we go. Fire season has not really gotten hot yet in western Montana, and local wildland fire officials hope to keep the 2018 campaign quiet for as long as possible. With the Fourth of July and its associated fireworks ignition danger now in the rear view mirror, those officials turn their attention to the rising local wildfire risk as the summer takes a turn for the hotter and drier. Although California, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico have already endured a long, hot fire season, the first major fire of the season has...
Did that majestic bull elk just tip its crowned head, with seven gnarly royal points on each side, ever so slightly? Is he really preparing to bugle, to stake his deep-throated, high-pitched, primal claim to the bevy of cows undoubtedly standing nearby? Is he itching for a fight; announcing his presence the way macho, male elk do and waiting for the other biggest and baddest bulls around to determine who is really best and earns the right to pass on his, and only his, genetics to the next genera...
by John Hamilton When it comes to wildfire, complacency is the enemy; and the makings of another hot fire season seem to be in place. With the memory of the last two fire seasons in Sanders County freshly burned into our thoughts – who can forget about the Copper King Fire which burned over 25,000 acres in 2016 or the Highway 200 complex of blazes that burned at least twice that amount of ground in this area last year – local fire control officials are sounding the alarm early about the prospects for wildfire in 2018. “The weather patte...
You have to get up pretty early in the morning if you are going to be part of the Over the Hill golfing gang. Okay, you really don’t have to get up that early, but you do have to show up for the Monday mid-morning tee time with a smile on your face and enough clubs in your bag. Those are really the only prerequisites. Showing up with smiles on and clubs in hand, this area’s famously friendly golfing league got after it again on River’s Bend this past Monday morning as 36 of Sanders County’s finest canvassed the scenic course in search of bird...
If you haven't seen them play yet, this weekend's games in Plains could be the last chance you get this season. The Clark Fork Valley Cougs, a collection of players from Thompson Falls, Plains and Noxon, will close out their home schedule with a pair of doubleheaders this weekend at the Amundson Sports Complex in Plains, hosting Helena Saturday beginning at noon, and then entertaining Mission Valley at 1 p.m. Sunday. One of the coaches for the Cougs, Shawn Sorenson said that the local boys are...
The much-decorated Thompson Falls student-athlete Jase Sorenson got the chance to play one more football game as a Blue Hawk, before flying away to North Dakota, in Billings Friday. On the cusp of moving to Wahpeton, N.D. where he will attend the North Dakota State School of Science and play football for the junior college Wildcats in several weeks, Sorenson played the final high school grid game of his standout prep career in the Montana Class B All-Star game at Herb Klindt Field in Billings Friday night. An All-State B performer for coach Jar...
by John Hamilton Three Sanders County softball players have been named to the 2018 Western B-C All-Conference team it was announced last week. From the Plains-Hot Springs Trotters, Plains junior Kassidy Kinzie leads the list after being named first team Western B-C and also earning All-State B-C accolades. Another key player for the Trotters this past season, Hot Springs senior Stacy Gray earned second team all-conference honors. From the Thompson Falls Lady Hawks, sophomore Kelsey Frank was...
Randy Pirker did not invent competitive archery shooting, but he did help make it a big deal in Sanders County in particular, and in all of western Montana in general. Decades after starting up an archery shop business and helping put the sport of competitive archery on the map in Thompson Falls, and only days after attending a national shoot with his lifelong archery pal Tony Bierwagen in California, Pirker (or "Pirk" as his friends often called him) was not in town for the prestigious Montana...
The legend returns; and here comes an opportunity to learn from two of the masters of javelin throwing in the United States. Legendary Hot Springs athlete Todd Riech, who won two State C team track and field championships all by himself in the late 1980s and later qualified as a javelin thrower to represent the United States for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta after winning the US Trials that year, will be back in Montana later this month to give back some of his knowledge to the current and up-and-coming crop of javelin throwers in the Big...
by John Hamilton Red Devil rising; and he is not finished yet. Goal-oriented Noxon junior Levi Brubaker went well past a couple of his personal goals in the triple jump and won the State C title in the event Saturday in Great Falls with an NHS school-record effort of 44 feet, 3 inches. Soaring well past several goals he had set for himself in the triple jump this spring, Brubaker will have one very big one in mind when he starts lifting off again next year – the State C record of 45-7. Also w...
