Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/author/edkemmick/page/85/)
Four months after 21-month-old Zachary Wyles was run over and killed in a parking lot in Billings, his family thinks justice is a long way from being served. The toddler’s parents, Zachary Sr. and Aleada Wyles, recently filed a civil lawsuit against Jamie Van Atta, the woman who was driving the truck that ran over the boy, and the owners and managers of the Rose Park Plaza Apartments on the 2300 block of Avenue C, where the incident occurred. (more…) Continue Reading →
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has withdrawn its proposal to build a new meetinghouse near its temple on the West End of Billings. In a letter from the church delivered to the city-county Planning Department on Monday, a spokesman said the church was honoring verbal statements it made nearly 20 years ago, promising to build “no additional religious facilities” in the Rim Point Subdivision. (more…) Continue Reading →
Eagle Ministries Inc., 304 S. 32nd St. Service, 6 p.m., Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Length of service: 1 hour, 20 minutes. Length of sermon: 46 minutes
I decided I needed a change of pace—something other than a Sunday morning and something other than a large West End church. (more…) Continue Reading →
Maybe Billings School District 2 should adopt the naming system used in some cities and simply assign numbers to new schools. The soon-to-be-named building on the West End would thus be known as Public Middle School No. 6. God forbid it should be named after anyone whose life might serve as a shining example to generations of young students. (more…) Continue Reading →
Just a week ago today I ran a story about the prep work being done for an “art alley” between the 3200 blocks of First and Second avenues north. (more…) Continue Reading →
I suppose everyone’s heard by now that a Billings woman, Jolene Burdge, has come forward to say that her late brother, Steve Reinboldt, was sexually abused by former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert. I was asked by the Washington Post to speak with Burdge this morning, so I went to her house on Avenue D about 10 a.m. A man who identified himself as Burdge’s husband said she was not granting any more interviews. He said she told ABC News everything she knew as completely and honestly as she could, and that if she talked to other media her story might be “misconstrued.” He also said they have been flooded with interview requests from all over the country, starting this morning at 7. He said of his wife that “God is with her.” Continue Reading →
When I think of all the many concerts I’ve been to in my life, one memory usually bobs to the surface. It involved Earl “Fatha” Hines, playing the University Center ballroom at the University of Montana, sometime in the mid- to late-1970s. (more…) Continue Reading →
The Columbia Journalism Review, the premier publication covering American media, posted a story today about what lies ahead, now that Lee Enterprises has closed its Capitol bureau. I spoke twice with the reporter, Corey Hutchins, who told me, as he says in the article: “In discussions about statewide alternatives, the name I heard most often was another former Lee reporter: Ed Kemmick. After a quarter century as a reporter and editor for the Billings Gazette, Kemmick started a website, Last Best News, in early 2014.” This shouldn’t come as a surprise. As I used to like telling people when I worked at the Gazette: “I’m the Sunday columnist for the biggest paper in the fourth-largest state in the most powerful country in the world.” Continue Reading →
I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but since Lee Enterprises actually shot the animal, I don’t feel it’s necessary to apologize for being unwilling to let go of this subject. (more…) Continue Reading →
Marilyn Cole is trying to get to Japan to pay tribute to a forgotten French composer. Cole is a 2002 graduate of Billings Senior High School who is now a professional musician in New York City. She belongs to a reed trio that has been invited to the International Double Reed (referring to oboes and bassoons) Society Conference in Tokyo this August. (more…) Continue Reading →
