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SEELEY LAKE – At a special meeting Aug. 13, the Seeley Lake Sewer District board elected new officers. They also voted to retain Beal Law Firm to defend the district from a lawsuit filed by Seeley Lake resident Don Larson. Beth Hutchinson was elected President and Troy Spence was elected Vice President. The vote on the officers was split with Davy Good going against the nominations while Hutchinson, Spence and Juli Cole voted for the nominations. Director Mike Boltz was not in attendance. Attorney Jon Beal explained the predicament the d...
SEELEY LAKE- The Seeley Lake Community Foundation celebrated another year of finding community needs and finding funds to fill them Sunday, Aug. 12 at their annual fundraiser. This year it included a significant announcement, fundraising auction and the distribution of Change Your Pace donations. At the fundraiser, Loren and Pam Rose announced the sale of the building that houses Pam's business Deer Country Quilts to the Foundation for $215,000. According to Kevin Wetherell, a Foundation board...
Fire danger has been increased to EXTREME across most of northwest Montana and many areas went into Stage I or Stage II Restrictions. It is the public’s responsibility to “Know before you go” by visiting www.firerestrictions.us/mt for the most current information. This week was the hottest of the summer so far with temperatures hovering around 100° and high winds accompanying the cooler air last weekend. Scarce precipitation in the past month means that grasses and forest vegetation is continuing to dry and this trend is expected to contin...
SEELEY LAKE- Three Seeley Lake students returned this week from a 27-day trip filled with work and growth, as they did volunteer work in the Superior and Plains Ranger Districts with the Montana Conservation Corps high school youth program. Erik Lorentz, 15, Cody Stevenson, 15, and Madison Hinchey, 17, were recruited by MCC youth program leader Nick Ehlers at Seeley-Swan High School. Ehlers attended the Career Fair to reach out to youth in Seeley Lake to join MCC programs. "Hopefully we give...
SWAN LAKE - The 37th annual Swan Lake Huckleberry Festival brought new vendors and surprises as well as returning attendees and vendors Saturday, Aug. 11. As goes the tradition, the festival began with a huckleberry pancake breakfast put on by the Swan Lake Community Club. The festival is the club's annual fundraiser and volunteers do everything from cooking and serving pancakes to judging the baking contest. Joyce Sedivy, a resident of Swan Lake since 1985, has been helping with the festival...
Exciting Times My name is Marie Andersen. Missoula County voters elected me to be their Judge in 2014. I write to address my political opponent’s recently published attack on me, as well as the article concerning the report on the Missoula County Justice Court. It’s an exciting time in our court. For the first time, there will be one manager for both Justice Courts (my court and Judge Holloway’s court). It’s in the best interest of both courts, staff and public to have a single administrative manager working cooperatively and collabo...
SWAN VALLEY – We would like to thank all the Condon community for all the great food and nice cards and the QRU response to my accident. This is such a caring community and very much appreciated. Thanks again, Neil and Dixie Meyer...
It was another one of those timber tramps over Idaho way for Columbia Helicopters. Just this side of the grade that goes up to Grangeville, there's a Forest Service road to the left. Up, up through a lot of switchbacks to a big burn they were trying to salvage. Anyway, the cutters were staying in Grangeville, a two and a half hour drive one way. Gett'n up at 3 a.m. cause you had to be on the job at 6 to get flown in. Not me sez I, I'll camp out. The only problem was rattlesnakes abounded....
SEELEY LAKE – The Seeley Lake Ranger District continues to be busy with post-fire recovery work and recreation management. Fire danger is Extreme and the District outside of the wildernesses is in Stage II restrictions. Project status, restrictions and exemptions change regularly so the public is asked to call the District office, 406-677-2233, for the most up-to-date information. Road Work The District is completing infrastructure repair and maintenance work on a daily basis. Several roads are now re-opened for the remainder of the season but...
SEELEY LAKE - The Lolo National Forest has approved harvest of approximately 250 acres of the Liberty Fire that burned approximately 28,694 acres last summer. Of this, about 9,452 acres burned on National Forest System land on the Seeley Lake Ranger District. “My decision allows salvage of approximately 2.5 million board feet of burned timber and planting of seedlings on 6,600 acres where the existing seed source is limited due to tree mortality,” said Tim Garcia, Forest Supervisor for the LNF. The LNF expects to advertise one timber sale to...
