We've Got The County Covered
We've Got The County Covered
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Three new staffers are now on board at the Chinook Senior Center. Candice Dunbar, Head Cook, joined the Center on May 28. The new Center Director, Ginger Hansen, and new Assistant Cook Karla Kennedy-Zarn, joined the staff on June 19. These paid staffers are supported by a number of volunteers who help in the kitchen and in other capacities at the Center. An all-volunteer board of directors sets policies and administratively supports the Center. Peggy Perry, who has served the last two years as...
Cheryl Upshaw Barber succumbed to cancer in late 2021. Cheryl was a long time active member of the Chinook Presbyterian Church and known for her regular calls to folks wishing them to "Have a nice day." Cheryl's family asked if some of the memorials given to the church in her honor could be used to plant pink flowers at the church in her honor. It was common knowledge that pink was Cheryl's favorite color. About a year later in September, 2022 Betty Lou Barber Stender, Cheryl's mother-in-law, di...
The Montana Meth Project has launched its 2023 Paint the State art campaign. The statewide event seeks to educate Montanans about the dangers of using meth. Statistics show that often the first use of meth leads to addiction. The campaign encourages children above age 13 and adults, 19 and over, to create monument-sized works of art that show "what a drug free life might look like in Montana." The Meth Project was is supported through a not-for-profit organization created by Thomas Siebel, a...
Alert "Journal" readers will recall my wife Sherry and I have been involved in dog sitting a Standard Poodle in Woodinville, Washington for the last couple of Novembers. This year we got a call from the folks who own Fiona (the poodle) that they would like for us to come dog sit in mid-May so they could go to a son's college graduation in Boston. "And," they added, "since we will be halfway to Europe when we get to Boston we decided to go on to Portugal for another week." That meant two weeks...
The members of the Chinook Volunteer Fire Department invite the community to join them as they honor Kraig Hansen and Preston Gilmore, two longtime local firefighters who recently retired. The event will be held 1pm-3pm on Saturday, June 10, at the Chinook Fire Hall at the south edge of the city. Kraig Hansen, who served as Chief of the Chinook department for 20 years, retired January 31 of this year. Before joining the Chinook department he was Chief of the Harlem Volunteer Fire Department for...
Alert readers of a certain age (60 or over) likely know someone who has suffered a fall or experienced a fall themselves. Statistics show that more than one in four Americans aged 65+ fall each year. And in Montana, the rate of seniors that fall is higher than the national average. Falls are the leading cause of fatal and nonfatal injuries among older adults. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) falls by seniors result in more than three million injuries...
I was a bit shocked when our married daughter said, "You'll have to print or type letters and cards to the grandkids because they can't read cursive writing. Better yet, send them texts." I checked around with other grandparents and they verified what I had just learned...many Generation Y folks (also known as millennials, born 1981-1996) and certainly Generation Z kids (born 1997-2010) cannot read or write cursive writing. Don't the schools still have all those posters along the tops of...
The Chinook Senior Center is offering two free presentations related to local and regional historical events. The presentations were first hosted by the Blaine County Museum in the winter. Senior center board members felt the topics would be of interest to the Center's clients as well. It was observed that many seniors, leery of the icy winter conditions and bad travel conditions, likely opted not to attend the winter programs. According to Peggy Perry, chair of the Center's board of directors,...
Chinook Lions Club members handed out about 30 American flags to first graders on Presidents Day last Monday, February 20. It's a ceremony that dates back at least 40 years per senior Chinook Lions Club members. For some families it's a third generation receiving the desktop stick flags. Flags are given to Meadowlark students as well as first graders in surrounding rural schools. Before the handing out ceremony and the end of program class photo, a Lions Club member presents a short program...
Theresa Danley, of the Chinook Presbyterian Church, is now a Commissioned Lay Pastor (CLP). CLPs preach, lead worship services and perform other functions of ordained ministers. For Theresa it was the culmination of seven-plus years of course work, study, teaching, preaching and preparation. She did academic classes through the Dubuque Seminary (Presbyterian) in Iowa. Much of her academic coursework to be a lay pastor was done online with occasional visits to the Iowa campus. The commissioning...
Alert readers may recall my story about the Ancient Order of the Deep that ran last August in the "Journal." The Ancient Order... was a Chinook-based group of men who gathered a few times each year to enjoy a Norwegian dinner and the main course was always lutefisk-dried and salted cod reconstituted and cooked for eating. Lutefisk is a traditional holiday dish prepared and consumed in many Nordic countries. The Ancient Order was the brainchild of Blondie Austad, a famed local connoisseur of eati...
An estimated 60 guests enjoyed "Love Chocolate...Love Your Library" last week at the Harlem Public Library. The event, first suggested several years ago by former Lutheran pastor Ellen Ayers, was a celebration of chocolate in the library. Ayers told the library staff about "chocolate in the stacks" that she saw staged in another town where she once lived. She described the event as an interesting way to celebrate reading and chocolate. That suggestion was made almost six years ago. Library...
Kraig Hansen retired as Fire Chief for the City of Chinook and Blaine County Fire Department on January 31, 2023. Hansen served for 20 years as Chief of the Chinook department and was Chief in Harlem for 13 years before joining the Chinook organization. His retirement capped a 47 year career as a volunteer firefighter. He will continue as Fire Warden for Blaine County. Early in October, 2022, Preston Gilmore retired after 20 years with the department. For "about the last four years" Gilmore was...
