Fifty-Six Counties: A Montana Journey, by Russell Rowland, Bangtail Press, 2016. 416 pages, $22.95. Russell Rowland’s new work of nonfiction is an altogether beguiling book, but also a strange one that is impossible to pigeonhole. (more…) Continue Reading →
Recent Posts
Readers of Last Best News, we need a little help
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To the readers of Last Best News:
We have not made a direct appeal for donations since last March, when David Crisp and I launched a fund drive to support our new partnership, a few months after David shut down The Billings Outpost, a weekly newspaper. (more…) Continue Reading →
Filed under: News, IRS, Last Best News, Oliver Twist
Council to vote again on backing local option tax idea
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The Billings City Council will decide Monday night whether to endorse efforts to pass a new kind of statewide local option sales tax—or to postpone a decision until a bill draft lays out more details on the proposal. The council also will be asked to approve a two-page list of priorities that the city will pursue during the 2017 Montana Legislature, one of the priorities being a commitment to support a local option tax of some kind. (more…) Continue Reading →
Filed under: Billings, News, Authorize Community Transformation, Billings City Council, Bruce McCandless, Ed Bartlett, Montana Infrastructure Coalition, Montana Legislature
Prairie Lights: Truth, if it even shows up, doesn’t always win
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Listening to late-night radio for about five minutes the other night, I heard something I can’t get out of my head. The host of the show was talking to an “expert” of some kind, who had alarming things to say about the fate of the Earth in light of experiments underway at CERN, home of the Large Hadron Collider. (more…) Continue Reading →
Filed under: Prairie Lights, Book of Revelation, CERN, Hell, John Milton, Large Hadron Collider
Competition fires students’ enthusiasm for math
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A few days before a math competition for fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders took place at Big Sky Elementary School, Tom Rupsis was explaining what the prizes would be for the top-scoring students. Rupsis, a Big Sky parent who came up with the idea for the contest last year, said the winning boy and girl in each grade would receive a National Geographic Quadcopter Drone. (more…) Continue Reading →
Filed under: Billings, Amy Leffler, Big Sky Elementary, Math contest, Meadowlark Elementary, Poly Drive Elementary, Rose Park Elementary, Tom Rupsis
Vinyl tribute planned for musicians who left us in 2016
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Smiling Dog Records owner Mike Ludlam was standing behind the counter of his Minnesota Avenue shop Wednesday afternoon, looking through a collection of records by musicians who died in 2016. He’d already mentioned Prince, David Bowie, Glenn Frey, Sharon Jones, Merle Haggard, Leonard Cohen, Keith Emerson and Vanity, one of Prince’s proteges. (more…) Continue Reading →
Filed under: Culture, Diversions, Bob Hjellum, Garage Pub, George Moncure, Mike Ludlam, Smiling Dog Records, Yellowstone Valley Brewing Co.
Billings Petroleum Club hires Lilac’s Engebretson
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Jeremy Engebretson is well on his way to becoming the busiest person in Billings. He opened Lilac, a popular Montana Avenue restaurant, five years ago, and just about a year ago he announced that he was partnering with Joanie Swords, owner of Harper & Madison, a bakery and cafe, so they could share their talents to make improvements at both establishments. Today, the Billings Petroleum Club announced that Engebretson has become its “executive chef in residence.” The Billings Gazette carried a story 10 days ago saying that the Petroleum Club had just finished a six-month, $513,000 renovation of its lounge and dining room on the 22nd floor of the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel, formerly the Crowne Plaza hotel at North 27th Street and First Avenue North. A press release from the Petroleum Club pointed out that Engebretson was recently named one of the top 100 executive chefs in the United States. It also said he plans to continue his executive management of Lilac. Continue Reading →
Filed under: Last Best Blog, Clayton Kukes, Harper & Madison, Jeremy Engebretson, Lilac, Petroleum Club
Decades later, Mansfield’s thoughts on politics ring true
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Marc Johnson doesn’t pretend to know how to fix our broken political system, but he figures a good start would be to encourage people to learn about and reflect on our history. That’s why he recently launched a podcast called “Many Things Considered,” the motto of which is “Looking to politics past to make sense of politics present.” (more…) Continue Reading →
Filed under: Montana, News, Gallatin Public Affairs, Marc Johnson, Mike Mansfield, Pat Williams, Trent Lott, U.S. Senate
Prairie Lights: Heritage, history call man to protest
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Jordan Wolf Voice was planning to leave early this morning for his second trip to join the pipeline protesters in North Dakota. Wolf Voice is a 27-year-old Northern Cheyenne and Lakota. He has lived in Laurel his whole life and he works in the deli at Lucky’s Market in Billings. In late November, he spent three days at the protest against the Dakota Access pipeline, just outside the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, and he’s going back for three more days out of a sense of obligation. (more…) Continue Reading →
Filed under: Prairie Lights, Dakota Access pipeline, Jordan Wolf Voice, Lame Deer, Laurel, Northern Cheyenne, Standing Rock
At Paws Up, life’s little pleasures, and then some
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I’ve written once before about a writer for Forbes writing about the Paws Up resort in Western Montana, but the gaudiness of the joint makes it difficult not to mention another Forbes writer visiting there. This time the writer is Katie Chang, who describes her typical areas of coverage as “beauty, grooming, style, health, spa/fitness-focused travel.” I’ve never covered grooming, though I do think I once mentioned a monkey cracking his mate’s lice between his front teeth. Anyway, every time I read about Paws Up, I think of two things: first, as I mentioned in that previous article, the resort developer was the fellow who tried in vain to obtain exclusive rights to use of the phrase “Last Best Place.” The second thing is, is it really in Montana? Continue Reading →
