We've Got The County Covered
We've Got The County Covered
Sorted by date Results 551 - 575 of 939
Members of the North Central Montana Shrine Club are expecting to receive their usual shipment of three tons of Vidalia onions "sometime around the 20th of May." The annual sale of the delectable Georgia onion, according to Shrine officials, is their best fundraiser of the year. Onion sale proceeds provide money to help kids, and their families, with travel expenses to the Shriners' Hospital in Spokane. The North Central Montana club includes members from both Blaine and Hill Counties. The...
By Steve Edwards BCJ News Cherie Edwards welcomed guests to the Business After Hours event hosted by the Edwards Funeral Home. With new funeral director Daniel Dahl at her side, Edwards told about 40 guests at the event, "I'm really thrilled to have Daniel and his family joining the business. I believe he will continue the legacy that Marvin (Edwards) started in 1973 when we purchased the funeral home." Noting that Daniel was looking to work with a funeral home that wanted to remain family owned...
Colleen Mulonet, one of three co-chairs for the new 2017 North Central Montana Relay, recently described how Blaine and Hill Counties will combine their efforts for the upcoming June 23 event. The collaboration marks a new stage in how the American Cancer Society (ACS) will stage its main, annual fundraiser in this part of Montana. In future years the relay event will rotate its location between Havre and Chinook. Mulonet said, “After a coin toss, the site for the first year’s combined relay is Havre, next year it will be in Chinook.” In additi...
Last week, at its regular monthly meeting, the Blaine County Fair Board approved the erection of an indoor arena at the county fairgrounds in Chinook. The project would utilize a surplus 100' by 200' metal building obtained by the county from the surplus program at Malstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls. The building was never erected and is, for the most part, packed and bundled the way it was originally delivered by the manufacturer to the air base. Dennis Kleinjan, one of a group of volunteer...
Last week Chinook's Jumping Junipers, a local garden club that is part of the Montana Federation of Garden Clubs, hosted 40+ members of four other area garden clubs that make up District 7, the Hi-Line District. Each spring one of the five clubs hosts the spring meeting-a combination of conducting district business, learning opportunities from each other and invited gardening professionals, good food and visiting with old friends and making new ones. The event was held at Wallner Hall. The...
A larger than normal group of canvassers took advantage of a pleasant spring late afternoon to complete the 2017 canvass of Chinook. Volunteers, many representing groups that receive support under the Community Chest, were assigned specific blocks of houses and set out to knock on doors. The non-profit Community Chest was created in the late 1970's and one of the goals of the canvass is to make contact with every household in Chinook. According to Kasie McIntosh, one of the organizers of the...
Intergenerational events and activities, where people from multiple generations get together, are all the rage nowadays. As the population ages researchers and service providers are realizing the potential benefits when young and old people are linked through shared programs. Now there are intergenerational vacations, specialized adventures (like grandparents doing zip lines with grandkids) and websites devoted to providing intergenerational activities. Mary Pyette and Marilyn Williamson, both...
Jason DeShaw performed before two audiences of students in Blaine County. Last Wednesday, in the Chinook High gym, he sang and spoke to about 350 students gathered from Chinook, Harlem and Turner. The next day he did a similar performance at Hays-Lodge Pole High. His performance was a combination of country music, singing several songs he wrote himself, and conversation about his own challenges of mental illness and alcoholism. Jason DeShaw grew up in Plentywood, Montana and after college began...
By Steve Edwards BCJ News For several years the Sweet Memorial Nursing Home (SMNH) has held a spring luncheon to recognize and thank the many volunteers who help at the Chinook care home. The 50+ guests attending were representative of the folks who spend time helping make life a little more pleasant for the residents at the home. Jeanne Buffington, Activities Manager at SMNH, said the turnout of volunteers for this year's luncheon was one of the best she could recall. Buffington welcomed the...
JUMP is a Christian-based service organization for teens in the Chinook area. Since its inception, about a decade ago, the group meets regularly for Bible study and does various service projects in the community-from helping at the Food Pantry to canvassing for the annual Community Chest. It's also been a tradition, starting eight years ago, to do a summer mission trip. Janelle Downs, who is now an adult leader with the group, was in the first group of teens to make a mission trip with JUMP. She...
Edwards Funeral Home will be hosting the next Business After Hours set for Thursday, May 6. Business After Hours provides an opportunity for a business to showcase its services and products in a more relaxed atmosphere, after hours. Daniel Dahl, the new funeral director at the local mortuary, will be on hand to greet guests, provide tours of the funeral home and share information about funeral planning and the services offered by Edwards Funeral Home. The event will run from 6-8 pm and is open...
Tax Freedom Day is the day that Americans, collectively, will earn enough to pay their tax bill for the current year. Tax Freedom Day takes all federal, state and local taxes and divides them by the nation’s income. This year Americans will pay $3.5 trillion in federal taxes and $1.6 trillion in state and local taxes, for a total bill of $5.1 trillion (that’s 31 percent of the national income). For 2017 national Tax Freedom Day is April 23rd, but since each state (because of varying state and local tax rates) has a different tax burden, tax...
Bill Rossiter spent a day and two evenings in Blaine County sharing his program of songs and tales about the settling of the "Great American Desert." Rossiter used a series of songs, biographical sketches and collected tales to describe the travails of settlers who migrated west during a period from the late 1800's to about 1920. He presented his program titled "Home, Home on the Ranch: Farm and Ranch Life in Story and Song" before appreciative audiences at both the Blaine County Library in...
