The Blaine County Journal News-Opinion - We've Got The County Covered

Soon it will be ten years since my wife, Sherry, and I moved to Chinook. She came as interim minister at the Presbyterian Church. I quickly realized I needed a way to get connected to a new community. I visited Chinook and saw a small box ad in the "Blaine County Journal" advertising for a "news reporter." I'd done some writing on prior jobs but never as a reporter. I called and asked for an interview.

Long story short I was offered a job. The initial understanding was that if the owners of the paper were dissatisfied with my work they would ask me to leave and if I tired of the job I would vacate the job on my own with no hard feelings either way. Ten years later we're still working under the original understanding. Here's part of my take on ten years of writing for the "Journal."

1600 stories and a half million words later

On my laptop there are about 1600 story files for my articles published in the "Journal. That number includes 50 articles I wrote for the "South of the Border" column that described our experiences living in Whitlash (in the Sweet Grass Hills) when Sherry was the interim minister there. I didn't count the words in every article but took an average of 300 words per story-most stories are at least twice that length. I was surprised to figure I wrote about a half million words in ten years.

Readers may recall that early on I didn't write during Octobers when I worked the pumpkin patch back in Washington state. The last few years I was gone for one to two months to dog/house sit for a family in Woodinville, Washington. And sometimes Sherry and I simply traveled and I wasn't here writing.

A short sampling of stories

My first story was about winter burials. Readers may find that a weird topic. The first funeral my wife did in Chinook was in December and I was surprised when she said there would be a graveside service. When she was a minister in North Dakota there were never burials in the winter, the deceased were kept in storage until graveside services were held in the spring. I learned from Don Berger and Brian Friede, at the Kuper Cemetery, about the "cooker' and how it is used to thaw grave sites so a grave can be "opened" in subzero weather. I enjoy writing about topics that are new to me.

I'm a big believer in the notion that if you want to write about something you should experience it firsthand. To write specific stories I worked as a substitute teacher, participated in the annual chili cook-off at the Seed Show, was a contestant in the Womanless Beauty Contest, floated through the White Cliffs on the Upper Missouri, walked to a foreign country (from Whitlash to Canada) and, most recently, hiked to and explored Devil's Chimney in the Sweet Grass Hills.

Another way I learned about my new community was to learn some of the local history. One year I did a series of stories about the six sites in Blaine County listed on the National Register of Historic Places (a seventh was added later). My stories about murders in the north country at the turn of the century, and later, stimulated lots of reader response and helped fill in missing information about those murders. I learned many readers like stories about the history of our area.

Other cultural/historical stories included one about the 50th anniversary of the Fort Belknap Mid-Winter Fair and Harlem's Chuck Wagon Days. I learned that John Denver filmed one of his TV Christmas specials at Fort Belknap in 1991 and interviewed locals, some who were children at the time, that were a part of the show. I learned and wrote about Indian relay racing. My story about the Fred Robinson Bridge over the Missouri River south of Fort Belknap explained how the new bridge changed travel and commercial patterns in our region.

I researched German prisoner of war camps in Chinook and Harlem and wrote how displaced Japanese-Americans came from detention camps across the west to work on local farms. My writing about the agricultural history of the area included stories about John Deere Days, brandings, cattle sales, cattle buyers and cowboys, both modern and from the old days. One of my favorite homestead era characters was Tom Gosnah, a German homesteader south of Zurich, who laid rocks to spell his name that can still be read from space on a Google Earth map.

Special stories that resonated with readers

I recall certain stories that resulted in many comments to me. One of those memorable stories I wrote when we lived in Whitlash. I like to do an April Fools' Day story each year and up in the Hills my wife took a picture of me in the winter holding what looked like a white snake with a snowy butte in the background. The story was about my discovering snow snakes wintering in our yard. I went into the habitat and lifestyles of the snakes. At the end of the story I noted it was "...all made up. Happy April Fools' Day." Some readers never got to the end of the story and they would see me in Whitlash or in Chester and tell me, "I've lived my entire life in the Hills and never saw a snow snake." Even on visits back to Chinook people would mention the story and just shake their heads in disbelief about the mysterious snakes.

The other was a more recent story I did about dog/house sitting in Washington state for a month's "free stay at an upscale Airbnb in Seattle." While it was rent free, there were a number of unanticipated occurrences that made it a costly stay, not free at all. My wife had a couple of visits to emergency rooms both on the way and after arriving, I got scammed for $400 buying gift cards for a friend back in Chinook, my wife had to replace a $250 ruined gourmet cooking utensil and I incurred almost $400 in fines for speeding through a school zone, twice in two insrances. I think readers enjoy reading about someone else's difficulties and that made the story interesting.

The circled participant in this photo from the 2014 Womanless Beauty Pageant held in Chinook is "Journal" me dressed for the fundraiser. It was one of the most embarrassing evenings I've experienced in my ten years in Chinook. I did raise $100 which kept me from getting skunked.

Stories or projects I'd like to do but probably won't

Looking toward my next ten years, coffee groups are part of the life blood of small communities. I've wanted to visit every coffee group in the county, on one day, and write one big story about what each group discussed. I'm sure that would be interesting but not practical. As much as I'd like to do that, I probably won't.

And although I'm not technologically adept, I'd like to create a special phone app for Blaine County. I was warned early on, "Be careful what you say about someone because we're all related." I would like to create an app that would help newcomers understand who is related to whom, when they lived here if they are now gone and where they are now if still alive. Likely impossible to achieve but it certainly would fit in with my goal of getting to know the county better. It's been an interesting and rewarding ten years writing about Blaine County. I've learned a lot and hope to learn even more.