Independently owned since 1905
Independently owned since 1905
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The Deer Lodge football coach was recently suspended pending an investigation after he recently switched sidelines during a home football game. The school board voted Monday to keep Coach Andrew Verlanic. In an interview with the Deer Lodge News Network (DLNN), coach Verlanic detailed his decision and his disappointment in the lack of support from the school district. “When you get booed at the pep rally as a football team, who wants to go out? Who wants to be a part of it?” Verlanic told DLNN. Later in the interview he continued, “As we stand...
I had a neighbor once who spent several days in the county jail because he wouldn’t make his mortgage payments. He felt he had a constitutional right to not pay them because the money wasn’t backed by gold. There’s a longer story there, of course, and he wasn’t in jail because he didn’t pay the mortgage but because of an ensuing confrontation with a SWAT team when they came to enforce his eviction notice. People get up in arms because of laws they believe are unconstitutional that they thin...
Mr. Elliott's change of focus to a single event of sending a few illegal aliens to punctuate the invasion occurring on our southern border put the predictable hypocrisy of the leftists on full display. Mr. Elliott would have us believe this is a legal operation where nefarious entities are paying for and luring millions of ignorant poor into a multi prong attack on America. Well over the number of American service members killed in Vietnam and Afghanistan have been killed veiled by creating this crisis on our border. Fentanyl made in China,...
Editor, Thank you to Annie Wooden and the Ledger for sponsoring the candidate forums at the Rex on October 3 and 4. It’s always enlightening to hear the candidates articulate their job qualifications and thoughts on the positions they are seeking or hoping to be re-elected to. I was very disappointed that two of three write-in candidates did not take this opportunity to face the voters and explain why they decided to continue to run for sheriff after being defeated in the primary. Knowing the issues their write-in candidacy could create with d...
Food for thought Very recently I decided to vet Jim Brown's candidacy for Montana Supreme Court. In doing my own due diligence before I "spend my vote", I wanted to learn more about him. I did NOT know: * Jim Brown is not a well-known attorney in good standing despite being an attorney for over 10 years. I could not find any information regarding his work in peer/client ratings of ethics and professionalism and legal ability for attorneys in the US. * Jim Brown is the current Chairperson for Montana Public Service Commission. I did not do a...
Actions speak louder than words. As our county grows, infrastructure needs are going to increase and County Commissioners will have to make choices of where to put additional services, and how to obtain the property to do so. The Town of Plains, under Mayor Dan Rowan, forced us to sell 10 acres of our property via eminent domain. We didn’t want a sewage lagoon on our property that we already had plans for, but realizing the need, and the immense power of the government, we offered to negotiate to arrive at a fair and equitable outcome. The l...
by Lee Pitts These are not the best of times In America. Our country is in tatters. It feels like the greatest experiment in Democracy the world has ever seen is dying a slow and ugly death. Perhaps it cannot be helped because great societies flare and flame but their soaring flight has always been fleeting. Sadly, great societies are never born again. But let it be remembered that there was once a time when we could grow our own food, make our own clothes, cars and tools; when the words "Made in USA" meant something. During the throes of...
Each spring, Thompson Falls hosts Beautification Days as a way to do some spring cleaning. It's a great community wide effort to keep Thompson Falls beautiful. It's worth mentioning, however, the ongoing efforts of residents and business owners who continually do some sprucing up. Fresh coats of paint are popping up along Main Street in Thompson Falls. On a recent walk we noticed new paint at Sunflower Gallery, Aspire Physical Therapy and Elliott Realty. Beautification Days is a great way to get the whole community involved in keeping Thompson...
The article about election questions in last weeks' Ledger brought to mind the work of our district clerks/election administrators when the election process was evaluated several years back (following the “hanging chad” election, perhaps?). What I recall is how impressed I was at the work they did to make sure that any changes to the election process at the state level actually translated to the local level. The efforts of the clerks were accompanied by a legislature that paid attention to the information “boots on the ground” brought to them...
Dear Editor, I am writing this letter to express my gratitude to the Thompson Falls Ambulance. Because of their training and expertise, they brought a sense of calm and restored some peace to a tense emotional situation in which my mom had taken a nasty fall. I also give them credit, to a large extent, for the reason Mom is not a paraplegic today. Having served with the Thompson Falls Ambulance as a driver\EMT for seven years, I am well aware of the huge dedication and time commitment required of these volunteers who freely and willingly...
I grew up in the high mountain region of Lewis County, Washington, a short drive from the base of majestic Mount Rainier. I was raised in the midst of logging country. Many of the people in our community made their living from logging, either by working in the woods or driving log trucks. Many people filled jobs in the mills, creating needed wood materials from the harvested trees. Crew trucks headed into the woods early in the morning and chainsaws ran most of the day. Helicopters lifted loads...
Training a livestock guardian dog to be a livestock guardian dog has been an interesting journey. Yes, Dax is still a puppy and yes, Dax still has that vibrant, puppy energy. I'm used to Husky and German Shepard energy. Dax and his half Pyrenees, half Anatolian Shepherd energy is a completely different story. Am I in over my head here? Absolutely not. I love a little chaos. Even as I sit here writing this, Dax is on the couch destroying the last oven mitt in the house. Why am I letting him do...
