Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/category/prairie-lights/page/14/)
More bad news for Lee Enterprises, the Iowa-based newspaper chain that owns the Billings Gazette and papers in Missoula, Butte, Helena and Hamilton. Bettendorf.com is reporting that Lee has sold a newspaper building in Napa, Calif., for $5 million, which it planned to use to pay down part of its enormous debt. (more…) Continue Reading →
I was unable to attend an all-day Native American Race Relations and Healing Symposium at the Billings Public Library two weekends ago. And then I didn’t see Stephen Dow’s story on the symposium in the Billings Outpost until a week after the fact, by which time I thought it was too late to run his story on Last Best News. (more…) Continue Reading →
I never attended McKinley Elementary School, but I learned plenty there. I learned that a good school becomes not just the center of children’s lives, but of their parents’ lives, too. For the 13 years that our three girls attended McKinley, our lives revolved around that old school in so many ways. (more…) Continue Reading →
The first Aber Day Kegger I attended was in 1974, when the annual bash was still held at Bonner Flats, or maybe on Lower Miller Creek, just outside of Missoula. Anyway, it wasn’t yet on Upper Miller Creek, the venue of legend where it eventually ended up. What distinguished the concert grounds in 1974 was that a vast area in front of the stage was covered in about a foot of wood chips. (more…) Continue Reading →
Looking back at the summer of 2015, these are the things I’m most likely to remember. There was Sheila Kay Adams, a storyteller and musician from Sodom, N.C., giving a brief history of the past 400 years as told by her Scottish grandmother, whose people have been living in the same corner of North Carolina since 1731. (more…) Continue Reading →
When I lived in Anaconda, Red’s was a good dive bar. Strong drinks, cheap beer and a pool table in the middle of the main room. The jukebox had more than a few Merle Haggard songs. The bartenders may have been too kind, though. They’d give you a free shot of Jack Daniels with every other beer. Continue Reading →
Thank God for Donald Trump. Now that someone has finally had the guts to call John McCain a fraud, a schmuck and a loser, maybe we can bring other so-called heroes down a few notches. (more…) Continue Reading →
I don’t mean to boast, but my people go way back. One branch of the family, the one that takes the Bible literally, says we go back to Adam and Eve. Some of them even claim to have a sliver of the fig leaf once owned by Eve. I’m a little skeptical about that, but who knows? (more…) Continue Reading →
A former Billings City Council candidate who has inserted himself oafishly into this year’s council race has, purely by accident, exposed a general misunderstanding of how that legislative body conducts its business. Brian Kenat, a Tea Party Republican who unsuccessfully ran against Ward 3 Councilwoman Becky Bird in 2013, has been calling council candidates to sound them out on their beliefs—and to badger them if he didn’t like their views. (more…) Continue Reading →
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. That’s why I’m posting a job description today in place of the regular column. I’m really not in any position yet to take on an employee, but I was so impressed with the job descriptions posted by the Lee newspapers of Montana that I felt compelled to write my own. (more…) Continue Reading →
