{"id":9673,"date":"2016-01-01T05:00:16","date_gmt":"2016-01-01T12:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=9673"},"modified":"2016-01-01T05:01:36","modified_gmt":"2016-01-01T12:01:36","slug":"a-look-back-at-the-best-of-last-best-news-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2016\/01\/a-look-back-at-the-best-of-last-best-news-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"A look back at the best of Last Best News, 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Relay\"<\/a>

John Warner<\/p>

The most thrilling story of the year\u2014the most thrilling to cover, that is\u2014had to be the All Nations Indian Relay Championships in September.<\/p><\/div>\n

In honor of the new year, let me offer up what I consider the best of the Last Best News stories of 2015.<\/p>\n

Early in the new year, in a Prairie Lights column, I wrote about a deeply religious overseas terrorist organization<\/a>. The conclusions I drew from that slice of history would resonate throughout the coming year.<\/p>\n

Not long after that, I wrote about some notable taverns of yore<\/a>, which turned out to be quite popular. Who knew that Last Best News readers were such fans of drinking establishments?<\/p>\n

Early in February, I had the distinct pleasure of introducing readers to the Kosel brothers<\/a>, three young men from Luther who seemed to be channeling the best of the cowboy singers from decades ago.<\/p>\n

The most widely read story of the year was also the saddest, about the death of a young rancher<\/a> near Jordan, who left behind seven daughters.\u00a0And then came news that the fundraising drive for his wife and children was wonderfully successful<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a strange foray into the world of tabloid journalism, I reported on the owner of a sled-dog business in Bozeman <\/a>who made waves for refusing to cater to the outrageous whims of the infamous Kardashian clan. Oh, how Montanans love to hate the Kardashians.<\/p>\n

On the first day of spring, I visited the Ross Creek Cedars and Kootenai Falls<\/a>\u00a0in northwestern Montana. It was far from my usual Eastern Montana haunts, but a spectacular way to usher in the season.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>Not too long after that, I sat down with Scott Crichton<\/a>, just then stepping down after leading the Montana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union for nearly three decades. I tried my best to cover the highlights of his exceedingly eventful life, but he deserves a full-fledged biography.<\/p>\n

On April 13, I ran my introductory essay<\/a> for the At Your Service series, which would continue to run every Monday until Oct. 5, when I published this closing essay<\/a>. The series chronicled my visits to different houses of worship in the Billings area.<\/p>\n

I had a blast finally paying a visit to see the pictographs and so much more at Bear Gulch<\/a> near Grass Range. I ran a lot of photos, but take my word for it: you need to get there and see everything for yourself.<\/p>\n

In May, I had the honor of running Alexis Bonogofsky’s evocative photo essay on a Miles City wagon train<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Shortly thereafter, I published a story about\u00a0Heartland Assisted Living<\/a>\u00a0near Joliet, which offers senior citizens comfortable housing in a farm-like setting. The strange thing about this story was that it did moderately well when I published it, but then in November, when persons unknown suddenly starting sharing it on Facebook again, I had thousands of readers from all over the country flooding the site. Readership peaked on Nov. 8, when nearly 21,000 readers stopped by Last Best News.<\/p>\n

Early in June, Adrian Jawort wrote a tender but tough-minded piece on the death of Hanna Harris<\/a>, and the problems associated with law enforcement on Indian reservations.<\/p>\n

Later that month I wrote about the sale of a beautiful Spanish Revival house<\/a>\u00a0in central Billings. Reader response was huge, making me think that maybe I should have gone into real estate.<\/p>\n

In July, I really enjoyed Danielle McCracken’s profile of bug photographer\u00a0Marian Lyman Kirst<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I also enjoyed, with an admixture of sadness, writing about the passing of Jane Estelle<\/a>, a therapist who touched countless lives.<\/p>\n

