Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/author/edkemmick/page/48/)
It took Parker Brown a long time to figure out what he wanted to do with his many talents. The 33-year-old had played guitar and bass guitar in rock, blues, fusion, country, jazz and soul bands, worked as a sideman for singer-songwriters, played in duets, trios and other combinations, dabbled in songwriting and appeared on at least 20 albums. (more…) Continue Reading →
If you walk out the front doors of St. Olaf Church 15 miles north of Red Lodge, you see the high peaks of the Beartooth Mountains spread out on the horizon. Nearer at hand you can trace the paths of Red Lodge Creek on your left and Volney Creek on your right, the two streams divided by an expanse of rolling, grass-covered hills. Farm families, most of them Norwegian, used to live up and down both creeks, and those Lutheran families founded St. Olaf in 1904, gathering in people’s houses until the church building was completed in 1921. Continue Reading →
Until I got away, I didn’t realize how badly I needed to get away. It was no great shakes, as vacations go, just a Labor Day weekend in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, spent mostly on the shores of Rock Island Lake, with an easy hike to Widewater Lake on Sunday. (more…) Continue Reading →
The city of Billings has been ordered to pay just under $2 million in back wages and penalties to 142 active-duty and retired police officers in a wage dispute going back to 2009. District Court Judge Brenda Gilbert of Livingston, in an order issued Thursday, said the city must also pay roughly $650,000 in attorneys’ fees and nearly $126,000 in incidental costs associated with the years-long lawsuit. (more…) Continue Reading →
Joe “Buddy” Ulrich didn’t have any big plans for the sketch he drew a few weeks ago. Since taking up graffiti art five years ago, Ulrich said, he spends hours every night working out ideas in his sketchbook. The drawing in question showed colored leaves sprouting from a downtown Billings skyline, with “Out Of The Dark” written below it. (more…) Continue Reading →
Former Montana House member Daniel Kennedy of Laurel has agreed to pay a $19,599 fine for accepting illegal campaign contributions during the Republican primary in 2010. In a settlement reached last Thursday and posted Tuesday on the Montana commissioner of political practices’ website, Kennedy said “I did not know at the time but now understand” that the package of campaign services he received came from the National Right to Work organization. (more…) Continue Reading →
A recent visit to Deer Lodge brought back memories of my first and last brush with Hollywood. It was early July 1980 and I was the Anaconda Bureau reporter for the Montana Standard in Butte. I had heard there was a movie being filmed at the old prison in Deer Lodge, barely 25 miles from Anaconda, so I made arrangements to drive over and visit the set. (more…) Continue Reading →
I wrote last year about how people from all over the country were licensing their pricey RVs in Montana, to avoid paying the sales tax in their home states. Well, a writer for Autotrader.com says the owners of high-priced exotic cars are doing the same thing. Here’s how Doug DeMuro starts the article: (more…) Continue Reading →
Over the past four years, Barrett Kaiser has spent a lot of time at the airport in Bangor, Maine. It was some consolation that it reminded him of the airport in Billings. When you travel a lot, he said, it’s nice to be in an airport where the crowds are smaller, the people are friendlier and fly rods are everywhere. The next time he visits Maine, though, it will be purely for pleasure. His work there is done. Continue Reading →
A civil rights panel conducted a hearing in Billings for nearly eight hours Monday on the subject of discrimination against Native Americans, and it heard nothing more vivid than the testimony of Sarah Beaumont. For 20 minutes, punctuated by fits of sobbing, Beaumont told of working for a major company in a good union job in Billings, and of having to endure, on an almost daily basis, hateful, hurtful remarks about Native Americans. (more…) Continue Reading →
