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OVANDO – Parents, relatives, visitors and a number of younger siblings dressed in holiday attire packed the Ovando School gym to see the student production of "The Rented Christmas" Dec. 20. The play's story revolves around rich, but lonely, bachelor John Dale (Aiden McNally) who decides he wants the kind of warm family Christmas his business partner has each year. So Dale goes to the rental store and orders a very specific Christmas, one that includes a decorated house and tree, a full Christma...
SEELEY LAKE – Retired Seeley-Swan High School music teacher Bob Green used the phrase “an awkward situation” to express the condition SSHS found itself in at the beginning of the school year. A small group of students wanted to enroll in choral singing. An even smaller group wanted to enroll in band, but the school had no instructor available to teach either one. The possibility of the traditional winter concert taking place was not even a consideration. Yet on Dec. 18, an audience filled the a...
SEELEY LAKE – Alysa Loesch sat relaxed on the gurney at the Seeley-Swan High School gym. Blood dripped from a tube in her arm to a collection bag below. Loesch was one of the estimated 15-25 students and community members who donated blood at the Dec. 4 Red Cross blood drive. Loesch is a junior at the high school, but this is already the second time she has given blood. Asked why she chooses to donate, she said, "Because I know I may be saving someone's life somewhere." In an email, Red Cross C...
In a continuation of the informal survey on what foods mean Christmas: Debbie Dillree said "Potato sausage has always been our big thing on Christmas Eve. My grandparents used to make it and after they passed away, my parents were able to buy it from a meat market in Missoula for many, many years but it shut down last year. So I'm trying to find another source so I can surprise my family this year." Christine Migneault said prime rib is the food she thinks of at Christmas. She said she grew up o...
“Deck the Halls” originated from the 16th century Welsh New Year’s Eve dancing song, “Nos Galan.” Cardiff University Professor in the School of Welsh, E. Wyn James, an authority on Welsh hymns and ballads, said “Nos Galan” belongs to a class of competition songs. According to James, neighbors would gather around a fire, have a few drinks and take turns composing four-line verses to a particular song. The competitor would sing a line of verse and then a harp or other instrument would play the refrain. In lieu of an instrument, the whole group wo...
SEELEY LAKE – An informal survey unsurprisingly discovered that while turkey may conjure up Thanksgiving to most folks, Christmas is evoked by a wide variety of foods. A contingent of people boasting Norwegian descent – including Kelli Wold, Laurel Deniger, Deb Brewer, and the Capp Johnson family – continue to serve the traditional lutefisk dinner. Capp added lefse, rice pudding and boiled potatoes to the meal. Daniel Woods said his favorite Christmas food is a nice roast beef with gravy. Eric Samuli and son Nathan said ham is the tradi...
SEELEY LAKE – The Seeley-Swan Mountain Bells rang in the holiday season with a concert at Double Arrow Lodge Dec. 6. The Lodge was packed as the 11 bell ringers, led by Director Joann Wallenburn, played traditional religious carols followed by a specially arranged medley of familiar and treasured Christmas tunes. The performance ended with an audience sing-along of six favorite tunes accompanied by the bells....
'Tis the season to go a-caroling. The custom of going door-to-door singing to one's neighbors harkens back at least as far as the Medieval Period, though no doubt a medieval person transported to our era would have trouble recognizing the tradition. Leaving aside the detail that few people in our modern era actually go singing door-to-door and much prefer to have carolers come to them via TV, radio, CD or iTunes, a medieval person would have called our caroling activity "wassailing." The origina...
SEELEY LAKE – Thanksgiving was once a full, laid-back day of families gathering to visit and feast at a giant potluck. Today, Thanksgiving has to share time with football games and pre-mature Black Friday shopping. But how did the day after Thanksgiving get such a black name? It is not called black because it encroaches on the Thursday holiday. Nor is it true the name refers to windfall merchandise sales which supposedly marked when stores stopped operating at a loss ("in the red") and f...
SEELEY LAKE – Prompted by the success of its August screening of "Walking Bear Comes Home," the Clearwater Resource Council presented a follow-up Clearwater Partners Workshop Nov. 17. Entitled "Montana to Manitoba: The Polar Bear Connection," the slide show was presented by retired Salish Kootenai College professor and current Great Bear Foundation President Frank Tyro. In addition to his other projects and duties, Tyro is an instructor, co-leader, bear monitor and bus driver for the Arctic F...
SEELEY LAKE – When taking group portraits, a photographer often gets everyone to smile at the same time by prompting them: "Say cheese!" But what does cheese have to do with pictures or smiles? There is no connection between photography and compressed milk curds but pronouncing the double long "e" of "cheese" requires drawing back the lips and turning the corners of the mouth upward. In other words, smiling. Just who decided the word should be "cheese" instead of "bees" or "trees" or "peas" i...
SEELEY LAKE – From the first piece they played at the Oct. 21 concert sponsored by Alpine Artisans' 2 Valleys Stage, the Awea Duo made it known theirs was not going to be a typical classical music concert. Jennifer Brimson Cooper played the flute and Masahito Sugihara played the saxophone – not a typical duo combination to begin with. In addition, they played Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D minor," one of the most famous works composed for – pipe organ! Think Bela Lugosi, Dracula, and the organ...
