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SEELEY LAKE – "Dad, did we just do a wheelie?" Seeley Lake native Colby Evenson asked his father Errol. "It was scary, but from there I was hooked. I just wanted more and I wanted to go faster." Colby, now 24, claimed the 2019 High Country Motocross Association (HCMA) 250 Intermediate and 450 Intermediate Class championship titles. He will join the professional class motocross racers next year, a dream that he has held since a child. * * * * * Colby grew up riding motor bikes with his brother C...
SWAN VALLEY - The Swan Valley Elementary School Board filled two vacant positions for the upcoming academic year. At a special meeting July 18, the board hired Chris Mauldin for the vacant kindergarten through second grade teaching position. At their special meeting July 30, they unanimously agreed to hire Ralph King as principal at a .2 Full Time Equivalent (FTE). Seeley Lake Elementary had already hired Mauldin for the 2019-2020 school year as a 0.2 FTE special education paraeducator before he took the K-2 position at Swan Valley School. He...
SEELEY LAKE – The Seeley Lake Elementary School District Board of Trustees hired Dan Schrock July 31 at a special board meeting. In other business Bridget Laird will fill the open junior high teaching position. The Board interviewed three candidates including Schrock, Leland Stocker and Jody Welter July 29. A fourth candidate, Kevin St. John, was scheduled to be interviewed however he dropped out due to taking a job in Philipsburg. The board took public comment before discussing and deciding w...
County Health employee Jim Erven misrepresented and exaggerated (yet again) the dangers of nitrates in a recent letter to the Sewer Board. He says high nitrate levels in the groundwater can cause blue baby syndrome and fish kills, neither of which have occurred in Seeley Lake. And he overlooks the fact most of the residents in the Sewer District drink out of the lake...not the groundwater he claims is polluted. He stated one test well had gone over the state standard occasionally for groundwater pollution but neglects to tell you all three...
I have had a life long "love affair" with firearms. I just love the darn things. Why this is I cannot say. It's just a distinct part of me. The firearms I like most are really special works of art and beauty. My favorites are custom stocked with walnut on blue steel. Oh, the wood is out of this world beautiful with its color, grain, figures of fiddleback, tiger stripes, feathered, contrasting colors and especially the depth of multiple coats of hand rubbed oil finish. The wood fits against all...
SWAN VALLEY – On July 30 Seeley-Swan Search and Rescue was called just after 5 a.m. for a 50-year-old man that had reportedly eaten mushrooms on the trail to Upper Holland Lake and was violently ill. The 50-year-old had also sustained a head injury and was rescued by Two Bear Air just before 7:30 a.m. He was airlifted to Kalispell via Kalispell A.L.E.R.T. He condition is unknown. Incident Commander Missoula County Sheriff’s Deputy Ryan Dunster said SSSAR got the call at 5:10 a.m. Tuesday. The ma...
SEELEY LAKE - Quick work by Forest Service personnel and contractors from Bull Creek Forestry cleared the Dunham Creek Road from recent debris flows caused by a surge of precipitation the last week in July. The road, although bumpy in some areas, is now passable. The Dunham Creek Road passes through the 2017 Rice Ridge burned area and is a popular access route to the Lodgepole Creek Trailhead and Bob Marshall Wilderness. Friday, July 26, after a microburst of precipitation, the road was...
SWAN LAKE - Thirty-eight years ago the members of the Swan Lake Community Club decided to raise funds with a festival celebrating all things huckleberry. On Aug. 10, the Swan Lake Chamber and Community Club will carry on that tradition by presenting the valley's original Huckleberry Festival at the Swan Lake Day Park, near mile marker 72 on Montana Highway 83. The event will start with a huckleberry pancake breakfast starting at 8 a.m. The Arts and Crafts Fair will feature more than 50 vendors...
As I further advance into elder years, I have more appreciation for this poem by Mary Oliver. "The Summer Day" Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean-- the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down -- who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her...
SWAN VALLEY – Outfitting is not easy, and it certainly won't make a person rich, but the memories and experience of breathing in the wilderness will reward and sustain the outfitter for the rest of his or her life. That's the bare bones of what the speakers had to say Saturday, Aug. 3 at the Upper Swan Valley Historical Society (USVHS) program entitled Outfitting and Guiding in the Swan Valley and Surrounding Areas. The yarns and anecdotes that filled out those bare bones, that is what made t...
