Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/page/130/)
I was planning to ride off into the sunset today, but if I may appropriate an observation by Benjamin Franklin, it looks as though I might be heading in the direction of the rising sun.
In the week since I announced that Last Best News would cease publication today, I have heard so many expressions of interest in reviving it in some shape or form, with or without my continued involvement, that it appears likely that this independent online newspaper will live on.
An ongoing dispute has led to clashes between county commissioners and County Auditor Debby Hernandez, who says commissioners have stripped her office of funding needed to do her job properly.
The result, she said, is that large revenue accounts go unaudited, which could hurt taxpayers. Continue Reading →
Ryan Eakin’s presence permeates the family home near Baxendale a few miles west of Helena.
A large, framed pastel-and-charcoal portrait of a bison that he drew adorns a living room wall. Old traps, which Ryan painstakingly cleaned using vinegar, hang from the fireplace mantel. A photograph of him at 9 years old, posing with the mountain goat that he hunted with his father, is at the base of the stairway. In the corner rests a wooden walking stick Ryan carved—not to use, but to keep his hands busy. Continue Reading →
This is the 19th chapter of the 32-part video series “The Montana Ethic Project.” This chapter features Dorothy Eck, a delegate to the Montana Constitutional Convention in 1972 and later a state senator for 20 years, speaking on “The Right to Know and the Montana Constitution.” You can watch the whole video below. Here is how it begins:
When I heard Uber was coming to Montana, I couldn’t wait.
I was dying to be part of this new phenomenon, to be in the front ranks of a cutting-edge movement—even if it has been around elsewhere for years. Plus, I needed the dough. Continue Reading →
Walking up to his new house a few blocks from downtown Billings, Randy Hafer apologizes for the tall weeds in the dirt surrounding the home.
“The focus has not been on the outside of the house,” he says.
That’s understandable. On the inside, the house is so advanced that there is nothing like it in Montana, and not many like it in the whole country. Continue Reading →
We’ve all heard the stereotypes about Millennials. “Lazy.” “Entitled.” “Job Hoppers.” “Needy.” “Hard to Manage.” Just Google “millennials in the workforce” and you’ll find an endless list of not-so-glowing generalizations. But before we make sweeping statements about an entire generation that grew up in the digital age, I’d like to offer another view. Continue Reading →
In an age of acronyms there are a couple that really are lifesavers. CPR for one, or cardiopulmonary resuscitation. And AED for another, or automated external defibrillator. Together they save thousands of lives each year. They could save more if more people had them where they could be used and if more people knew when and how to use them. Continue Reading →
“Yellowstone Ranger,” a memoir by former park ranger Jerry Mernin, has all of the ingredients of a boring book. It’s a book by and about a man who was by no means a professional writer and who spent most of his career out of the public eye. It is long and episodic, and the humans it mentions are among the least interesting critters in the whole book.
But if Mernin set out to write a boring book, he failed miserably. Instead, he wrote a book that should appeal to just about everybody who loves bear stories and to anybody who has ever dreamed that being a park ranger must be the best job in the world. In short, the book should appeal to just about everybody on the planet. Continue Reading →
Homesteader Days may not be what it used to be, but the changes aren’t all bad.
Live concert performances by Blackhawk and Aaron Tippin kick off the annual celebration this weekend at Homesteader Park between Huntley and Worden.
Continue Reading →