Looking back at records ofstories I've written for the "Journal" I found my only story about Groundhog Day was written in 2019 when Sherry and I were living in Whitlash while she served the Presbyterian Church there. I learned about the hairy marmot that lives in the Sweet Grass Hills but folks up there pooh-poohed the idea of a marmot predicting how much longer winter might last. Closest I could get to finding furry weather forecaster back on the prairie was Marmaduke Marmot, a mythical creatio...
1. In Europe the hedgehog was used as the ‘predictor’ of weather. What American immigrants first substituted the ground hog for the hedgehog? ________________ 2. There are Ground Hog Day celebrations in many states of the U.S. Why has Ground Hog Day never really caught on in the western United States, including Montana?_________________ 3. Punxsutawney Phil (in Pennsylvania) is one of the most famous weather prognosticators. How often over the past decade has Phil been correct in his forecast? _____________________ 4. In many parts of Eur...
I noticed a Montana Fish Wildlife & Parks (FWP) pickup parked for several days in front of the Grande Villa where my wife and I live in Chinook. During the day the pickup was loaded with some sort of animal traps, some mornings a full load, other days most of the traps gone. Asking around I finally met up with Jules Nelson and Daniel Johnson, two FWP wildlife technicians gathering data for an ongoing census survey to determine the status of swift foxes in our area. Jules Nelson, from...
A man at the church we've been attending while dog/house sitting in Woodinville, Washington, was offering to take folks on his 50-foot boat to cruise in Seattle's annual Christmas Ship Festival. The festival involves lighted boats cruising on Lake Washington and the Puget Sound. The parade visits various lakeside communities and presents short musical programs for folks gathered on the shoreline. The month long festival has been operating for nearly 80 years. Despite having lived a couple of...
While currently doing our annual dog/house sitting in Woodinville, Washington my wife and I decided we wanted a Christmas tree. We stopped at a tree lot near the local Safeway to buy a suitable tree. We got 'Christmas tree sticker shock' big time, a tree the right size for our Airbnb apartment cost $70. A serious tree was in the $300 range. A guy in cold weather gear approached and asked how he could help. We told him we were visiting from Montana and were looking for a reasonably priced tree....
After a two year hiatus (yes, 'due to COVID') the Wine and Cheese Fundraiser to support Harlem Public Library is back. Inaugurated in 2013 the holiday fundraiser helps support some of the local library's programs and special needs purchases that would not otherwise be possible. Since the Friends first holiday event a number of major items has been procured for the local library from a 'wish list' generated by library staff and patrons. This year's event is set for Wednesday, December 7, 6-8pm,...
It's that time of the year, my wife and I are back in Woodinville, WA (east suburb of Seattle) dog/house sitting while the owners spend some time in Florida. The couple owns an Airbnb we used several times coming to visit our daughter and her family just a few minutes away. For the second year we are 'guests' with a purpose. Alert readers may recall the series of calamities that beset us last year-a serious financial scam involving Apple gift cards supposedly for a friends' dying cousin, two...
Several months ago Shirley Gardipee, a former Chinookian now living in Shelby, told me about the LaTray family that once lived on the north side of Chinook. William and Jenny (Gardipee) LaTray had 18 children, nine were boys. Eight sons served in the U.S. military, four during World War II and all eight safely returned home. The following story of the LaTray son's military service is a reminder of the service of all our veterans during this runup to Veterans Day, 2022. But first, a short...
Alert readers may recall two of my recent stories (visits to Anaconda/Butte and Basin) were about what we saw on a "surprise tour of Montana" for my wife's birthday. The following story is about the first stop on that trip, a two day visit to Philipsburg which is located between Missoula and Butte, south of the Flint Creek Mountain range. I'd only heard of Philipsburg in connection with TV ads for the town's famous candy store, the Sweet Palace. Our travel agent, Keri Hanson, said "I think you...
A one-afternoon craft workshop was held last week at the Chinook Senior Center. The class focused on how to create holiday decorations using pine cones as the basic decorative material. Six locals attended the program presented by Sherry Edwards. Asked why this class and why now, Sherry said, "I was thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up. I know people enjoy special decorations for the holidays and many like to make the decorations themselves." She added, "We live at the Grande...
I recently wrote about my wife and I visiting the Merry Widow Health Mine in Basin, Montana. Before that stop we stayed three days in the Anaconda/Butte area and had the opportunity to learn about that part of the state where the Copper Kings reigned back in the day. I decided to write about my impressions of the area and its mining history. I came from a coal mining family and was curious to see how hard rock mining in Montana compared to underground and surface mining in the Midwest where I...
On a recent outing to southwest Montana my wife and I made an overnight stop in Basin in order to visit the Merry Widow Health Mine. Sherry, my wife, has wanted to visit Basin for some time as she knows a Korean minister named Rev. Okee Kim who started a "house Presbyterian church" in the old mining town. His purpose was to minister to visitors, especially Asians, to the nearby health mine. Basin is an old mining town along I-15 that has about 100 residents. The other health mines are the Earth...
