Sorted by date Results 5909 - 5933 of 6303
Seeley Lake Ranger District Spring Prescribed Fire Projects SEELEY LAKE - The Seeley Lake Ranger District plans to conduct spring prescribed fire projects when weather, fuel conditions and air quality become favorable. Smoke will be visible from various locations around Seeley Lake depending on the burn units and weather conditions. Each project follows a Prescribed Fire Burn Plan. The prescribed fire projects are located and designed to be controlled to reduce the potential for adverse effects or to escape as a wildland fire. These projects...
MISSOULA - Seeley-Swan High School (SSHS) band and choir along with several soloists participated in the District Music Festival April 15 and 16. The band received a Superior rating, the top rating while the choir received a rating of Good. Junior Kim Kellogg received a Superior rating for her solo and has the opportunity to go to State Music Festival in May. The band and choir both performed Friday at Sentinel High School in front of two judges. The band played "Dark Odyssey" by Rob Grice and...
SEELEY LAKE - If attendees closed their eyes Sunday afternoon they could have been transported to a jazz club in New Orleans as the music of the Tappan - Williams Jazz Quartet filled the Seeley-Swan High School gym. The group played two sets of jazz standards mixed with a few modern jazz tunes. This was the final concert in the 2 Valleys Stage (2VS) 2015-2016 concert series. The quartet included Ann Tappan on piano, vocalist and jazz trombonist M.J. Williams, Brad Edwards on drums and...
SEELEY LAKE - Alpine Artisans, Inc. (AAI) presents their first Alpine Review: Art Auction and Community Talent Show May 6 at the Seeley Lake Community Hall. Attendees have the opportunity to enjoy a silent art auction, delectable foods and local entertainment while supporting AAI’s youth art grants and scholarships. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. The idea for the event came from youth scholarship coordinator Dona Aitken. It replaces the Wine and Chocolate fundraiser and adds to the amount available for the grants and scholarships that comes from t...
MISSOULA - Increasing voter turnout is one of the challenges facing the Missoula County Elections office. In an effort to get more people to participate in the election process, the elections office is utilizing outreach and voter education. Maintaining an active voter status not only saves voters time but also helps save taxpayer dollars at the polls. In the 2014 November Federal General election, Missoula County had 85,905 registered voters but only 42,607 ballots were cast, a 49 percent turnout. In 2016, residents in the Swan, Clearwater...
GREAT FALLS - The first wildfire of the season in the Bob Marshall Wilderness was reported Saturday morning, April 9. The Elk Hill Fire was estimated at 1,086 acres on April 11 and 40 firefighters were staffing the fire. It appears to have been human caused from a warming or campfire but is still under investigation. The Elk Hill Fire is located on the Rocky Mountain Ranger District, Lewis and Clark National Forest. When the fire was first reported its estimated size was 500 acres. By the end of...
In Spring many animals have their young. Female chickens, called hens, hatch their young (chicks) from eggs. Whether newly hatched by a hen, in an incubator or purchased from a feed store or hatchery, chicks need care. Hens will protect their chicks until the chicks have matured enough to imitate chicken behavior. If the chicks come from another source and do not have a hen, people become the mother hen for them, talking to the chicks, keeping them protected and warm by using a brooder box....
LINCOLN - For a couple long weeks in April 1996, Lincoln was the epicenter of the biggest news story in America. The FBI arrested Theodore J. Kaczynski here April 3 in connection with the Unabomber bombings that had targeted universities and airlines for 18 years and reporters from around the country flocked to Lincoln. For two weeks, until Kaczynski was transferred from Helena to California, they camped out in Lincoln or called anyone they could, trying to dredge up any nugget they could on his...
SEELEY LAKE – Spring is here and the Seeley Lake Ranger District is interested in providing some flexibility to the existing Motorized Vehicle Use Map (MVUM) on roads designated as closed Dec. 1 – April 30. “We want to allow the public some level of early access where roads are open and dry and where resource damage will not occur while at the same time recognizing we have limited capacity to check conditions and install/move temporary signs,” said Seeley Lake District Ranger Rachel Feigley. The MVUM is part of a national effort to display...
MISSOULA – The West Central Montana Avalanche Center posted their last regularly scheduled avalanche advisory for the season Saturday, April 2. Additional updates may be posted if conditions warrant. Snowmobile trail grooming on the Missoula Ranger District on the Lolo National Forest and the Powell District on the Nez Perce- Clearwater National Forest has ended for the season. Roads that were closed to wheeled traffic during the grooming season may again be open in some locations. Recreation specialists are also advising snowmobilers to s...
MISSOULA - Judge Karen Orzech announced Tuesday, April 5 that she will be retiring effective July 8. The Board of County Commissioners will make an appointment to fill her position until a successor is elected at the 2016 general election in November. “It has been more than an honor, but a true pleasure, to serve the citizens of Missoula County as Justice of the Peace for nearly 18 years,” Judge Orzech said. “My judicial philosophy is to serve the public with kindness and respect while effecting a positive change in their lives by applying the...