At Harvest Foods recently, I saw something I’d never seen before – Pumpkin Spice Cheerios. I couldn’t believe it. Before I moved back to Montana, I remember the start of the pumpkin spice craze. What’s better than pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving? Try pumpkin pie in your coffee. It was special and delicious and you could only get it certain times of the year. It was a treat. Fast forward a decade or so later and pumpkin spice has lost its luster. It’s not as special when you can now buy Twinkies, Poo-Pourri toilet spray and even deodorant with the...
I’ve got to hand it to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for sharing the wealth of the immigrant crisis with Massachusetts, I’m just not sure what to hand him. A couple of weeks ago DeSantis had a couple of planeloads of asylum-seeking legal immigrants from Venezuela shipped from a San Antonio, Texas, immigrant shelter to exclusive Martha’s Vinyard island off the Massachusetts coast. Border states like Texas and Arizona shouldn’t have to be the only ones to bear the costs of humanitarian aid to immi...
There is a strong and growing hunger in Montana for protecting more of our wild places for future generations. A variety of polls show large majorities of Montanans value our wild public lands and want more of them permanently protected. This is a remarkable fact, especially now, when this desire is one of the few issues that almost all Montanans agree on. This makes it a puzzle to understand why we have such a poor record over several decades, to pass legislation to permanently protect some of our special places. It seems we have somehow...
Here is just one of his many stories. While on a service mission in Guiana, South America, he found people trying to grow corn with very little success. He taught them in order for the corn to pollinate; they had to plant in rows, close together; not in hills 6 feet apart. Then because of the monsoon season, they needed to plant the corn in raised rows. With Mahlon’s mentoring, they now had a 120-acre corn field about 6 foot tall and entering the tassel stage. But then they were faced with perhaps the toughest challenge. The Government of G...
Editor: Re: Ernie Scherzer's letter about Congressman Ryan Zinke (September 15, 2022). Ernie and I have known each other for a significant number of years. Despite our political differences, I consider him a friend. Personally, I strongly suggest Montanans support Zinke - not Tranel. Having spent several years on the Hill in D.C during the 1980s as a personal advisor to a U.S. Senator, I have a few comments about Ernie's attack on Zinke which reflect nothing more than his personal political biases. I'd like to challenge Ernie to provide me...
Musings, When I consider a candidate and spend my vote, I deep dive into who they are before running. To me it is my civic duty to "vet" for myself, beyond self serving slogans, flyers or ads. I learned Ryan Zinke is not who he has postured. His recounting of his military career reflects a pattern of behavior stalling his career that is well documented and fact checked article in the NY times dated January 6, 2017. A pattern of behavior? Mr. Zinke was forced to resign as Secretary of the Interior. Why? Another well documented and fact checked...
I'm definitely one of those people who rises with the sun. In the summer, I'm up early. Now that the sun is rising later, I'm wanting to rise later as well. People are putting their gardens to bed, putting away lawn mowers and getting out their fall and winter wardrobes and snow shovels. Driving into town this week was a friendly reminder of the change in season and another adjustment we need to make - turning on headlights on our cars during foggy fall mornings. Most vehicles nowadays have the automatic lights that come on and turn off...
When we were children, we played an odd summertime game. We sat in the front yard of my grandparents’ trailer house/cabin within view of the highway, picked a color and kept track of how many cars and trucks of our color drove by. It was purely a time-waster, but it beats cable or Dish or the internet or however you get your world fed to you, hands down. It’s been mentioned — several times, plus — that I think television as it’s used in the world today is the largest waste of time and brainpower since bread and circuses were made popular b...
Fall is in the air. Leaves are turning, the mornings are cooler, and the sun is setting earlier. The kids are back in the routine of school, and people are putting their gardens to bed for the winter. It’s time to start thinking about the other big activity this fall - election season. Once again, as a county newspaper and a trusted source for factual information, I will be doing my best to provide voters and readers with information to help you make educated decisions on Nov. 8, general election day. As I wrote several weeks ago, we as voters...
Irate Americans are arming themselves and heading to library board meetings to defend children against evil by insisting that the library remove books that offend society. Notice I did not say trying to defend their own children, they mean to defend the children of people they do not know. Listen, they are going about it all wrong. If I wanted to keep my kids from reading a book the last thing I would tell them is that they can’t read it. I spent a lot of time as a kid under the covers with a f...
On Saturday, September 3, 2022, my husband and I attended the Sanders County Fair. We purchased seats for the rodeo, had a bite to eat at the picnic table area and left to return that evening for the rodeo. I discovered later on the way home that I had left my fanny pack on the picnic table. We returned, but the fanny pack was gone. I checked with the fair office and the first aid office, along with individuals around the picnic tables. The fanny pack was gone. Later that evening we discovered someone had brought the missing fanny pack to the...
Montana needs politicians who support Montana and Montanans. That’s not Mr. Zinke’s priority. The majority of his campaign funds are from outside Montana and from corporate interests. Only 6% of his campaign funds comes from Montanans. Combining that paltry 6% with Montana corporate donations, it rises to a scant 15%, leaving 85% of his campaign funds coming from out of state. . Over one-third of this funding comes from Texas, Florida, Georgia, and the D.C. area. He will be seriously beholden to groups and individuals outside of Montana. It...
Where were you? On September 11, 2001, most of us can recall where we were when we heard the news. The United States of America was attacked on our own soil by the Islamic extremist group al Qaeda. American lives were taken, not lost, but rudely and brutally taken. Buildings were destroyed and financial loss to our country ensued. Fear became a palatable part of the fabric of America. Terrorism had reached our soil in a large way, and many responded with paralyzing fear. Fear that kept them...