From Lincoln through Ovando, Seeley Lake and up the Swan Valley, Montana artisans displayed a wide variety of art works during Alpine Artisans' Tour of the Arts Oct. 13-14. Well over 100 visitors came from all over Montana and as far away as Tennessee, Minnesota and California. The tour entailed a lot of driving for those who chose to visit every location but nature itself became part of the artistry as trees displayed their fall yellows and golds while mountains, trees and hills added a...
SEELEY LAKE – New Seeley Lake Elementary third-grade teacher Kristy Pohlman is engaging in quite a juggling act. In addition to teaching, she is also the volleyball coach, is working on a master's degree, and partners with her husband in their business. In an email interview, Pohlman wrote she feels teaching is a career that suits her personality well. Long-term substitute teaching positions in Bonner and Seeley Lake helped confirmed that. Pohlman did her student teaching in the first-grade c...
SEELEY LAKE – Primarily inspired by the modeling of her then teacher Mrs. Roach, Rachel Bemis decided in second grade that she wanted to be a teacher when she grew up. She never wavered from that career decision. She received her teaching certificate, taught for four years in Missoula, and has now taken the position of second-grade teacher at Seeley Lake Elementary. Because Bemis did her student teaching in the second grade, she said returning to that level "felt like a really good fit. Kind o...
SEELEY LAKE – Robin Beckett (formerly Robin Gaither) brings 14 years of teaching to her Seeley Lake Elementary kindergarten classroom. Starting in a Montessori school in Indiana, Beckett went on to teach multi-grade classes in Alaska and Hawaii. During the last three years, she taught in Bonner, Mont. Beckett said her decision to enter the education field was largely influenced by her fifth-grade teacher. "I was very shy," she said. "I didn't like to talk. I wanted to be invisible. He took t...
SEELEY LAKE – More than 100 people crowded into the Seeley Lake Community Hall Thursday, Aug. 30, to view a film celebrating a man acclaimed as the father of bear biology. The documentary "Walking Bear Comes Home, the Life and Work of Chuck Jonkel" was part of the educational Pure Montana Tales series sponsored by Clearwater Resource Council and Blackfoot Challenge. Jonkel's interaction with bears began in 1959 after he graduated with a Master Degree in Wildlife Biology from the University of Mo...
SEELEY LAKE – Alpine Artisans' 2 Valleys Stage introduced its 2018-19 performance season Aug. 23 with Montana Shakespeare in the Parks' production of "The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice." Affiliated with Montana State University, MSIP has traveled for 46 years throughout Montana, as well as into border communities in Idaho, North Dakota, Wyoming and Washington to bring free professional performances of Shakespeare and other plays. This marked the first year they have produced "...
The first part of this two-part series reported on the individual one-room schoolhouses in the Swan Valley from 1918 to the present. SWAN VALLEY - In addition to the self-guided tour of the old school buildings, Upper Swan Valley Historical Society held a finale program on the museum grounds. Sharon MacQuarrie, who had attended both the Smith Flats School and the Wineglass School, provided some insights into the role of the schools in the culture of the Swan Valley and the unique value of the...
SWAN VALLEY – In 1918, Swan Valley residents built three one-room schoolhouses to accommodate their growing families and the influx of new pioneers. On Aug. 4, 100 years later, the Upper Swan Valley Historical Society invited residents and visitors to tour the valley and see what became of those and subsequent early school buildings. Some were destroyed, some repurposed and some are part of the valleys continuing education story. Those first three schoolhouses were built near Swan River t...
SEELEY LAKE – "It's been a blast and I love working with all the artists, but it's time to pass the torch to someone else," said 2 Valleys Stage Director Carol Evans. Citing travel plans and other responsibilities that would interfere with her 2VS obligations, Evans notified the Alpine Artisans' Board of Directors of her decision to step down at the end of the 2017-18 season. Accordingly, the board advertised the position opening. The following qualifications were desired of applicants: 1) i...
SEELEY LAKE – Seeley Lake resident James Sackett joined the U.S. Marine Corps straight out of high school. Why the Marines? "Because I thought they had the coolest uniforms," he said. By the time he mustered out 27 years later, that uniform was filled with medals. In a more serious vein, Sackett said he joined the military because he hoped that would keep his brother safe. Though brother Jerry was two years younger and twice Sackett's size, he was not a fighter. Sackett said he had fought J...
SEELEY LAKE – Having conclusively traced his ancestry back to the Revolutionary War, part-time Missoula, part-time Seeley Lake resident Warren Little became an official member of the Sons of the American Revolution July 4. Little said he had relatives who were members of the Daughters of the American Revolution and therefore was aware of his probable eligibility in SAR, but he only recently completed the necessary genealogical research. He said he had always been interested in the o...
SWAN VALLEY –During his six years in the United States Air Force, Condon resident Dennis Hawver gained recognition for his speaking ability and manner of presentation. He even, on occasion, briefed the Joint Chiefs of Staff. To help pay his was through college, Hawver entered the ROTC program at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. Once commissioned, he began graduate work at the WU Law School. Then the 1966 Topeka tornado struck, causing massive damage to the city and the university and l...
SEELEY LAKE – Someone nervous about flying in an airplane would no doubt derive comfort from knowing a pilot of Sully Sullenberger or Tammie Jo Shults' caliber was in the cockpit. But what are pilots doing in a cockpit? Isn't that a place where rooster fights take place? Cock fighting (as well as bear-baiting) was a popular form of entertainment in Elizabethan England. The cock pit was a round enclosure with walls too high for the roosters to escape. To allow spectators a better view of the a...
