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SWAN VALLEY - Officials from Missoula County presented information on property taxes, how taxes fund road maintenance and answered questions about the quality of maintenance in the area at the Swan Valley Community Council meeting Aug. 16. The Council also discussed the open Council seat and how it will be filled. New Council member Grace Siloti questioned some of the Council’s recent activity and transparency. Missoula County Treasure Tyler Gernant explained that property taxes are the primary source of funding for local governments in M...
SEELEY LAKE – At their July 28 hearing and regular meeting, the Seeley Lake Sewer District Board passed the annual assessment method and discussed drilling additional monitoring wells. The Board received just one written protest. The landowner was opposed to the assessment in part because they owned two lots and would have to pay twice even though they only have one residence. They also felt that their land was not necessary to be in the District in the first place as it is not near the lake or the contaminated groundwater monitoring well. M...
SEELEY LAKE – At their June 16 meeting, the Seeley Lake Sewer District Board adopted next year’s budget and selected the equal assessment method to spread the assessment among landowners in the District. The Board adopted their fiscal year 2023 budget of $116,805. Of that, the District will use $84,397.98 from their reserves, money collected last year but not spent, and only assess landowners for $32,407. This will result in a significant break on landowner’s tax bill. The Board also voted to use the equal assessment method of spreading the tax...
SWAN VALLEY - The Swan Valley School Board voted for raises and bonuses for its staff at their June 13 board meeting. The Board considered three options for the certified and classified staff salary schedules including no change (which has a 1.5% raise already built in), 4% raise and 5.5% raise to the base pay. The Board opted for giving the 4% raise in the base pay for all staff citing the desire to leave a little room in the budget for other things that might come up. Year-end staff bonuses were then discussed. Business Manager/District...
SEELEY LAKE – Seeley-Swan High School senior Walker McDonald has seen a lot of success throwing for the Blackhawks during his high school career including setting a new State record in Discus a few weeks ago. Now he looks forward to continuing his throwing career at the University of Montana next fall after signing with the Griz Track & Field team. "I've always wanted to throw in college since I realized I had some sort of talent," McDonald said. "Plus it is in Missoula which is where I wanted t...
GREAT FALLS – Seeley-Swan's Boys earned the top spot on the podium for the second time in the school's history at the State C Track Meet in Great Falls May 28. The Boys accumulated 84 points to beat out Manhattan Christian with 62.5 and third place Belt with 40 points. The Girls earned 52 points putting them in third behind Manhattan Christian with 65.5 and Plentywood with 74. Seniors Walker McDonald and Sariah Maughan both set new state records. The last time the Seeley-Swan Boys won the g...
FRENCHTOWN – Seeley-Swan’s Boys earned first place and the Girls took second at the Western C Divisional Track Meet May 20-21. The Boys earned 100 points to put them ahead of Manhattan Christian with 96.5 while the Girls accumulated 60 putting them behind Manhattan Christian’s girls with 89. Eight Seeley-Swan High School athletes advance to the State C meet this week in individual events. The Boys and Girls advance with both the 4x100 and 4x400-meter relay teams. For the Boys, Owen Hoag, Sawyer Shelmerdine, Chase Haines, Walker McDonald and K...
MISSOULA – On May 18, athletes from Seeley Lake Elementary, Swan Valley School and Potomac School competed at the Meet of Champions, the final middle school track meet of the season. To qualify for the meet the athletes had to finish in the top five of the Copper League Qualifier the previous week. Many of the athletes set personal records (PR) at the meet. Seeley Lake Eagles: Sixth Grade • Trey Good 10th in 800-meter 3:00.31 PR • Tully Good 4th in 1600-meter 6:17.14 PR • Tim Garland 2nd in Jave...
