Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/author/edkemmick/page/109/)
BRIDGER — A patio table in Shirley Smith’s backyard is covered with soot-blackened artifacts, including a set of antique handcuffs, an old fig syrup bottle and a partially melted saddle bronc trophy from a rodeo in Malta. Smith has been trying to restore them, using a variety of cleansers and scrub brushes. “It takes time and a lot of figuring out how to do it,” she says. (more…) Continue Reading →
Two Billings lawmakers are planning to introduce legislation that would eliminate or overhaul a state law that allows authorities to seize the assets of people involved in crimes. Reps. Kelly McCarthy, a Democrat, and Daniel Zolnikov, a Republican, say that while widespread abuse of the law has not been reported in Montana, law enforcement authorities in other states have used similar laws to seize property — including houses — from law-abiding citizens. (more…) Continue Reading →
In light of all the alarming, ludicrous things said recently in Billings about the very basic phenomenon of people falling in love, we direct your attention to this lovely little story from the Quad-City Times, a sister paper of the Billings Gazette. It tells of two women, Vivian Boyack, 91, and Alice “Nonie” Dubes, 90, who had been together for 72 years before finally deciding to get married, which they did last weekend in Davenport, Iowa. Can you imagine standing face to face with these two — or, rather, sitting face to face, since they are both in wheelchairs — and telling them you couldn’t bake them a cake or take their picture because they are both abominable sinners? A lot of people believe that same-sex marriage will be legal everywhere in time because the vast majority of young people not only find it acceptable, but don’t quite understand what the fuss is all about. I believe that, too, but I believe that stories like this stand a fair chance of changing the minds of some older people as well. Continue Reading →
September is usually the finest month of the year in Montana, and Saturday was a nearly perfect September day — blue, cloudless skies, a slight breeze and temperatures in the low to mid-70s. That’s why I joined several thousand other outdoor lovers and spent a good chunk of Saturday afternoon indoors — on opening day of the new Scheels, the retail behemoth, Montana’s latest temple of excess, the store that is not merely a store but a shopping experience. (more…) Continue Reading →
Mark Kennedy says the new bison sculpture near the entrance to Billings Logan International Airport is a fitting monument to Bruce Putnam. “Bruce was larger than life, and that piece is larger than life,” Kennedy said. (more…) Continue Reading →
Part of the charm of the Pathway Thru the Bible, one of the oddest roadside attractions in Montana, is that it is so rarely visited. That doesn’t prevent me from wanting to spread the word, to encourage other people to go there. (more…) Continue Reading →
When Randy and Janna Hafer finish their house on the North Side of Billings sometime next year, it won’t look all that different from other houses in the neighborhood. There will be one noticeable difference, though — the 23-foot-high wind turbine on the corner of their lot at North 23rd Street and Seventh Avenue North. (more…) Continue Reading →
I live in Montana. Most people, hearing that, especially if they weren’t from around here, would probably picture a log cabin surrounded by towering pine trees, alongside a racing stream, with snow-clad peaks over yonder. Not quite. I live on the second floor of a century-old converted warehouse 100 feet from the railroad tracks in the heart of the biggest city in the state. Out my windows I can just see the tops of the forest of pipes and stacks rising from the Phillips 66 refinery. Continue Reading →
Eight times a year, on average, the Billings Police Department deploys its Special Weapons and Tactics team, 12 officers wearing heavy armor and toting semiautomatic and automatic weapons. In almost all cases, they are executing high-risk search warrants at the homes of suspected drug dealers, and they roll up in the BEAR, the Yellowstone County Sheriff’s Department’s 35,000-pound Ballistic Engineered Armored Response vehicle. (more…) Continue Reading →
Montana, by Gwen Florio, The Permanent Press, 2013. 256 pages, $28. It appears that Lola Wicks is going to become a familiar character in this part of the world, and that the corpses are going to keep piling up. (more…) Continue Reading →
