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Republicans claimed political control across all the top state races this general election cycle in Montana, including the open U.S. Senate seat, both U.S. House seats, Governor, Public Service Commission, Attorney General, Superintendent of Public Instruction, State Auditor and Secretary of State. More specifically, Ryan Zinke took the western U.S. House District and Troy Downing the eastern. Greg Gianforte was reelected governor. Brad Molnar, Jeff Welborn and Jennifer Fielder were elected to the state Public Service Commission. Austin... Full story
Audrey Stevenson groaned as the volleyball she served hit the net instead of sailing over like it was supposed to. Assistant Coach Shawn Evans told her to keep her arm up, and she walked around the court to get back in line and try again. At a practice in October, many Lady Blackhawks brought up how much serving technique improves when players get on the high school team. And Stevenson, along with fellow eighth grader Kieu Snow, has an extra year to practice. Both young women are playing up...
Inside the Seeley-Swan High School cafeteria, close to 30 people gathered and raised their hands for various ice breaker questions before a meeting began. How many people in the room have lived in Seeley Lake for more than 20 years? Maybe a third of the hands went up. How many people were born and raised in Seeley? No hands. How many are retired? Business owners? Have kids in the school system? Who is worried about the future of Seeley Lake? Every hand in the room went up. "Great, that's why...
The seventh/eighth grade wing at Seeley Lake Elementary School is set to be demolished. Continued concern about mold in the walls due to moisture getting under the foundation of the building led to school board approval for the demolition during its October meeting. Mold was first found in the walls over the summer and was abated, or removed, Board Chair Doc Welter said, which allowed the wing to be used this school year. But since moisture continues to be a problem under the foundation, even with equipment in place to keep it at bay, Welter...
On Saturday, Oct. 26, the senior center hosted a hunters' breakfast to mark the start of hunting season. The senior center has been hosting this breakfast for about 15 years. Last year, they weren't able to host because there weren't enough volunteers for the event. That wasn't a problem this year. Senior center volunteers were supported by the Lions Club, with additional support from the Leos. The event was sponsored by Blackfoot Communications. Members of the Lions Club helped sell raffle...
On Tuesday, Oct. 22, 20 Missoula County officials participated in the “Swan Valley Community Conversation,” held at the Swan Valley Elementary School. The event, designed to foster communication between county government and the more outlying Swan Valley community, had a unique format and was met with positive reviews by attendees. Rather than a large open meeting, eight “stations” of citizens were seated at tables, and the officials rotated every 10 minutes, so that each group of three to five attendees had face-to-face interactions with re...
Thirty five years ago... Thursday Oct. 26, 1989 Blackhawks win first round of playoffs The Seeley-Swan Blackhawks defeated the Twin Bridges Falcons in the first round of the Class C football playoffs. The Blackhawks, the 7C regular season champions, won a hard fought 30-20 victory over the 6C third place finishers. The Blackhawks jumped to an early lead when Scott Olson found a seam in the Falcon line for a one-yard touchdown run. Barry DeLeo, the Blackhawk's "Man of Steel" rushed for...
With fishing access sites overflowing in the summer, drought pressure on the rivers, more garbage, increased weeds along roadsides and packed eateries, it's obvious there's more traffic in the Blackfoot watershed. Over the past few years the Blackfoot Challenge, a local watershed stewardship nonprofit focused on the Blackfoot River drainage, has been hearing more concerns about and interest in growing recreational pressures in the Blackfoot Valley watershed. Meetings have been held in...
On Wednesday, Oct. 16 a new Seeley Lake business hosted a pumpkin painting event. While this was the first event hosted at the Seeley Station - including apple cider, hot cocoa and a piece of halloween-themed pottery to paint for $10 - it isn't going to be the last. There will be a Thanksgiving event on Wednesday, Nov. 13 from 5-7 p.m. and a Christmas-themed event in mid-December. The Seeley Station opened on Aug. 5 and since opening the station has made an effort to support locals and other...
The northern lights have been visible in the Seeley-Swan Valley many times this year, including multiple times this month. Meteorologist Dave Noble, who works with the National Weather Service in Missoula, explained why the northern lights occur. "Occasionally we can have these explosions off the sun that are spewing plasma at a million miles an hour towards space, and sometimes they can be directed towards the earth," Noble said. "If it is carrying the right magnetic field with it, or the...
The Forest Service received notification of a purchase agreement regarding Holland Lake Lodge between Eric Jacobsen, Great Falls native and current Utah resident, and longtime owner of the lodge and holder of its special use permit, Christian Wohlfeil, and POWDR on Oct. 11. POWDR, a company that owns and operates ski resorts across the country, owns about 20% of the assets of Holland Lake Lodge. A controversial plan to expand the lodge was rejected by the Forest Service last fall after being met with forceful local opposition. Ivy Gehling,...
The Seeley Lake Sewer District Board met last Thursday for a relatively short meeting to discuss ongoing fundraising efforts and the still vacant staff positions. Steve Anderson, engineer with Water & Environmental Technologies (WET), said the engineering firm’s staff continue to work on pursuing grants to help cover costs of creating the preliminary engineering report, which once completed opens the door for other grant opportunities for which the board could apply. WET staff are working through a reclamation and development planning grant a...
It's a curious sight - upwards of 120 mountain folks decked out in lobster bibs, trying to figure out how to operate stainless steel seafood crackers. And atop Potomac's Copper Cliff Road, it's become an annual early-fall phenomenon. A robust group of local bluegrass pickers, jamming in a circle, provided the soundscape for the Copper Cliff Cafe's capstone event of the season earlier this month - as they have at every dinner since the operation's 2019 inception. For this year's lobster feast,...