MISSOULA – Eighteen of Seeley-Swan's athletes placed in the top five at the 13C District Meet May 13-14 and will advance to Western C Divisional this week. The Boys won the meet earning 154 points to beat out Drummond with 140. The Girls took second with 137 points behind Drummond with 154. The top Seeley-Swan Boys included Owen Hoag, Sawyer Shelmerdine, Chase Haines, Walker McDonald, Klayton Kovatch and Connor Matthew. Hoag won the 100, 200 and 400-meter races. His 200-meter time of 22.34 i...
MISSOULA – Seeley-Swan's Owen Hoag and Walker McDonald won the "Outstanding Male Track Athlete" and "Outstanding Male Field Athlete" awards at the Kim L. Haines Memorial track meet May 7. The pair's performance helped propel the Seeley-Swan Boys to first place in the team points ahead of Broadwater and Loyola. The Seeley-Swan Girls took second at the KLH behind Broadwater and ahead of Drummond. Hoag dominated the short distances on the track winning the 100, 200 and 400-meter events. He cut h...
SEELEY LAKE - A pair of school records and several meet records fell over the past week as athletes from Seeley-Swan High School competed in the Russ Pilcher Top 10 in Missoula April 26 and the Fairfield Belt State Preview in Great Falls April 30. Junior Emily Maughan has had her eyes on Seeley-Swan's Long Jump record of 17 feet 4 inches for several years. She recalled that she first felt it was attainable when she was in eighth grade and was jumping around 16 feet. This year, Coach Mike Haines...
SEELEY LAKE – At their April 21 meeting, the Seeley Lake Sewer District Board plans to put out a Request for Proposals (RFP) but delayed when they would be due. They also voted to expend money from the District’s reserves for much of next year’s budget to reduce the burden on taxpayers for a year. District Manager Bill Decker reported that there were two replies to the District’s Request for Qualifications (RFQ) that came in on time with the required number of copies, one that came in on time but was missing the number of copies and another...
MISSOULA - Seeley-Swan's Owen Hoag set an unexpected school record while Seeley-Swan's Boys took third and the Girls took fourth at the Seeley-Swan Invite track meet April 23. Beaverhead County and Bigfork took the top spots in both the boys and girls points while Superior edged out Seeley-Swan's Girls for third. "For the 200 [school record], it really wasn't even a goal for me. I hadn't even considered breaking it," said Hoag. Hoag has been focused on the 400-meter this season where he is less...
MISSOULA - The Missoula County Public School Invitational fell victim to Montana's spring weather April 16. The meet was canceled after just five events on the track but the cold and snow didn't keep Seeley-Swan's athletes from shining. In the first event on the track, Hunter Coyle ran his season's fastest 3200 with a time of 14:18.21. Chase Haines shaved nearly a half second off his personal record (PR) in the 110-meter hurdles, crossing the line in fourth place with a time of 16.43. Zach Best...
POLSON - Seeley-Swan’s Boys and Girls track teams both took second place at the 50th Annual Dave Tripp Memorial Track Meet in Polson April 8. The Boys earned 83 team points putting them ahead of Drummond with 69 points and Loyola with 63. Class B Jefferson took the top spot with 175. Seeley-Swan’s Girls earned 72 points behind Drummond with 97 and ahead of Superior and Anaconda with 65 and 62 respectively. Seeley-Swan’s Boys burned up the track. Owen Hoag won the 200-meter in 23.02 seconds and won the 400-meter in 51.07, more than five secon...
FRENCHTOWN - Mother nature provided a mixture of weather for the Frenchtown Invitational April 2 including sprinkles of rain, flurries of snow, wind and sunshine in no particular order. Seeley-Swan High School athletes took the weather in stride as they competed against hundreds of athletes from 18 schools. However, a few of the top runners were a little blue to learn that the event's automatic timing system was not functioning. Relying only on hand times, nobody could auto qualify for state or...
