We've Got The County Covered
We've Got The County Covered
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Connie Zanto was recently appointed the new Director at the Harlem Senior Center. The Landusky native who spent most her adult life in Malta replaced Katie Noel. Noel has served as director at the center since June, 2011. Noel is leaving to marry and be a pastor's wife in Vegreville, Alberta. She will soon begin training to be the manager of a recycling center located in Vegreville. Connie Zanto began work as Director at the Harlem Senior Center on October 8 Zanto learned of the opening at the...
Alert locals may have noticed a new sign on the front of 516 Indiana-the north half of the brick building just south of Edwards Funeral Home. "hi-line escape" is the newest addition to the growing trend of escape rooms. According to Daniel Dahl, Vice President of the Chinook Area Chamber, the recently opened escape room is the only one of its kind along the Hi-line, with the other closest operating escape rooms being in Kalispell, Great Falls and Billings. An escape room is a live game, played...
Reporter's note: In mid-December my wife, Sherry, and I will be leaving Chinook to live in Whitlash, Montana for a year. She'll be the "pastor in residence" at the Whitlash Community Presbyterian Church and I'll, well, I'll be going with her. That means I'm ending my stint as a reporter for the "Blaine County Journal." It's been a great run for me the past five years at the newspaper and I thank readers for their support, story ideas and helpful comments about the stories I've written. Sherry...
A short history of the Diesel Diner/Trail Café/Betty's Diner/Sugar Shack Alert "Journal" readers may recall a February, 2015 story about Chinook's original Diesel Diner. The 'rail car diner' was a style of small eateries that blossomed in the northeast in the 1920's and finally made its way to the upper Midwest by mid-century. Rail car diners allowed an aspiring business owner to start a business with minimal capital. The Diesel Diner started in Chinook in 1950, located on a lot adjacent to High...
Reporter's note: During the second week of September 43 travelers from along the H-line enjoyed a week's bus tour to the Black Hills in South Dakota. The travelers represented 27 different communities in Montana and one couple from Georgia. It was the second year for a motor coach trip organized by my wife, Sherry, and me and promoted through the senior centers along the Hi-line. This year we had three intergenerational pairs on the trip, that's a senior parent traveling with an adult child....
Reporter's note: A story about the recent first harvest of industrial hemp in Blaine County appeared in the September 26, 2018 issue of the "Journal." That story described the 200 acres of industrial hemp harvested in early September by Dick Nicholson, one of only 49 licensed producers in Montana this year. 2018 was the second year for the Montana program and as far as I knew Nicholson was the first to grow industrial hemp under the new provisions in Blaine County. While gathering information...
Betty and Mark Billmayer headed up their first Community Thanksgiving last year. The Billmayers are back to head the annual holiday dinner for a second year aided this year by Kathy O’Brien and Jay Eslick. Organizers are reaching out again this year for homemade pies—with fruit pies being the choice among most locals. This year’s dinner will be served at the Chinook Senior Center from 12 Noon to 1:30 pm. The exact year of when the community dinner was first offered has been lost over time. Most agree it was in the 1980’s, first held at the Pre...
Reporter's note: For a couple of years my wife and I lived in the Seattle area. Reading the local papers I was always curious about the ads for temporary help on fishing boats, on canning ships and in fish processing plants both locally and in far flung areas of the world. I'll have to say my interest in working on a fishing boat cooled a bit after seeing the movie "Perfect Storm" and watching the "Deadliest Catch" TV series. However, my curiosity about the fishing industry in Alaska still...
The 44th Montana Angus Tour is history. This year's tour, sponsored by the North Central Montana Angus Association (Hill, Blaine and Phillips County Angus breeders), drew 200+ registrants from 17 states and two Canadian provinces. Tour participants stopped at nine host sites and heard 21 beef breeders describe their operations. Guests viewed 1,500 cattle and calves along the way at sites north of Havre, south of Chinook, north of Turner and east of Malta. At some stops the guest list swelled to...
With regular ballots to be mailed on October 12 and general election voting set for the polls on Tuesday, November 6, the two contested offices in Blaine County (sheriff and open county commissioner seat) are heating up. In the sheriff's race between Deputy Lt. John Colby and Undersheriff Frank Billmayer, two barbeques and a pig roast have already added 'heat' to the contest. Colby held what supporters billed as a "BBQ and Family Night" back in late August (see "Journal" story of August 22). Bil...
Dick Nicholson recently harvested 200 acres of industrial hemp. The crop is a first for Blaine County under a provision of the national Agricultural Act of 2014, also known as the 2014 Farm Bill. That bill allowed states to devise a program to license the growing of industrial hemp. Montana's first planting under the process occurred in 2017. Nicholson said, "Last year there were 10 licensed hemp producers, this year there were 49." And he expects the number of industrial hemp growers in...
Reporter's note: In our efforts to do Montana-based road trips, in early June my wife and I attended a four-day "Roadshow" put together by the Montana Preservation Alliance (MPA). The MPA is a non-profit that works to preserve Montana's historic buildings and culturally significant places by helping locals find funding sources and know how. Readers may recall part of the statewide Big Sky Schoolhouse Survey was completed in Blaine County in 2015. That work was part of an MPA project to gather...