Plains track and field coach Denise Montgomery knows there is a lot more to being a team than simply practicing and competing together. She knows that sometimes you have to stop and smell the roses; or in this case, stop and do some fishing. Promoting team unity and having fun along the way, Montgomery guided her Trotter and Horsemen thinclads through the State C meet in Great Falls Friday and Saturday, with a few welcome diversions along the way, one of which was to finally put a fishing pole...
One season into her Thompson Falls track and field coaching job, Trenna Ferris is thinking she is one fortunate person, a very lucky coach, if you will. "It has been an incredibly fun thing to walk into, taking over this program," she said Monday. "Randy (Symon, the previous long-time coach for Blue Hawk track and field) did an amazing job of building this program into what it is today, and I am honored to get the chance to carry it forward." Making her first trip to the State B meet as Blue...
The Plains-Hot Springs Trotters now know they belong among the best, and will make another run at advancing on to, and doing well in the 2019 State B-C tournament next season. With only two seniors – Stacy Gray and Jessica Thompson – being lost to graduation, the young Trotters played well at last week's State B-C tourney in Belgrade but lost 10-7 to Huntley Project Thursday and 8-7 to Cut Bank Friday in loser-out action. Coach Michele Bangen and her much-better-than-average Trotters complete pl...
It was only a little over two months long, but the Lady Hawks' return to the playing fields of competitive softball is the story of a lifetime. And although the Thompson Falls girls lost their play-in game to the Western B-C tournament 16-14 to Troy Tuesday (May 15), and their beloved assistant coach Randy Pirker, who was making a heroic last coaching stand, to cancer Friday, the season was a memorable one for all involved, coach Jared Koskela said. Pirker, who guided the Lady Hawk softball prog...
The Thompson Falls boys won fourth and the Lady Hawks fifth at the Western B-C divisional track and field meet in Frenchtown last week. Coach Trenna Ferris was grateful to her team after her first year at the helm of the Thompson Falls track and field program, and not just to the ones who will be moving on to this week's State B meet in Laurel Friday and Saturday. "I congratulate all the athletes that made it to the State competition, what an accomplishment!" she said. "I also want to...
In Class C, only the best of the best even get the opportunity to move on to the State C track and field meet. Proving to be among the best in the west, the Plains Trotters scored 38.5 points and placed seventh and the Horsemen tallied 30 points to also win seventh in team scoring at the Western C divisional meet in Frenchtown Thursday and Friday. Plains coach Denise Montgomery, her assistant coaches James Jermyn and Rheanna Fultz, and the Trotters and Horsemen who earned their way will now part...
Little big team. The Noxon Red Devil track and field teams, not big in numbers but long on talent and desire, accorded themselves quite well at the Western C divisional meet in Frenchtown, as the Devil boys scored 44 points to end up in a tie for fifth place with 14C champion Charlo, and the Lady Devils scored 9 team points to finish 12th in the Western C. Levi Brubaker and Rylan Weltz were the most productive point-scorers for the West End kids. A force in the jumps most of the season,...
It has been a great run so far; why should the fun stop now? The Plains-Hot Springs Trotters fought back from the very precipice of elimination to win third place in the Western B-C divisional softball tournament last week and will now play in the State B-C tourney in Belgrade beginning Thursday at the Belgrade Softball Complex. Coach Michele Bangen and her never-say-die Trotters will open the tournament facing the Huntley Project Red Devils, the No. 2 team from the Eastern B-C divisional, at 2...
Only four-strong, the Thompson Falls golfing team made quite a splash at the State B golf tournament at EagleRock Golf Course in Shepherd May 15-16 as three of those four Hawk golfers earned All-State B honors and the other, a rising freshman, finished well. Falls seniors Dylan Beckman and Elsie Brown capped brilliant prep careers by repeating as All-State B performers. Beckman carded a 76 on the first day and a 79 on the second to finish alone in fourth place with a two-day total of 155, while...
They are the Blue Hawks' fearless foursome of the golfing links, and they are currently competing in the State B tournament at Eaglerock Golf Course in the Billings area early this week. Dylan Beckman and Ethan Brown for the boys, and Elsie Brown and Megan Baxter for the girls are the four Hawk golfers competing at the State B. By the end of the first round of the two-round event Tuesday afternoon, the scores were in for the Thompson Falls fearless foursome and the results were all good....
