Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/tag/helena/)
After a year of deepening political division on race and immigration, the defeat of a white, four-term incumbent by a black former refugee in Helena, Montana’s capital city, continues to draw national and international attention. In November, Wilmot Collins defeated Jim Smith by 338 votes, becoming the state’s first African-American mayor. (more…) Continue Reading →
Women’s marches are being organized across the state and around the world this Saturday, a year after huge crowds turned out last January on the day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration. State Sen. Jen Gross, D-Billings, a co-coordinator of the Montana Women’s March Billings, said last year’s Women’s March on Montana, which drew an estimated 10,000 people to Helena, was powerfully exciting. (more…) Continue Reading →
This is supposed to be the time of year we count our blessings and remind ourselves of all the good things that have happened in the past year and over the course of our lives. But that apparently isn’t the way my brain works. I usually think, instead, of all the things that have gone wrong on Christmases past, all the illnesses and snowstorms and white-knuckle travel associated with this particular holiday. (more…) Continue Reading →
Searching for a voice of reason in a country up to its chin in unreasonable passion, I called Ken Robison, a historian who lives in Great Falls. His words were the tonic I needed. Ken is a native of Montana who grew up near Geraldine and who, since retiring from a career in Naval Intelligence in 2001, has been doggedly doing research into forgotten corners of Montana history, resulting in a stream of books and numerous articles in the Great Falls Tribune and the River Press in Fort Benton. (more…) Continue Reading →
As members of the American Indian Caucus of the Montana Legislature, we extend our condolences to the family of Heather Heyer, who lost her life protesting hate and bigotry in Charlottesville, Va. Our hearts also go out to the families of Lt. H. Jay Cullen and Trooper Berke M.M. Bates of the Virginia State Police, who lost their lives while monitoring the rally. Our thoughts and prayers are with Charlottesville and those across this great country who have been hurt physically and emotionally by the despicable actions exhibited by white nationalists. (more…) Continue Reading →
[View the story “Thousands demonstrate at Montana Women’s March” on Storify] 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 →
At the Montana Preservation Road Show in Red Lodge on Thursday, somebody asked Carroll Van West what he thought about the controversy over the Confederate memorial in Helena. What an off-the-wall question, I thought. But it turned out that West was the perfect person to answer it. He not only is a noted historian, author, college professor and preservationist, he served on the Tennessee Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission. He replied that had he been asked to testify about the Helena memorial, he would have said the same thing he said in Tennessee: “It’s important to keep these layers of history within the landscape.” Memorials like the one in Helena show where we were in the past and where we could end up again, he said. 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 →
Tom Keith has never lived in Montana, but he has written a fine novella about the adventures of a man seeking a new life in Montana Territory in 1882. The self-published book, “When Everything Changed,” is very loosely based on the life of Keith’s great-grandfather, Mell Keith—named Daniel McHarg in the book—who arrived in Fort Benton aboard the steamboat Red Cloud in 1881. (more…) Continue Reading →