GREENOUGH – Tuesday, Aug. 7 a 20-year-old Greenough man was found after missing since Sunday. Except being hungry and tired, he was not injured. He was cited for driving behind a locked gate with his motorcycle and driving with a suspended drivers license. According to Missoula County Sheriff’s Office Sergeant Bob Parcell, the 20-year-old went out for a ride Sunday night on his large dirt bike on Nine-mile Prairie Road. His parents realized he hadn’t returned on Monday and starting looking for him. They found where he went around a gate and t...
Hello! My name is Bonnie Medlin and I’m a nutrition educator with the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program in Missoula County. EFNEP is a free program designed to reach limited resource families! We have had the privilege of working at Seeley Lake Elementary in the first, third and fifth grade classrooms for many years. EFNEP also teaches adult classes by partnering with a variety of agencies. These classes teach easy meal planning, tips for stretching your food dollar, tips for increasing physical activity and tasty ways to eat health...
By now, it's a story Ralph Demicco has told a thousand times: Over a period of six days in 2009, three people bought firearms from his gun shop in New Hampshire and shot and killed themselves in a matter of hours. When he heard the news, there was only one emotion. "I was shocked," he said. Demicco owned Riley's Gun Shop for over 40 years at the time. It was one of the largest, if not the largest in the state, for many years. He prided himself on his store policy: If a salesperson felt...
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...
MISSOULA - Potomac Valley 4-H Club had 17 members for the 2017-2018 4-H year. Members brought awards and many ribbons home from the Western Montana Fair as well as top awards including Luke Wilson Grand Champion Poultry, Gavin Kelly Top Leathercraft Award, Haley Helena Top Novice Dairy Goat Showman, Kyla Nelson Judge's Choice Award for Vet Science and Outstanding Sheep Herdsman, Emmett Zander Horse Packing Award and Sydney McDaniel was awarded a $1,500 scholarship from Missoula Southside Lions....
MISSOULA - The Seeley Lake Trailblazers 4-H Club may have a small number of members, but in the Missoula County fair last week, the club took home a number of ribbons. Amanda Thomas, Dani Sexton, Laciey Auchenbach and James Webb were all awarded purple ribbons for their work and all club members placed with blue or red ribbons in every category. 4-H uses the Danish system in the judging process. Top ribbons include grand and reserve champion, followed by a purple group (P – top in their c...
POTOMAC - Sharon Lee Shoen, 69, of Potomac, passed away Sunday, July 29 at St. Patrick Hospital of natural causes. She was born Feb. 9, 1949 in Lewistown, Mont. to Glen and Margaret Kent. The family moved to Missoula in 1952. Sharon graduated from Hellgate High School in 1967. In 1969 she married Orville Gibbins. They divorced in 1979. From this marriage her two children were born. She married Thomas Shoen on Sept. 11, 1992. They were married 25 years at the time of her death. She loved crafts,...
SEELEY LAKE – While some racers' goal were to win or better their previous time, Rachel Homen's goal was to finish. After starting her training in January and finally getting medical clearance to run in April, she met her goal along with many other racers at this year's Youth for Christ (YFC) Challenge Duathlon/Triathlon Aug. 11. "All the praise goes to my Savior," said Homen who loved that the race supports Youth for Christ. This year more than 75 solo racers, one three-person team and 18 y...
Montana State Parks presents “LIVE ANIMALS with Animal Wonders,” Aug. 18 PLACID LAKE - You don’t have to go far to find some of the most spectacular animals in the world—Animal Wonders is located right in Missoula and they are coming to Seeley Lake! Join founders Jessi and Augusto Castañeda at Placid Lake State Park’s group use picnic area (behind site 22) at 7 p.m. Aug. 18 for an educational presentation about exotic and native animals, many of which will be at the presentation. The Castañedas founded Animal Wonders in August 2008 to fulfill...
MISSOULA – District Court Judge Karen Townsend stopped short of denying Don Larson’s motion for a preliminary injunction at a hearing Aug. 14. However, Townsend’s comments of “I didn’t get much out of this,” referring to Larson’s testimony and her refusal to allow Larson’s attorney Colleen Dowdall to call two additional witnesses to the stand doesn’t look favorable for Larson’s motion. The Seeley Lake Sewer District Board’s Attorney Jon Beal made an initial motion to delay the hearing, arguing that he had been retained at 9:30 p.m. the previou...
It happens all too often, some elected or appointed official doing something corrupt or unethical. Some let lobbyists pay their rent, others outfit their public offices with luxury items costing tens of thousands of dollars. In every case it’s a waste of taxpayer funds, a breach of the public trust. I have known Jon Tester since his time as a Montana State Senator, and Jon has always led by example when it comes to ethics and honor in government. Jon is the guy who still works his family farm, he is rooted in Montana and brings a hard w...
