Independently owned since 1905
Independently owned since 1905
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I am one of those strange people who read newspapers cover to cover every week. Something about local newspapers just seem to be a hidden reflection of the community that is the heart of small towns. Do I immediately find value or meaning in what I read? No, not always. That’s what the internet and social media are for – immediate relevance. Local newspapers are more like reading chapters in a multi-generational novel. In TV terms “A sweeping saga of many generations as they pass thru time and place.” Confession: I’ve read every line of the det...
Last week was Public Service Recognition Week, an event that seems to have largely gone unnoticed despite a proclamation from President Trump saying, in part; “Members of our Federal, State, and local workforces bring incredible skills, tireless dedication, and selfless service to a broad range of career fields. Our Nation’s civil servants include teachers, mail carriers, first responders, transit workers, and law enforcement officers. Our Federal employees underpin nearly all the ope...
At the Sanders County Drug Awareness Seminar last week at the Rex Theatre, one thing was repeated over and over: the drug problem is a community problem. It’s easy to avoid these types of problems. If you don’t have a drug problem and you don’t know anyone with a drug problem, how can it be your problem? But at the seminar, we heard all the ways that it is everyone’s problem. Taxpayers end up footing the bill for medical services and to feed and clothe people in the Sanders County Jail. And when a meth lab is found in the neighbor’s house, it...
We can’t have a competitive workforce without a healthy workforce. And a healthy workforce depends on the individual health of each of its citizens. Until recently, too many of our fellow Montanans lived each day knowing that access to health care was beyond their reach. They avoided regular checkups and screenings, and instead, were forced to the emergency room to access expensive, difficult to treat care. When you’re not healthy, it’s difficult to stay on the job and be a productive member of the workforce. Thankfully, in Montana, over 93,00...
National Kick Butt Day was in March. It’s a day, according to www.kickbuttsday.org, ”that empowers youth to stand out, speak up and seize control against Big Tobacco.” Sandi Gubel, the Sanders County Tobacco Prevention Specialist, recently took students out to pick up cigarette butts in Thompson Falls. After an hour, the group had more than 100 collected. According to www.truthinitiative.org, cigarette butts account for more than one-third of all collected litter. That’s believable, considering the sad fact that our kids are likely to pick on...
Buildings have a way of disappearing where I live. They rot, burn, atomize and move. I have an aerial photo of the ranch from 1950 or so. On the part of the ranch I call the Fox place, there is the cabin that housed Mr. Fox in one end and his horse in the other. There is a barn at least 200 yards from the cabin, and what looks like a summer kitchen underneath some cottonwoods, which were large even then. On what I call the home place, there was a substantial cedar cabin and outbuildings,...
In Sanders County, several organizations help residents. The Cancer Network of Sanders County provides funds to Sanders County residents undergoing cancer treatments. Sanders County Veterans Transportation provides free rides to veterans to doctor visits and other appointments. These are just two of the many organizations in Sanders County run by local volunteers. The money stays in Sanders County and helps Sanders County residents. It’s tempting to support national charities with many resources and large marketing budgets that fill your m...
by Ed Levert Lincoln County Forester Many of you are aware of the collaborative group called the Kootenai Forest Stakeholder Coalition (KFSC), a diverse group of area citizens and groups that came together to find common ground on a diverse number of natural resource issues. It all began back in 2006, when the KFSC was born. Many of our founding group thought that this was just an opportunity to help the forest sell more timber and bring back a sawmill to Libby. But it didn’t take long before we found that there were widely varying o...
Over the weekend, dozens of volunteers in Thompson Falls came together for Beautification Days. The effort includes projects such as helping the elderly and disabled rid their yards of leaves and pine needles, cleaning up public spaces, and spraying and sweeping Main Street. Beautification Days committee members said there were more volunteers this year, which meant that more projects were completed. That’s a positive thing for Thompson Falls as we get ready for the busy tourist season. At NorthWestern Energy’s Island Park, several bags of tra...
Often, when I sit down to write, I have to search for a topic. It’s common for me to write three or more articles and then decide which one I want to run that week. For the record, this is version four. I figure if I’m going to write something I at least ought to be interested in it. I write a lot about politics because I was involved in it for a long time, but today’s politics is not a joyous subject. In fact, it’s downright depressing as far as I’m concerned. So, on occasions like this I tr...
The importance of having access to high-speed broadband Internet has never been greater for Montana students. When they graduate and enter the job market, they will need a deep knowledge of technology and the ability to learn new skills quickly. Technology is increasingly used in all aspects of student learning. Educators in Montana have made it a priority that our schools have first-rate access to Internet. A real gap exists today between students who have access to all the Internet has to offer, and those who live in areas that are lagging...
Ainsworth Field Park has sat empty for years. You hear comments about what an eyesore it is, about how long it has taken to do anything with the park. And for just as long, a group of residents has been devoting hundreds of hours to how to develop the park. From fundraisers to planning, the committee didn’t give up on the dream of reviving Ainsworth Field. This week, the City of Thompson Falls was notified of a grant of almost $400,000. This, along with the funds already raised by volunteers, will allow completion of the entire project - not j...