CORVALLIS - Seeley Swan High School's track team competed against athletes from 17 A, B and C class schools at the first meet of the season March 26. Seeley-Swan's returning state champions Walker McDonald, Owen Hoag and Sariah Maughan all showed they are back to defend their titles. McDonald took first place in the discus with a throw of 161 feet, just 4 feet shy of his best throw last year. He won by nearly 20 feet over Seeley-Swan's Klayton Kovatch. Kovatch took second place and extended his...
SEELEY LAKE – The Seeley Lake Sewer District Board continued to hone a water testing regiment for the lake and began discussing next year’s budget at their March 17 meeting. Over the last several months the Board has been discussing with Clearwater Resource Council (CRC) how to do water testing to assess the human impact on Seeley Lake. The Board amended their budget in November to allocate $5,515 for environmental DNA (eDNA) testing but learned last month that it would not be enough for a year. This month CRC came back with another tes...
SWAN VALLEY – The Swan Valley School Board discussed how to spend their Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds and possibly changing the preschool program into a transitional kindergarten at their March 8 meeting. Principal Aaron Morgenstern said they had 20 responses to a survey regarding how to prioritize the school’s ESSER funding. Ten of the respondents identified themselves as “Parent” and nine identified as a “Community Member” while one was “Staff.” The survey respondents were asked to prioritize three categorie...
In reference to the pandemic, few things have sparked such emotional debate as masks and vaccinations. Our Letters to the Editor policy has not allowed national topics that have no possible local resolution to keep the Pathfinder’s content hyper-local. However, after much consideration, we are going to allow this vaccination debate to continue in the letters to the editor. While it is a national issue, we recognize that it affects each one of us locally when choosing whether or not to vaccinate ourselves and/or our children. The decision c...
FRENCHTOWN - The Lady Blackhawks season came to an end at the Western C Divisional Tournament Feb. 24-26 but they didn't go down without a fight. The Lady Blackhawks had two wins and two losses to finish out their season with a 22-2 record. In their opening game the Lady Blackhawks faced the West Yellowstone Wolverines. After trailing early in the game, the Lady Blackhawks rebounded in the second quarter outscoring the Wolverines 17-2. They held them off through the second half to a 50-36 victor...
FRENCHTOWN - The Lady Blackhawks blew through the District 13C tournament, taking home the top trophy and maintained their undefeated season. They got a bye in the first round and then took down Darby in the quarterfinal Feb. 18 before defeating Granite in the Championship game Feb. 19. Darby put up very little fight as the Lady Blackhawks put them down 24-6 in the first quarter and didn't let up until the final frame. The final score was 68-28. Emily Maughan put in 10 baskets for 20 points to...
SEELEY LAKE - The Seeley Lake Community Council hosted presentations at its Feb. 14 meeting on a wide range of topics including landlord and rental assistance, upcoming United States Forest Service proposed projects and reconstructing Highway 83 around Salmon Lake. Missoula County Landlord Liaison Alex Ramsing presented on his job and some of the classes and services Homeword offers to landlords, renters and homebuyers. Homeword is a Missoula-based nonprofit that works to strengthen Montana communities by teaching homebuyer education and...
SEELEY LAKE – The Seeley Lake Sewer District Board moved forward with advertising a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) and discussed water testing and an increase in eDNA testing at its Feb. 17 meeting. At last month’s meeting the Board discussed whether to send out a RFQ or Request for Proposals (RFP). District Manager Bill Decker wrote up a proposed RFQ for the Board to consider at this meeting. Director Cheri Thompson said the proposed RFQ was not specific enough and wanted specific details about the District in it instead of the entire com...
FRENCHTOWN - The Blackhawks put up a great fight at the 13C District Tournament but in the end fell just one basket short of extending their season to the divisional tournament. The Blackhawks defeated Granite 63-46 in their opening game Feb. 17 before falling to Darby in the semifinal 56-74. In the consolation bracket the Blackhawks faced Valley Christian Feb. 19. By half time the Boys looked like their season would be ending sooner than later as they trailed 15 points. They clawed their way...
