Ed Kemmick

Ed Kemmick has been a newspaper reporter, editor and columnist since 1980. Except for four years in his home state of Minnesota, he has spent his entire journalism career in Montana, working in Missoula, Anaconda, Butte and Billings. "The Big Sky, By and By," a collection of some of his newspaper stories and columns, plus a few essays and one short story, was published in 2011.

Recent Posts

Subject of today’s Google tribute had ties to Bozeman

By: |

The Google image today shows Edmonia Lewis, an African American sculptor who was best known for her monumental statue of Cleopatra, shown at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. What makes her of special interest to us is that her half-brother, Samuel W. Lewis, was one of the earliest residents of Bozeman, a successful barber whose house is on the National Register of Historic places. There are lots of stories about Edmonia Lewis on the web today. One of the most popular seems to be this piece from Al Jazeera. I couldn’t find anything to indicate that Edmonia herself ever visited Montana. Continue Reading →

Filed under: Last Best Blog, Al Jazeera, Bozeman, Edmonia Lewis, Samuel L. Lewis

New downtown restaurant to offer world’s best street food

By: |
Seva

It wasn’t like Harvey Singh didn’t already have enough to do. In 2013 he started Singh Contracting, a successful business that mostly works on roofing projects. Just about a year ago he and Levi Adams started Outward Media Group, a digital marketing company. (more…) Continue Reading →

Filed under: Culture, Diversions, Broadway Deli and Cafe, Harvey Singh, Josh Cannon, Outward Media Group, Schuyler Budde, Seva

From the Guardian, a look at the future of local news

By: |

Kathleen McLaughlin, whose reporting career has included a stint with the Lee Newspapers state bureau, wrote a great piece for The Guardian about the steady decline of newspapers devoted to covering local news. The story is full of good, thought-provoking stuff, but here’s the gist of it:
“The real crisis in American journalism is not technological, it’s geographic,” said Tom Rosentiel, fellow at the Brookings Institution who founded and ran for 16 years the Project for Excellence in Journalism at the Pew Research Center. “The crisis is that local journalism is shrinking. I wouldn’t say it’s dying but it’s the most threatened.”

This is certainly true in Montana, where a recent study found that people get their news online, but still gravitate most toward the websites of their local papers and television stations. Local press isn’t dead, but it’s fragmented and weakened. Continue Reading →

Filed under: Last Best Blog, Flathead Beacon, Guardian, Kathleen McLaughlin, Lee Enterprises, Maury Povich

Legislative Update: Monday, Jan. 30

By: |
Corbally

Commission would track child abuses cases
By Freddy Monares
In the wake of reports of an increase in child abuse and neglect cases, lawmakers in Helena are considering a bill that would create a commission to review trends and patterns to share with policymakers. House Bill 303 also aims to educate the public and service providers about child abuse and neglect. The commission would provide analysis of information to further improve prevention. Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies representative Sarah Corbally says the bill echoes federal efforts. “It needs to be a proactive approach to prevent them, not this reactive approach to find new and greater punishments for these types of cases,” Corbally said. Continue Reading →

Filed under: Last Best Blog, Montana Legislature

Prairie Lights: A new wrinkle in the war on truth

By: |
Ed

You know you’re living in strange times when the maker of the world’s most popular dictionary feels compelled to send out a tweet defining the word “fact.”

As National Public Radio reported, there were actually two tweets, one defining “fact” as “a piece of information presented as having objective reality,” and a later one saying that the word “is understood to refer to something with actual existence.” (more…) Continue Reading →

Filed under: Prairie Lights, creationism, Donald Trump, Holocaust, intelligent design, Kellyanne Conway, Richard Spencer

New cafe going into Subway spot on Minnesota Avenue

By: |
Cafe

A new restaurant is going into one of the oldest buildings in Billings. Melody and Tammy Fletcher are planning to open Mel’s Lunch Box, a breakfast-and-lunch cafe, on Wednesday, Feb. 1. The restaurant, in the old L and L Building on the southeast corner of Minnesota Avenue and South 27th Street, will be open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. (more…) Continue Reading →

Filed under: Billings, Diversions, Arcade, For the Funk of It, L&l Building, Russ Plath Law, Tammy and Melody Fletcher

A swan song, maybe, for an artist’s whimsical pieces

By: |
Cornelia

Kevin Rose, who manages the Western Art Forum gallery in downtown Billings, says Jerry Cornelia will be the featured artist during the Feb. 3 Winter ArtWalk for two reasons. One is that gallery owner and painter Kira Fercho is a big fan of the Sidney artist. “He’s like a superstar,” Rose said. “Kira calls him her first art crush, when she was 16 years old.” (more…) Continue Reading →

Filed under: Culture, Diversions, Jerry Cornelia, Kevin Rose, Kira Fercho, Sidney, Western Art Forum

Some fear BNSF decision may derail downtown development

By: |
Mintana

Last spring, Maisie Sulser Handley and her husband, Michael Handley, thought they were close to completing their purchase of the old Mintana Mills warehouse on Minnesota Avenue at South 26th Street. Sulser Handley had recently left her job with an architectural firm so she and her husband, a contractor, could start a new business, Restôr Design + Build. They wanted to focus on projects that involved historic preservation, renovation and downtown redevelopment. (more…) Continue Reading →

Filed under: Billings, News, 1 S. Broadway, BNSF, Maisie Sulser Handley, Michael Handley, Mintana Mills, Montana Rail Link

New program would help fund energy-efficiency upgrades

By: |
Ice

Depending on what happens during the legislative session now underway, Montana could join 32 states that offer their residents an innovative, low-cost method of financing energy-efficiency projects for houses and businesses. The method is known as Property Assessed Clean Energy, which enables property owners to obtain no-money-down loans and pay them off over many years as part of their county property tax assessments. (more…) Continue Reading →

Filed under: Montana, News, Business Improvement District, Ed Gulick, Montana Legislature, Property Assessed Clean Energy, Rhyno Stinchfield, Tyler Gernant