Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/author/edkemmick/page/117/)
Last year, Mike Penfold was hunting on the Marias River in north-central Montana. On his float down the river, the former state director of the Bureau of Land Management saw only one live white-tailed deer. “But there were so many dead ones,” he said. (more…) Continue Reading →
Time to answer some questions from our bulging mail sack. Dear Ed: My roof, car and RV were all wrecked by the recent hailstorm, which means I’ve got insurance checks totaling $17,000 coming in soon. Would it be wiser to get everything repaired or simply blow the money? — Larry “Lockwood” Carson
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FORT BENTON — Most towns in Montana celebrate their history in some fashion or another, and some towns — Miles City and Butte come to mind — seem particularly interested in preserving the past. (more…) Continue Reading →
Makoshika State Park in Glendive, an 11,538-acre collection of weathered rock, multicolored badlands and wide expanses of native grass, has been hailed by Country magazine as one of the 10 “most magnificent, unheralded parks across America.” (more…) Continue Reading →
On the eve of the primary election, I thought I should bring to your attention an excellent article I read on vacation. The story — headlined “Is being a congressperson the worst job in America?” — appeared in the most recent edition of City Pages, an alternative weekly in the Twin Cities. I guess the headline (and the one on the cover, seen at left) rather gives it away: The answer is yes, it is the worst job in America. The article gives eight reasons why the job is so bad, backed up by facts and anecdotes. Continue Reading →
Ed Kemmick is on vacation, visiting his granddaughter in a distant state, which means he won’t be writing his Prairie Lights column this week. Which is too bad, because Ed made the mistake of keeping up with the news in Billings while he was on the road. As stories dribbled out about the City Council’s marathon meeting Tuesday night, Ed became more and more outraged, as well as somewhat despondent, which is the last thing he expected to be on a vacation to see his granddaughter. (more…) Continue Reading →
Sitting in the bar at Walkers Grill on a Sunday night, you can tell when the out-of-towners walk in. They generally pause just inside the door and stand there staring at the scene before them. It’s almost always crowded, with a clientele running from teenagers to people in their 70s or 80s. (more…) Continue Reading →
Lay of the Land: A series of essays on the spirit of Montana
Editor’s Note: Shortly after Last Best News opened for business, we were surprised and honored to receive unsolicited essays from several friends and a few strangers. We were even more surprised to discover that all of them covered similar ground. Whether in the form of memoir, yarn or personal essay, all of them touched on what it means to live in Montana, or to have formed some connection with this state. (more…) Continue Reading →
Photojournalist John Warner began taking his cameras on walks with the family dogs, Benny the Yorkie and Lucy the Scottie, to see if he could find interesting images along a rather routine stretch of the irrigation canal from Wicks Lane to Lake Elmo in the Heights. (more…) Continue Reading →
