Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/author/edkemmick/page/92/)
TROY—On the first day of spring, and just four days after St. Patrick’s Day, I found myself in what had to be the greenest spot in all of Montana. I was at the Ross Creek Cedars, a 100-acre grove of western red cedars that reach for the sky a little south of Troy off Highway 56. Some of these monster trees are said to be nearly 1,000 years old and to rise to a height of 200 feet. (more…) Continue Reading →
Two Billings natives who already had successful careers when they decided to take up mystery writing will be making a joint appearance in their hometown this weekend. Leslie Budewitz and Tracy Weber will be signing books and interviewing each other at 2 p.m. Saturday at Barnes and Noble, 530 S. 24th St. W. (more…) Continue Reading →
I am proud to call myself a resident of Montana this morning. Why? Because I stumbled across a map of the United States that shows how Google automatically completed the phrase, “How much does (blank) cost in (name of state)?” Google’s autocomplete, you understand, is generated based on the most popular word or phrase used to complete that search in every state. I found this on Vice, which had its own opinions on which states had the saddest and the least-sad price-related searches. Continue Reading →
If you see a lot of people in Billings rubbing sore necks on Tuesday, it might have something to do with the “Save Our Murals” open house at Billings Senior High School Monday night. Hundreds of people turned out to gawk up at murals painted by generations of Senior High students, to donate money toward their restoration and preservation and to put in orders for a book on the murals, planned for publication next fall. (more…) Continue Reading →
There is some hope coming out of Helena. On Friday, a state House committee killed a bill that would have provided continuing cover for some of the worst banking fraud in American history. (more…) Continue Reading →
Tami Haaland was 16 when she saw a Calgary Opera Company production of “La Traviata” in Chester, courtesy of the Chester Arts Council. It made a big impression on her, and it helps explain why she has spent so much of her adult life bringing the arts into the lives of others. (more…) Continue Reading →
A festival of 10 one-act plays was put together by the Sacrifice Cliff Theatre Company as the result of what amounted to a challenge. “This year,” said company co-founder Patrick Wilson, “I’d been hearing a lot of people asking, ‘are there even any writers left in Billings who want to get their plays on stage?’” (more…) Continue Reading →
If you want to get some sense of what Billings was like in the old days, you can’t do much better than walk through the North Side, that triangle of land bordered by the BBWA Canal, North 27th Street and Sixth Avenue North. Officially, the North Park Neighborhood as designated by the city of Billings extends south all the way to Montana Avenue. But for me, the neighborhood’s cohesiveness can’t survive the jump across Sixth Avenue, a busy four-lane, one-way street that marks the southern boundary as obviously as the canal does to the north. (more…) Continue Reading →
A select group of friends and financial supporters got a sneak preview of the Art House Cinema & Pub in downtown Billings Friday night. Treated to beer, wine and snacks, 35 or 40 people settled into theater seats and watched a selection of Academy Award-nominated animated shorts, then heard an update and a profusion of thanks from Matt Blakeslee, CEO of the nonprofit venture. (more…) Continue Reading →
A spokesperson for Glamour magazine has responded to a claim made by Sheri Boelter in a story about the Tumbleweed Runaway Program that we published Wednesday. Boelter, the director of the nonprofit agency, was featured by Glamour last November as one of “50 Phenomenal Women of the Year,” and she told Last Best News, in a tape-recorded interview, that she did not provide Glamour with the information used in her profile. “If you ask Glamour magazine where they got their information, they Googled it,” she said. Mistrella Murphy, a spokesperson for Glamour in New York, wrote to Last Best News on Friday and asked us to publish this statement:
“The information in question was provided by Boelter to our writer, and the magazine has an email transcript of the exchange.” In its profile of Boelter, Glamour printed an anecdotal account of a frigid evening in February 2014 when the drop-in center at Tumbleweed was supposedly crowded with homeless teens. Continue Reading →
