Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/page/249/)
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.
Serendipity sometimes compensates the prepared.
In the case of Andrew “AJ” Marble, the manager of Billings Nursery & Landscaping, his quick-thinking preparedness was rewarded with a small part assisting in the production of the Oscar-nominated “Nebraska.” Continue Reading →
If you live in Billings and think the recent run of heavy snowfall was bad, you should have been here in 1955.
We’ve seen use of the terms “snowpocalypse” and “snowtravaganza” to describe the recent storms, but these hardly begin to compare with the storms of early April 1955. Continue Reading →
I’ve known Max Lenington for more than 15 years. I didn’t know him well, since I never did much reporting on Yellowstone County, for which he is treasurer, assessor and county superintendent of schools. But I knew him well enough to believe I had some sense of the kind of person he was. Continue Reading →
Around the Next Bend: A Fly Angler’s Journey, by Jerry Kustich. HeadWater Books, 2013. 199 pages, $24.95.
If this book were only about fishing, I can’t imagine I would have finished it. Continue Reading →
Before Michael Hitchcock ended up in Billings last fall, he had a wide, varied career in the business world.
The Wisconsin native said he managed several fast-food restaurants in the Midwest, ran a machine shop, went into mechanical design, worked in China as a project manager for an import company, ran his own import-export business and even wrote a book about using business strategies to achieve personal happiness. Continue Reading →
For an aging agnostic, the title of the lecture was irresistible: “Prodigal Press: Confronting the Anti-Christian Bias of the American News Media.”
After all, I have worked with and around professional journalists for most of my adult life. Moreover, for the first third of my life I attended church three times a week. I taught Sunday school. I preached on alternate Sundays for a couple of years. Continue Reading →
Don’t look for any fireworks — or a big implosion — during the demolition of the old Parmly Billings Library
The three-story building, constructed as a heavy-duty warehouse, will come down in stages, chipped away by a crew of four people. If all goes well, they will be done by mid-May and a 102-space parking lot will be open by mid-June. Continue Reading →
Neil LaRubbio is a journalist and filmmaker currently working the oil fields of Colorado. He has written for High Country News and Vice.com. This is his inside look at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival.
I arrived at the little house after a 12-hour drive, sustained by canned-salmon sandwiches and loose tobacco. Brushed by years of soot, the little house sits 20 feet away from the Missoula rail yard. Continue Reading →
At the Montana Agri-Trade Exposition, size does matter.
Between the MATE show (which is redundant but which is what everybody calls it) and the Home and Health Expo, spread out over two large buildings at MetraPark, there were supposedly more than 500 booths. Continue Reading →
