We've Got The County Covered
We've Got The County Covered
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The 24th annual gathering of the Montana Country Poets and Pickers will begin Friday night, April 13, and run through Sunday noon. Organizers say the event will follow its traditional schedule. The Saturday day session is open to performers wishing to try out their poetry and receive feedback from audiences. Sunday morning will be cowboy church. Daytime events will be at the Chinook Motor Inn and evening performances at the Chinook High School auditorium. The poets nearing their Silver...
I was born on April Fools' Day 70+ years ago. I've endured decades of, "So, you're an April fool?" and "Do people pull a lot of pranks on you for your birthday?" remarks and questions. This year my birthday will also fall on Easter. That hasn't happened to me since 1956 when I was 12 years old, and I still recall the day fairly well. In my lifetime the two holidays fell on the same day once before, in 1945, when I was one year old. People who calculate future calendars say the next time April...
Christine Brown, Outreach and Education Director for the Montana Preservation Alliance (MPA), recently presented the third program in a series hosted by the Harlem Library and the Harlem Senior Center. Brown is the co-author of "The Barns of Montana," a 2011-released book that features pictures and stories of selected barns from different geographic regions and eras across the state. The program is part of the Montana Conversations project of Montana Humanities. Why and how a book about barns...
(Senior Centers in Harlem and Chinook). A motor coach tour, originating from the senior centers in Harlem and Chinook, will be headed to Mt. Rushmore, the Crazy Horse monument and other attractions in the Black Hills area in early September. The tour, being presented by the Harlem and Chinook Senior Centers, is the second tour the two centers have collaborated on for guests along the Hi-Line. Last year's tour had 44 travelers who visited Colorado Springs. The tour is a seven day, six-night trip...
Readers who have had a third grader at Meadowlark Elementary in the last several years are likely familiar with the term biome. In fact, they've probably helped at least one of their students create a miniature, table top exhibit of a "community of flora and fauna occupying a major habitat." About 30 carefully researched biomes, many made totally with materials at hand, are proudly displayed in the lobby of the bank in Chinook. Third grade teacher Mrs. Bobbi Weinheimer and her colleague, Mrs. Br...
Reporter's note: Alert readers will recall I've written about the annual calcutta held at Kennedy's Bar in Harlem for the last two or three years. This year I was able to attend the Calcutta in Harlem as well as the Calcutta at the Mint Bar in Chinook. I decided to compare the two events and share some information about how March Madness also touches the Hi-Line and Montana. For folks who just landed on this planet and may not know, March Madness refers to the annual NCAA Division 1 basketball...
Reporter's note: I'm not exactly sure the first time I saw Tony Collins carrying a branding iron, but I think it was at the old "Journal" office. I was quite intrigued with his ability to fashion steel in to the irons that were both useful and artistic. We talked briefly, he gave me a card and I made a mental note to follow up with an interview for a story. Then life intervened and I didn't think about Tony and his Western Arts of Montana business. Then I saw him at the fair, made another...
The Annual Banquet and Auction to benefit the Blaine County Wildlife Museum in Chinook is set for Saturday, April 7. Festivities start at the museum on Indiana Street with a tour available to banquet ticket holders, then moves to St. Gabriel's Catholic Church. The tour of the museum begins at 6pm and guests can browse the many raffle and auction items from 6:00 -7:00 p.m. at the church's parish hall. Dinner begins at 7:00 p.m. at the church with the auction to follow. This year several items...
First Aid for Parents was held recently at the Blaine County Library. The course is part of the Family Education Series sponsored by the Blaine County Public Health Department. There is no charge for the courses that make up the Family Education Series. Louann Paulsen, RN, taught the program for parents. The objective of the course was to discuss "how to respond to childhood injuries ranging from every day accidents to emergency situations." Jana McPherson-Hauer, RN, is the Blaine County Health...
Miscellany and My Neighbor hosted the Chinook Area Chamber of Commerce first quarterly Business After Hours for 2018 last week. The Business After Hours was changed from a monthly program to a quarterly program starting this New Year. Miscellany is a recently reopened thrift store in downtown Chinook. My Neighbor in Need is a non-profit that seeks to help needy neighbors fill verified needs by neighbors willing to help anonymously. Patricia Hofeldt reopened the thrift store under the new name,...
Like most everything else this winter, the weather had an effect on the Montana Seed Show this year. Show superintendents for pies and breads said they saw numbers of entries down a bit. Show chairman Paul Rasmussen, who also handles the commercial exhibits, said at the last minute he had "several exhibitors call and cancel." All the seed show organizers blamed the fear of encountering blocked roads on the way home as one of the major factors that reduced the numbers of visitors and...
Reporter's note: Dick Edgington, a longtime resident of Chinook, died in the summer of 2016. In 2004, after retiring from the Blaine County Road Department, Edgington bought a set of plans to build a RagWing 4 single engine plane. It was not a kit, he had to locate and buy all the parts and supplies necessary to complete the plane. The plans were based on a popular plane sold as a kit and first available in 1928. I'd heard about the incomplete plane from several people and had asked Dick's son,...