SEELEY LAKE - As the Seeley Lake Community Foundation prepares for its annual banquet, Executive Director Claire Muller reflects on a year of growth. Last August, Loren and Pam Rose announced that they would donate nearly half of the appraised value for the property that formerly housed Deer Country Quilts to the Foundation. The Foundation began fundraising the additional finances for the building at its annual banquet last year. The crowd donated nearly $40,000 to cover the down payment of the building within nearly 10 minutes. “Part of why my...
I love this beautiful world God has created for us to live in! Even with all the chaos going on around us, I thank Him for the privilege of living here; for the opportunity of learning the things I need to know and do; and for His gospel that strengthens me spiritually and helps me endure through this life. Every day God blesses us in ways we may never know. So what can we do to show our love and gratitude to God and his son, our Savior, Jesus Christ? In John 21:15-17 Jesus, talking to his disciples, asks Peter to “feed my sheep.” Who are his...
SEELEY LAKE - Each year, 100 boys are selected to represent their home state at Boys Nation in Washington D.C. This year, Seeley-Swan High School student Sam Weisenburger represented Montana. Weisenburger was chosen to represent his home state after his performance at Boys State this past spring. He was accompanied at Boys Nation by Thomas Henley of Helena. Boys and Girls State offers high school juniors a hands-on opportunity to learn how the government operates by attending a six-day session...
Douglas-fir trees throughout western Montana are being damaged by an outbreak of Douglas-fir tussock moth (DFTM). It is localized to the historic outbreak regions including Missoula. Caterpillars and the egg masses of the Douglas-fir tussock moth can cause "tussockosis." The Montana Department of Natural Resources and the USDA Forest Service are currently monitoring the scope and extent of damage. For the previous one to two years, DFTM have damaged the tops of ornamental Colorado blue spruce, w...
EDITOR'S NOTE: In this three-part series, Montana Free Press examines how federal land management agencies have approached wildfire in the past and highlights key public and private sector developments that could change how we engage with it in the future. Previously: Part 1 – The evolution of wildfire suppression. BOZEMAN - Ray Rasker, who has researched wildfire for more than a decade as the executive director of Bozeman-based nonprofit Headwaters Economics, makes a bold claim about w...
SEELEY LAKE – Lively hit tunes from the 1960s and a bright pink stage greeted the large audience that assembled their chairs and blankets on the Double Arrow Lodge grounds Aug. 1 for the 2019 Montana Shakespeare in the Parks' (MSIP) presentation of "The Merry Wives of Windsor." The music and colors were the first hints that this production of the play would not be set in Renaissance times. It has become an accepted practice to set Shakespearean plays in more modern time periods. In a phone i...
SEELEY LAKE - Families took to the Youth for Christ Seeley Lake Challenge Triathlon/Duathlon at the River Point Day Use area on Saturday, Aug 3. Nissa Lucero of Missoula competed in the solo short swim for her first ever triathlon. Following her race, she took to the sidelines to cheer on her daughters Soel and Seri that competed in the youth triathlon. "It was such an amazing day," said Nissa, who finished seventh in the 35-39 age group with a time of 1:25:31 for the short swim. "It was so grea...
Van Lake Dispersed Area closure SWAN VALLEY - A portion of the Van Lake Road (Road #558) on the Swan Lake Ranger District will be closed for public safety from Aug. 5 – Sept. 30 for the Van Lake Improvements Project. Road #558 will be closed at Mile 1.28, restricting access to the Van Lake Dispersed Area and Road #1076. The project includes improvements to campsites, the boat launch and dispersed recreation, road management actions and hazard tree removal. As always, please be safe and cautious when traveling near closed areas and obey all s...
Meatless Mondays for your school lunch program? Meat grown in a petri dish from a foreign lab? These are questions we need to ask Governor Bullock. By his executive order, Montana is now obligated to advance the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. In order to meet the Paris objectives everything having a carbon footprint is on the table, including our beef industry. At present, U.S. meat consumption is about 222 pounds per person per year. Nationally the goal is to reduce this to 35 pounds per person. In short, Bullock wants to cut Montana...
Montanans received 9.4 million robocalls in June 2019. The majority coming from Target, Citibank, Capital One and debt collectors. A recent bill reigning in robocalls (HR 3375) passed US House and now heads to US Senate. The bill builds on legislation that passed the Senate with our MT Senators’ support. The new bill takes additional steps to curb abusive robocalling. It adopts important new consumer protections that requires FCC to close loopholes to ensure that automated calls and texts cannot be made without the consumer’s consent. The bil...