Snow may still be on the ground, but last year’s wildfire season isn’t too far from memory. We have good news for Montanans, though. After years of negotiation, we have finally secured a deal that moves forward on much-needed forest management reforms. Montanans get it: a managed forest is a healthy forest. But decades of mismanagement, environmental lawsuits and excessive red tape have kept responsible forest management projects from moving forward on thousands of acres. There are many consequences to this delay, including increased risk of...
Area agencies are making an effort to share knowledge and strategies for keeping Sanders County safe. City and county law enforcement agencies are working with local schools, starting conversations about preventing incidents and preparing action plans in case something catastrophic happens here. Next week, Sanders County Coalition for Families will bring together representatives of local agencies for training on domestic violence issues. And area emergency services personnel hold mock training incidents or step up to help in situations such as...
Political wisdom; “Never put in writing what you can communicate by speaking, and never speak when you can make your point with a wink and a nod.” Which is worse, Russian interference in American elections or secret American special interest groups doing the same? Well, of course it’s the Russians because the special interest groups are at least American not to mention bread and butter to the politicians of one political party or another. The reason why the latter are not the subject of congr...
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark came through our area more than 200 years ago on the Corps of Discovery Expedition. They became famous for their exploration out west. A lot has changed here in two centuries, but their names are still prominent, from counties to rivers and monuments. Though Lewis and Clark are an important part of our history, other famous Americans made an impact in the area as well. Teddy Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, was one of those. Roosevelt came to Thompson Falls to hunt the “great white g...
With dysfunction in Washington DC near an all-time high, it’s nice to see the Montana delegation help lead the way to a badly needed deal to help our federal forests. Last week, in spite of a four-inch “blizzard” in our nation’s Capitol, a deal was reached that will truly help Montana avoid another smoke-filled summer, and hopefully start bringing the health of our forests back from the brink. Working with colleagues from around the country, Sen. Jon Tester, Sen. Steve Daines, and Rep. Greg Gianforte helped broker a compromise which provide...
So, here we are. Again. Rehashing and rehashtagging an all too common issue. Unfortunately, the issue is being presented as cut and dry, black and white, either/or – again. As with most things in life, there are more than two sides to the views expressed on the school shooting issue – which is showing no signs of slowing or going away. Either you support gun rights or you want them all taken away. At least, those are the two views overwhelmingly being presented. As with most things set before me, I’ve got mixed feelings about all of it and c...
I have been giving some thought to the beliefs of some—such as the Bundy clan of the aptly named town of Bunkerville, Nevada— that the federal government cannot own property and therefore whatever Bureau of Land Management land the Bundy’s are using as grazing land actually belongs to the county, in this case, Clark County Nevada. If I follow the logic, because the BLM, as a branch of the federal government, cannot manage land the government cannot own, the Bundy’s need no BLM permit or permissi...
March can be hard to handle. While signs of Spring are making their way through the last of the snow mounds, it’s still cold and some of us are just waiting for the snow to melt off the fairways so we can start working out the kinks in our golf game. For years, I’ve been saying I need to get away in March, just to take the edge off of those last weeks of winter. This year, my buddy and I took a quick trip to Phoenix to get some sun. We were mostly looking forward to seeing new places and making new memories. What I found is that I love our hom...
Scandinavians: In Search of the Soul of the North, by Robert Ferguson, (Overlook Press, 2016) This is a good read on its titular topic, if you’re up for page-and-a-half paragraphs and 150-word sentences, all stuffed with literary allusions, European history, and wanderings into psychological analysis. In truth, you need some extra motivation to get through it. Bleak winter weather sets the right mood, as would a melancholy personality, which is in fact what the author suggests Scandinavians possess, at least in popular lore. He wants to know w...
There have been a lot of movements in Hollywood lately. Usually it comes with celebrities speaking out, raising money and hashtags such as #timesup and #metoo. Often, the movements are hard to relate to from rural Montana. It’s hard to imagine that celebrity problems are the same as what we face in one of the poorest counties in the state with some of the highest rates of unemployment. During the Oscars on Sunday, a video montage of military movies ended with a message of thanks to veterans and troops. Now that’s something we can relate to....
As a fourth grader, when the siren heralded the air raid drill I dutifully crawled under my desk and put my hands over my head and didn’t move until the all clear sounded. During the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 I was as scared as anybody that the Russians were going to bomb us to oblivion and vice-versa but figured that putting my hands over my head wouldn’t cut it. Now, with North Korea, Russia and the U.S. bragging about their nuclear capacity, I mostly just hope for the best because the...
Often times people are afraid to speak up about sensitive issues. Don’t talk about politics or religion at the dinner table. On Feb. 14 in Parkland, Florida, the country experienced one of the deadliest school shootings. Immediately the gun control debate took center stage. It’s a touchy subject, no matter what side of the fence you’re on. Students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where the shooting took place, started organizing marches and speaking up to their lawmakers. The tragedy these students have witnessed made them take a sta...
Thomas Jefferson favored amending the Constitution by “taking from the federal government the power of borrowing.” He also favored a requirement that taxes would have to be sufficient for each generation to pay its own debts. Managing debt has always been a fundamental problem of American Democracy. In the early 1990’s there was a widespread movement to amend the constitution through a “convention of the states” to require that in balancing the budget, the federal government could not do so by passing on “unfunded mandates” to the states. N...