Convoys of cattle trucks will soon be trundling loads of cattle along Highway 141 and Highway 200, moving cattle from mountain pastures to home ranches and hauling weaned calves to feedlots across the Midwest. Selling calves marks the fall rotation of cattle ranching in the Blackfoot Valley and throughout ranching country in the United States. It's payday for ranchers as they ship off their main commodity - beef calves - to feedlots. Cattle receipts of $1.8 billion dollars in 2021 rank cattle...
Whoever wins the race for Montana’s Superintendent of Public Instruction in the general election on Nov. 5 — Republican Susie Hedalen or Democrat Shannon O’Brien — they will inherit an office in disarray. A recent legislative audit of the Office of Public Instruction, which the superintendent leads, found more than $67 million in questionable spending of federal education funds, including one school district that used the money to buy massage chairs for the teachers’ lounge. “OPI is kind of in shambles,” said Jessi Bennion, a professor of...
Twenty years ago... Thursday Oct. 28, 2004 Who homesteaded here? Another reason to visit the Seeley Lake Museum Have you ever wondered who homesteaded the property where you live? Have you ever wondered if any of your family namesakes homesteaded in the valley? Now you can find out. The Seeley Lake Historical Society has a listing of all the people who successfully homesteaded in the Clearwater Valley. A project entitled “Who Homesteaded Here?” was completed with a grant from the Hansen Endowment Committee through the Wilderness Institute at...
Editor's note: Due to an unfortunate oversight, part of this article was missing from the printed paper. We will be reprinting the full article in the paper next week and the entirety is featured here. We deeply regret the error. The Seeley-Swan Hospital District Board is conducting a survey to get a more comprehensive idea of how the board and clinic can better respond to the needs of those in Seeley Lake. Board Chairwoman Terryl Bartlett said living in Seeley Lake, one can get used to running into Missoula for various medical needs that the c...
With political polarization strengthening across the country, even the races far down on Montana’s ballot are feeling the heat of identity politics. The state auditor is arguably the lowest-ballot race there is, but the position is responsible for supervising the state’s insurance and securities industries and investigating fraud. Two years ago, Republican Jim Brown mounted a campaign for the state Supreme Court, trying to secure a spot on the high court by stressing his support from Republicans. That race ended in Supreme Court justice Ingrid...
On a sunny September afternoon in Butte, Democratic Sen. Jon Tester stood in a small room in a brick building and rallied a group of volunteers by casting his opponent, Republican businessman and former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy, as a wealthy transplant out of touch with local values. “He doesn’t know Montana, and that’s the problem,” Tester told the crowd. “He doesn’t know Butte, America, and that’s the problem. He doesn’t know the labor movement started here, and that’s the problem. He doesn’t understand people had to work their butts off to...
A head-on collision on Oct. 6 left two people dead and two injured at 9:20 p.m. on Highway 83 in Seeley Lake. According to a release from Montana Highway Patrol, a vehicle driving south on Highway 83 failed to make a curve to the left near Double Arrow Road. It traveled in the ditch for 340 feet and got back into the southbound lane before it crossed onto the wrong side of the road and collided head-on with another vehicle traveling north. Per the release, drugs and speed were suspected as conditions of the crash. All passengers were wearing se...
After the announced closures of Pyramid Mountain Lumber and Roseburg Forest Products this spring, the state of Montana was awarded a national emergency grant to assist those laid off. That funding can go beyond directly helping employees and is available for any business in Seeley Lake that might be able to link a loss of revenue or a closure to the wind down of Pyramid. On Friday, Pyramid announced the end of its final stage of operations, with the final load of lumber shipped last week. About...
The Missoula County Commissioners approved spending a portion of funds from a 2018 bond to preserve 158 acres in the Swan Valley for conservation. The funds made available in 2018 were part of a voter-approved open space bond measure. This bond provided $15 million that was to be used to enhance open space for purposes including access, agriculture, fish and wildlife habitat, rivers, streams and scenic views, per the ballot language. One way those purposes can be realized is through the...
The 22nd annual Tour of the Arts on Oct. 12-13, put on by Alpine Artisans, gave local people and visitors a chance to visit working studios, galleries and museums from Condon to Lincoln. Sixteen local artisans in the Seeley-Swan and Blackfoot Valleys had their crafts on display and often showed their production processes to attendees. Martha Swanson, from Ovando, demonstrated the steps of bowl making during the tour. The Swansons had several finished bowls on display despite losing one of their...
Steve Lamar has only lived in these parts for 48 years. I asked him if he was a rich out-of-stater who doesn't understand our Montana values. He assured me he isn't running for political office. Perhaps you have heard of the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone National Park, the Lamar River or Lamar Mountain. An ancestor of Steve's was head of the Interior Department under Grover Cleveland. An army friend of Mr. Lamar was sent to the Yellowstone area to survey it and was given the responsibility of...
Whoever said "dyeing is easy" has never tried it. Twenty women took on the challenge to learn the process at the Nature of Art Workshops sponsored by Alpine Artisans on Saturday, Sept. 20-21 in Seeley Lake. The workshop convened for the second year to offer experimentation with new techniques in eco-printing as taught by Crystal McCallie, University of Montana textile art instructor. In the end, they turned the paper and fabric they had dyed into a lovely handmade book. Following the dying...