Patrons at the Blaine County Library in Chinook are being greeted by two new faces. Kelsey Buhmann Brown, who grew up in the Zurich area, and Kadie Dahl, a fairly recent newcomer to Chinook, have joined the library staff. Kelsey is the new Assistant Librarian and Kadie will serve as Library Clerk. Library Director Valerie Frank said, "I was pleased with the number of qualified applicants who applied when these two positions came open. I'm looking forward to working with Kelsey and Kadie. I...
The 44th annual Montana Angus Tour is set for our area during September 18-20. The annual event brings together as many as 400 Angus breeders and others connected to the breed to view Angus cattle, visit and tour ranch facilities and network with tour guests from all over the nation. Each of the three days of the tour includes stops at ranches and other facilities where Angus cattle will be showcased. Luncheons, dinners and the state Angus association's annual meeting will be held at stops...
Alert readers may recall two photos in the September 5 issue of the "Journal" of the mysterious foam at the outdoor fountain at the southeast corner of the Grande Villa's grounds. Regarding the origin of the foam, the question was: Is the foam at Charlie Russell's feet from natural causes or from prankster-induced soap? Locals were about evenly split on the cause, some recalling having seen similar suds after rains and others convinced it was the act of tricksters. I was asked to find the...
Two Montana Department of Natural Resources (DNRC) employees recently delivered a rebuilt 2008 Freightliner Type II Water Tender to the Blaine County Shop in Chinook. The fire fighting equipment is part of a joint program between the Montana DNRC and the U.S. Department of Defense's Fire Fighter Property Program. The new piece of equipment will be housed at the Chinook Fire Hall. Don Pyrah, Fire Program Manager for the NE Land Office (Lewistown) of the Montana DNRC, accompanied the new truck to...
Blaine I, the ambulance crew based in and serving the Chinook area, plans to offer a basic Emergency Medical Training (EMT) course starting in the fall. Those who complete the 180 hour in-class program will qualify to take the state licensure exam. Asked why the course was being offered, Dan Friede said, "Like any small community, there is a need for volunteers to serve on the ambulance crew. Looking ahead we know of at least four current crew members who will be retiring within the next year...
This year's Sugarbeet Festival, set for Friday and Saturday, September 7 and 8, will be the thirteenth edition of Chinook's celebration of the humble sugarbeet. The first festival was held in 2005. In the Festival's more than a decade-long history the event has gone through a few variations, but it still centers around the sugarbeet and the role of the sugary plant in the Milk River Valley. A brief history of the sugarbeet in Blaine County For readers not up to speed on the history of the...
The Chinook ambulance crew, in conjunction with the Sweet Medical Center, will be offering baseline heart testing during the health fair at the Sugarbeet Festival on Friday, September 7. Ambulance crew members will use 12-lead heart monitors from the Blaine I ambulances to perform the ECG tests. A completed baseline ECG report for each person tested will be sent to their primary medical provider and Northern Montana Hospital. Should a cardiac event occur in the future, the baseline reports can be used by medical personnel to assess the extent o...
A new tool to help customers connect with Chamber Area businesses is now available. Chamber President Sarah Pratt created Chinook Plus, a new phone app that replaces the former "coupon book" used to provide coupons and special offers to customers. Pratt said, "We found one of the problems with the coupon books was customers often did not have a coupon with them when they wanted to make a purchases. Long term the books were often misplaced or lost. Smartphone users typically have their phone...
Last week Joe Kennedy volunteered to tear down the old "wooden bridge" playground equipment at Sweet Park. Kennedy said, "The Park Board wanted it removed and I volunteered to take it down." Joe added, "I started about 2pm taking it apart and hope to be done by dark." Kennedy was not sure when the equipment was installed at the park. Long time Lions Club member Jack Mattingly said he recalled that the wooden bridge play set and the taller, 'curly' slide beside the bridge were both installed by...
CHS rising senior Brendan Edwards recently spent a week completing the residency component of the Western Aerospace Scholars program. The program, sponsored by NASA and the Seattle-based Museum of Flight, was founded in 2006. Students accepted to the program spend a year doing STEM-based (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math program) lessons via the internet and projects focused on space exploration and earth sciences, then complete the hands-on summer residency component. The aerospace...
Chinook's Cancer Support Group's August gathering featured a presentation on sleep by Sweet Medical Center's (SMC) newest Behavioral Health Provider, Christina Hoppe. Hoppe, a native of Havre and a 2007 graduate of Havre High, completed her PsyD (Doctor of Psychology) in 2016 from Pacific University near Portland, Oregon. She is a clinically trained psychologist currently doing a year-long residency as a prelude to licensure in Montana. After completing her academic work she did an internship...
Ten members and two pastors from three churches in Chinook learned some basic ways to deal with an active shooter situation. The short course was taught by Blaine County Undersheriff Frank Billmayer and Sheriff's Deputy Chris Adair. Billmayer and Adair have taught a similar program to several schools, local government agencies and businesses in the county. ALICE instructor training was first offered locally in the spring of 2017. Billmayer said, "We've done parts of the ALICE training about eigh...
Reporter's note: I've been writing about places my wife and I found interesting in our travels. We've made numerous trips to the Seattle area to visit our daughter and her family. Usually those trips are a mad dash to get there (800 miles and 14 hours straight driving), then a made dash to get back to Chinook. The last couple of trips we've spent some time exploring eastern Washington-that area of the Evergreen State that runs from east of the Cascade Range to the Idaho border. Unlike the west...