\"Bear\"<\/a>

Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p>

At Bear Gulch, a staggering collection of rock art.<\/p><\/div>\n

Then there was my\u00a0column on Donald Trump<\/a>, back when it seemed impossible that his campaign would continue in the face of his beyond-the-pale antics and deliberately outrageous comments.<\/p>\n

David Crisp, in one of his editor’s notebook columns, went into left field and then crashed through the outfield wall in his damn-the-daily-news rumination on the art of Dostoevsky<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Writing about Joliet sculptor and ironworker Charlie Ringer<\/a>\u00a0gave me another chance to collaborate with ace photographer John Warner. I loved writing about Ringer, and I loved being able to use so many of John’s photos.<\/p>\n

Freelancer Brian D’Ambrosio brought us the fascinating and well-read story of the “Bleu Horses<\/a>” on a hillside near Three Forks.<\/p>\n

Madeleine Cummings wrote and we published several pieces she produced\u00a0as part of the Teacher Project, an education reporting initiative at Columbia Journalism School. Her stories included this one<\/a>, about the difficulties reservation schools have with recruiting Native American teachers. We’ll be seeing more of her work in the future, I’m quite sure.<\/p>\n

In the realm of diverting ephemera, there was this story about Americans’ swearing habits<\/a>, as revealed by Twitter patterns. Goddamn, that was just plain fun.<\/p>\n

As an old part-time freight rider myself, I really liked Doug Oltrogge’s exploration<\/a> of what made people want to ride the rails.<\/p>\n

And then came the All Nations Indian Relay Championships<\/a>, one of the wildest spectacles I’d ever witnessed, and yet another chance to work with \u00a0John Warner.<\/p>\n

Then there was my own photo essay about my drive from Red Lodge to Billings<\/a>, by a deliberately roundabout route.<\/p>\n

Jodie Tenicin Smith contributed a\u00a0curiously moving story<\/a>\u00a0(and wonderful photos), about the disappearance of a patch of the wild on Billings’ West End.<\/p>\n

Early in October, I ran four or five remembrances of Roger Clawson, the great newspaper columnist and world-class character who died on Oct. 4. My favorite was David Crisp’s fine eulogy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In addition to houses, people apparently love food, as evidenced by the reader reaction to the story I wrote about Dirty Oscar’s Annex<\/a>, a new restaurant on the road to Roundup.<\/p>\n

What a joy to be able to publish\u00a0Roger Kettle’s essay<\/a> on the sometimes subtle, sometimes glaring differences between the English spoken in Montana and the English spoken in his native Scotland. It was accompanied by a fine illustration by his cartoonist friend, Steve Bright. We hope they grace us with more of their work in the future.<\/p>\n

Kevin Giles, a longtime journalist, biographer and novelist, wrote a love letter to Montana<\/a>, his native state. It touched a chord with a lot of readers.<\/p>\n

My story about the couple whose house was taken<\/a> from them by their bank\u2014even though they had paid cash for it two years earlier\u2014was predictably popular, what with its storybook villain and a happy ending.<\/p>\n

Early in November, Mr. Bitters and Olive unveiled the first<\/a>\u00a0in their continuing Bar Tab series of tavern reviews.<\/p>\n

On the first day of December I ran a story that I wish I could have postponed indefinitely, about the death of a good friend and his favorite place in the world, Cottonwood Canyon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And then, most recently, a story on a partnership<\/a> between two of the most popular purveyors of fine food in Billings.<\/p>\n

All that is left to add is a big thank you to the readers of Last Best News. Here’s looking forward to an even better new year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In honor of the new year, let me offer up what I consider the best of the Last Best News stories of 2015. Early in the new year, in a Prairie Lights column, I wrote about a deeply religious overseas terrorist organization. The conclusions I drew from that slice of history would resonate throughout the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[3595,1708,114,3165,3596,125,136,69],"class_list":["post-9673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diversions","tag-alexis-bonogofky","tag-brian-dambrosio","tag-david-crisp","tag-doug-oltrogge","tag-jody-tenicin-smith","tag-john-warner","tag-last-best-news","tag-roger-clawson","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}