Organizers said there were 90+ guests who attended the recent Chinook Lions Club's annual Old-Timers' dinner. Sometime in the early 1980's club members invited a few local seniors to a club meeting and dinner to share memories about the area from the 'old days.' Soon the event became an honoring of all local seniors and, in addition to the dinner, guests are treated to entertainment. This year's entertainment was brought by Cory Pierson from the Havre area. Rather than a standup program,...
Kougar Lanier, a member of Boy Scout Troop 1438 in Havre, is completing his Eagle Scout project, and part of his project includes Blaine County. Kougar was in Chinook last weekend placing one of four receptacles that will be available to deposit American flags that need replacing. The Blaine County location is in the county courthouse, on the lower level, adjacent to the Sheriff's Office. He said, "It will be the only flag drop box that is accessible 24 hours a day. Kougar said a couple of...
This June 23 Blaine and Hill County cancer support volunteers will collaborate to stage the first ever combined North Central Montana Relay. Co-chair Colleen Mulonet said the event, the major fundraiser that supports cancer research, will alternate between the two counties. The 2017 event will be held at Havre High School, next year's relay will be in Blaine County. Mulonet said the next regular meeting for the upcoming June event will be Wednesday, April 12 at the Chinook Eagles. She said,...
The Chinook and Harlem Libraries, in conjunction with Montana Humanities, are hosting stories and songs by Bill Rossiter in his presentation titled “Home, Home on the Ranch: Farm and Ranch Life in Story and Song.” The program, through songs and stories, illustrates the less glamorous but more enduring side of life on the ranches and farms in Montana. Both programs are at the respective libraries: Chinook’s performance is Wednesday, April 26, at 7pm, and Harlem’s is Thursday, April 27, at 7 pm. There is no charge to attend the program. Rossite...
Reporter’s note: Each time I attend the Blaine County Fair I’m impressed with the gaggle of kids following around a lady who’s wearing wild face makeup and outlandish, bright colored clothing. She’s usually pulling a cart full of surprises or has a bunch of surprises laid out on a table to entertain kids. Whatever she’s doing, the younger set is drawn to her like a magnet. Folks familiar with the Blaine County Fair, particularly if they have little kids or grandkids, know this ‘Pied Piper of Montana kids’ as Pippi the Clown. Thinking abou...
NBC Producer Samantha Wender spent part of a week in early March visiting with Blaine County residents across the county. Last week a crew revisited Blaine County to do filming for a story about how citizens in a county equally split in the last presidential election "can coexist." In addition to Wender and a film crew, Correspondent Harry Smith interviewed citizens who had visited with Wender earlier in the month. The NBC team filmed in Blaine County for two days. Harry Smith, who first...
Reporter's note: Doing research about methods for clearing icy roadways, I came across several news stories about deicers that had ag-based ingredients. In fact, sugar beet juice based products were the most numerous and used by many state highway departments to deice roadways and to prevent icing. My wife and I lived several years in the Red River Valley, a large farming area that straddles the boundary of North Dakota and Minnesota. The valley is home to American Crystal Sugar, one of the...
If plans by the Chinook High Future Farmers chapter (FFA) work out, a community garden should be ready for this year's gardening season. CHS Vo-ag teacher Robin Allen said the garden spot, across Illinois street to the east of the high school, will have 26 raised beds, each 12 feet by 12 feet. There'll be a common shed for storing hand tools and water will be available. The FFA members plan to have plots available by May 1. A garden plot can be rented for $15 per season and garden season will ru...
Eric Owens began his duties as Blaine County Deputy County Attorney on March 6. Owens is a native of Anchorage, Alaska and a 2015 graduate of the Alexander Blewett III School of Law at the University of Montana. He learned about the deputy's vacancy from Jordan Sabo, who previously held the position and was a friend from law school. Sabo is now living in the Bozeman area. Owens came to Montana to attend law school. After graduating from the U of M he returned to Alaska to find legal work. He sai...
When Montana’s sole U.S. Representative, Ryan Zinke, was appointed and confirmed as the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, filling the vacated Congressional seat fell to the state political parties to select candidates and Montana’s 56 counties to fund the special federal election. The political parties have made their candidate selections, Governor Bullock has set the election for Thursday, May 25 and now the counties are preparing to hold the election. Back in mid-February a bill was introduced in the Montana Senate (SB 305) that would all...
A two-day instructor training to teach survival strategies for violent intruder or active shooter incidents was recently concluded in Chinook. The training opportunity, organized by the Blaine County Sheriff's Office, was presented by the ALICE Institute Training group. ALICE Institute has been conducting this type of training for more than 20 years. Blaine County Undersheriff Frank Billmayer said he thought the training was "great and very useful" and provided attendees with a lot of new...
Visitors to the Chinook Pharmacy might have seen the new 'dime store horse' at the front of the store. The mechanical horse is a fairly recent acquisition by Kelcey Diemert, who owns and operates the pharmacy with wife Nancy. Kelcey said, "I saw this horse for sale online. I'd always wanted one of those old timey horses and ended up buying it." Anyone of a certain age will recall the coin-operated kiddie rides that stood out front many businesses in the 1950's and 60's. Rides came in many...