Chinook's My Neighbor in Need (MNIN), a help group that connect people with needs and donors who can fill those needs, is joining with Miscellany, a downtown thrift shop in Chinook, to host the next quarterly Business After Hours. The Chinook Area Chamber sponsored its first Business After Hours in April, 2014. The events let businesses showcase their products and services in a more informal setting outside normal business hours. My Neighbor in Need started in 2014 in Chinook My Neighbor in...
Reporter's note: Locals of a certain age will likely recall the "Pink Apartments" in downtown Chinook on the corner across the street from the Motor Inn and adjacent to Dan's NAPA. The apartments were torn down, along with Dr. Hoon's office and residence, in September, 1987 and the three town lots became the present Centennial Park. The park commemorates the centennial of the town of Chinook as well as Montana, both founded in 1889. Mid-January of this year the Sweet Nursing Home received an...
There were a number of competitions during the annual Montana Seed Show in Harlem. Here is a list of the barebones details—events and winners as listed in the program for the Saturday night banquet. Educational Display Booths: Youth Division Groups: 1st place, Big Flat 4-H; 2nd place, White Pine 4-H and 3rd place, Valley Clovers 4-H and North Harlem Colony School. Individual Division Groups: 1st place, Makayla Renfro; 2nd place, Daniel Rasmussen; 3rd place, Angelina Toth and 4th place, Andrew Rasmussen. Overall Sweepstakes Winner: Big Flat 4...
Reporter's note: About this time last year I read about the St. Uhro's celebration in Butte. St. Uhro's Day is celebrated each March 16 in regions of the U.S. where large numbers of descendants of Finnish immigrants still live. And it's not just coincidence that it's celebrated the day before St. Patrick's Day, which in the U.S. seems to get a lot more play than St. Uhro's. After reading about the celebration in Butte, I wrote a note on my calendar as a reminder to educate myself about St. Uhro'...
Reporter's note: Next Saturday night (March, 10) most of us, if we remember, will be changing our clocks one hour ahead as we "spring forward" into the start of Daylight Saving Time (DST) for 2018. It's a ritual observed among some 70 nations including most of North America and Europe and spotty in much of the rest of the world. There are a couple of notable exceptions in the U.S., including Arizona and Hawaii, and one Canadian province, that opted out of implementing DST. Reviewing my notes I f...
No one is sure exactly how long the tradition has been going on, but each year for more than 40 years the Chinook Lions Club has given miniature, desk top American flags to each first grader at Meadowlark Elementary. This year 22 first graders received the miniature flags. Lions Club President Richard Cronk told the students, "Each year around George Washington's birthday celebration we come to give out flags to first graders." He asked the first graders to stand, with him and the other Lions...
Montana's oldest running seed show is set to run March 8-10. The 69th Montana Seed Show begins on Thursday and runs through Saturday evening. The three-day event has ag and non-ag related exhibits, health screenings, competitions of all sorts and a closing banquet with a speaker connected to Montana's biggest economic sector, agriculture. Seed show activities are in and around the Harlem High School. There is a charge for the closing banquet and drug screenings, all other events are open to the...
Reporter's note: The hard winter in north central Montana may not be the only news story, but it is certainly one of the main ones. I wanted to see how folks in a variety of situations are dealing with this winter. This is not a comprehensive list of every "winter of 2018 story." But, it's a sampling of some of the challenges, and interestingly, some of the unanticipated benefits of a hard winter. Here's a brief look at how a few of us are coping this winter. Health and safety: more than normal...
Despite a frigid evening, a decent sized group gathered at the Harlem Senior Center to hear the second Montana Conversation program from Humanities Montana. The presenter, Mark Matthews, did a program called Swinging through American History. It's a short course on the history of dance from the colonial period to modern times. He used videos of vintage dances to illustrate how famous dances developed. Matthews has done the history of American dance presentations for about four years. A friend...
Before its regular February meeting the Chinook Council heard the first presentation of a Preliminary Engineering Report (PER) that addresses issues with the city's water distribution system. The PER serves as a planning document to help the council prioritize work to be done on the distribution system. A PER is required to successfully apply for grants to finance the upgrade. Two years ago the city began the process and submitted its first grant application which was not funded. The regular mon...
I grew up in southern Illinois. By the time February rolled around most folks in that region were already sick of winter with the its grey skies and gloomy weather. The bright spot about February in southern Illinois, however, was three holidays that kids in school could enjoy. I would guess just about every grade school class, back in the 1950’s, had some sort of Valentine exchange and, if they were lucky, the “room mothers” would provide special treats for an in-classroom party. And way before the 1950’s most schools celebrated George...
The Montana State University Pesticide Education Program (PEP) is coordinating regional private applicator initial certification training across Montana. The seven hour training opportunity is designed for individuals desiring to learn more about pesticides, while simultaneously qualifying for a Montana private applicator license. A private applicator license allows individuals to apply restricted use pesticides on land they own, rent or lease. A pesticide training session is scheduled to be hel...
One month ago I wrote a story for the paper titled "Finally, warmer weather allows locals to 'dig out.'" Readers may recall we had a brief warmup in mid-January, of a couple of days, and snow removal and clean up began in earnest. Before my story about the warm up could run in the paper, the bottom fell out as far as weather and we plunged back into frigid temperatures and more snow, snow and snow ad nauseum. I had to scrap that story and hope for another warmup. The recent spring-like day on...
