Last Best News (https://montana-mint.com/lastbestnews/tag/yellowstone-river-parks-association/)
In the early 1990s, when I was new to Billings, I spent a lot of time at Riverfront Park. I mostly went down there to bomb around on my six-speed bicycle, which wasn’t quite a mountain bike but was tough enough for those soft trails. At the east end of the park, downstream, the last segment of the old Washington Street Bridge was still standing, and you could dive off the iron trestle into what was then a slow channel of the Yellowstone River. (more…) Continue Reading →
The Yellowstone River Parks Association is taking the lead on a plan to buy 15 acres of land for a fishing access and boat launch across the Yellowstone from Riverfront Park. “It’s going to be an amazing development,” said YRPA President Darryl Wilson. (more…) Continue Reading →
In marketing itself to the outside world, Carolyn Sevier said, Billings is “closely wedded to landscape—the Rims, the river, the mountains, the prairies.”
She hopes that the Montana Audubon Center, which she was named to lead effective Jan. 1, will become widely known as the premier entity for helping connect people in this region with their natural surroundings. (more…) Continue Reading →
Twenty years ago, in the spring of 1996, I drove for more than 20 miles along the Yellowstone River in the passenger seat of Norm Schoenthal’s battered pickup truck. Schoenthal was then the greenway coordinator for the Yellowstone River Parks Association. I was working for the Billings Gazette, having recently gone back to reporting after working as an editor for seven years. (more…) Continue Reading →
In September 1991, the Yellowstone River Parks Association began meeting every Wednesday above what was Gary Buchanan’s office in downtown Billings. Gary provided YRPA with weekly meeting space for the first 17 years, plus so much more. Early walk-in members included Norm Schoenthal, Don Wirth, Doug Habermann, Bruce Larsen, Gary Svee and Burt Williams. (more…) Continue Reading →
In the Billings area, there is nothing quite like the Four Dances Natural Area. Located high above the Yellowstone across the river from the site of old Coulson, the town that preceded Billings, the natural area affords spectacular views of the valley and of the city itself. (more…) Continue Reading →
The Yellowstone River Parks Association is the proud owner of a new piece of property—a 12-acre pond in the middle of an 17.6-acre parcel of land just behind the giant Scheels store on Shiloh Road. Darryl Wilson, president of the YRPA, said the land was given to the group in December by developer Joel Long. Now a partner in Shiloh Crossing LLC, Long was the founder of the JTL Group, which was bought out in 1999 by Knife River, a subsidiary of MDU Resources Group. (more…) Continue Reading →
At a meeting called to envision future use of a 74-acre riverfront site that until recently held a coal-fired power plant, participants were encouraged to use their imaginations. That they did, coming up with activities and attractions for the old J.E. Corette plant site that included sport fields, an amphitheater, disc golf, picnic areas, a museum, restaurants, a brewery, high-density housing and a zip line to the site from the towering Sacrifice Cliffs across the Yellowstone River. (more…) Continue Reading →
The former director of the Michigan Audubon Society has been hired as the new director of the Montana Audubon Center in Billings. Jonathan Lutz, who headed the Michigan society for the past seven years, took over at the Montana Audubon Center on Dec. 1. He succeeded Darcie Howard, the longtime director who resigned last summer with plans to return to her East Coast roots. (more…) Continue Reading →
For nearly four years, volunteers with the Yellowstone River Parks Association, individually or occasionally in small groups, have been working to prepare a regional park a few miles northeast of Billings. This past weekend, their labors got an enormous boost from more than 500 volunteers in a project organized by Harvest Church. (more…) Continue Reading →
