Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/author/edkemmick/page/99/)
Rudi Marten was considering different ways of expressing his commitment to downtown Billings when he thought of the classic Christmas movie “Miracle on 34th Street.”
Reflecting on the movie was doubly inspirational. It led him to think in terms of “Miracle on Montana Avenue,” the downtown street where he and his parents decided to relocate their Columbus photography studio two years ago. (more…) Continue Reading →
Site work on what is proposed to be the biggest wind farm in Montana is expected to start Thursday about 10 miles southeast of Bridger. “That’s a huge project,” Carbon County Commissioner John Prinkki said. “It’s an exciting project.” (more…) Continue Reading →
One of the most important moments in Jerel Driver’s life came 3½ years ago, two days before he was to start serving a prison term for criminal endangerment. He was living in Glendive, where he committed most of his crimes. He said all his trouble involved the same two things: alcohol and violence. “I grew up fighting,” he said. “That’s the way it was. Continue Reading →
I wrote in August about an effort by Belfry-area landowners to create a special zoning district aimed at lessening the impacts of nearby oil and gas development. (more…) Continue Reading →
The High Plains Heritage Project, which we have written about before, has a new video up, a seven-minute trailer for the documentary film the project team is planning to release next year. Besides being very well done from an artistic standpoint, the documentary looks as though it will live up to the reporting team’s stated goal of presenting a balanced, nuanced look at the immense changes sweeping the Bakken oil regions of Eastern Montana and North Dakota. In this trailer, there is the good and the bad, the ugly and the beautiful, lots of history and lots of looking ahead, and close-up examinations of what’s happening to the people and the land right now. Elsewhere on the HPHP’s Vimeo page is a link to 10 other short videos that were created in the course of the team’s reporting forays. This is all extremely promising stuff. Continue Reading →
A friend with a long habit of hanging onto curious artifacts recently gave me the banner reproduced on top of this column, clipped from the Sept. 5, 1992, edition of the Billings Gazette. I happened to be playing tennis that morning, a Saturday, at Pioneer Park, when a Gazette truck pulled up alongside the newspaper rack just off the sidewalk. The driver jumped out and began removing the papers from the rack. (more…) Continue Reading →
As you can see, our top story this morning came to us via mtvigilante.org, which just went live yesterday—Dec. 12. This is good news for Montanans. The founding editor is Shane Castle, who published the Helena Vigilante, an alternative newspaper in the state capital, for three years before pulling the plug on the print edition this fall in order to work on getting mtvigilante.com up and running. (more…) Continue Reading →
All the playground equipment has been removed from South Park, and a similar removal will take place starting next week at Pioneer Park. This is not the work of the Grinch. The city’s Department of Parks, Recreation and Public Lands had already been planning to install new, much more attractive equipment at both parks next spring, using money from the Citywide Park District created by the City Council three years ago. (more…) Continue Reading →
Although the proprietor of Last Best News is generally immune to Christmas cheer, he couldn’t think of any reason not to offer this “Christmas Light Spectacular” map, created for Bridge Creek Dental and offered up free of charge. (more…) Continue Reading →
The Nevada Appeal is reporting that Lawrence VanDyke, who lost a very expensive campaign to unseat Montana Supreme Court Justice Mike Wheat last month, has a new job. He has been named solicitor general for Nevada by that state’s newly elected attorney general, Adam Laxalt. VanDyke held the same position in Texas before Montana Attorney General Tim Fox hired him as his solicitor general. VanDyke worked there for only a year and a half before quitting, and with that very slender experience as a Montana lawyer decided to challenge Wheat. VanDyke attracted a lot of outside money—and it is true that Wheat did as well, in response to what seemed like a blatant attempt by non-Montanans to buy a seat on our highest court—and still got clobbered in the election, which reflects well on the ability of Montana voters to pay attention. Everything VanDyke has done suggests he is exactly the opposite of how he billed himself in his campaign slogan, “Law, Not Politics.” Continue Reading →