BOZEMAN - Snow at higher elevations and rain in the valley yielded near to above average precipitation during March in all but one Montana River basin, according to data from the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). “The additional moisture increased most basin snowpack percentages this month to near to above normal, while the Sun-Teton-Marias continued to be overlooked by the passing storm systems,” said Lucas Zukiewicz, NRCS water supply specialist. In the Rocky Mountain Front, this year’s lack of snowfall has resulte...
When World War II started with the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Michael Milochik was attending high school in Aliquippa, Penn. Mike, like most of his classmates, had never heard of Pearl Harbor or Hawaii. He admitted that his main objective in life at that time was chasing girls around the city swimming pool in warmer weather but things were about to change. With his country now at war, Mike realized that he was ready to leave home and serve his country but he would have to wait...
SEELEY LAKE – If Jack from Team A is running neck and neck with Jill from Team B and they are 50 yards from the finish line, Jack’s coach might yell, “C’mon, you can do it. Pull out all the stops.” But why is Jack’s coach yelling about stops, when clearly his intent is for Jack to go, in fact to increase his speed. The origin of the phrase, pull out all the stops, actually has nothing to do with racing. It has to do with playing a pipe organ. Miles Hoffman’s “The NPR Classical Music Companion” calls the organ a hybrid instrument, a con...
Seeley Lake Community Trail Update SEELEY LAKE - Snowbanks have become a rare commodity on the local Seeley Lake community trails. The trails were not unscathed but didn’t suffer a great deal of blowdown from the big blow last fall. However there are a few trees that will need cut from the trails by our volunteer clearing elves this spring. Anyone wanting to exercise their chopping or sawing skills are welcome to take a walk on the west side trails or around the high school. They are easy to hop across if you want that kind of exercise. The n...
SEELEY LAKE – Pyramid Mountain Lumber Company, Inc. has maintained 140 employees and kept their doors open through the worst year financially the mill has ever experienced. Pyramid’s Chief of Operations Loren Rose said the mill intends to persevere and keep their employees on the payroll despite economic challenges. Rose said the biggest reasons for the loss of revenue are log costs and the drop instead of rise in market prices in the spring. Pyramid was the first of the Montana mills to adjust spending to account for poor lumber prices. Abo...
SEELEY LAKE - The Seeley Lake Volunteer firefighters and Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC) responded to their first out-of-control debris burn April 2 around 2:30 p.m. on Whitetail Drive in Seeley Lake. The fire was contained at 0.10 of an acre and no structures were lost. Seeley Lake Fire Chief Bob Vanden Heuvel said that it was a classic scenario for burn piles to spread. Burning conditions were perfect in the morning but changed in the afternoon getting warmer,...
HELENA - Wolf numbers in Montana remain healthy and well above federally-mandated minimums as the fifth and final year of federal oversight of state wolf management comes to an end in May. Montana's annual wolf report shows a minimum wolf count of 536 wolves in 2015, which is down from 554 in 2014. Included in this number is a minimum number of breeding pairs of 32, which is down from 34 in 2014. The difference between the overall minimum wolf counts in 2014 and 2015 is 18, well within the...
SEELEY LAKE - Pyramid Mountain Lumber excels again this year in grader performance. The Western Wood Products Association (WWPA) recognized Monie Bergeson and Rod Groom with the High Quality (Hi-Q) Award for their timber grading accuracy in 2015. They are two of the 10 graders currently employed by Pyramid. WWPA performs a monthly inspection of graders at various mills. Graders must be at least 95 percent accurate over the course of the year to qualify for the award. Typically more than half of...
SEELEY LAKE & DRUMMOND - The Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) would like to notify the public and seek comments on a proposal to install safety improvements on Highway 83 and Interstate 90 in the Seeley Lake and Drummond areas. The proposed project includes the following work at three sites: • Site 1: Highway 83 north of Seeley Lake between reference posts 19.2 and 19.7: Install a northbound advance intersection sign, nameplate and actuated flasher assembly for northbound traffic and upgrade the intersection signing for southbound t...
SEELEY LAKE - Todd Johnson, Seeley Lake Elementary (SLE) School Board Chair, will kick off the next Seeley Lake Community Council (SLCC) meeting with a discussion of the proposed SLE levy, which will be voted on in the May 3 Special Election. Filmmaker Jenny Rohrer will follow with the presentation of two movie shorts: “Keeping Clearwater” tells the story of the work that local volunteers and students are doing in collaboration with the Clearwater Resource Council (CRC) to learn about and protect local waters. The film illustrates how the...
SEELEY LAKE - On April 17 the Tappan/Williams Quartet will amaze audiences with their jazz selections and enormous talent. The concert, to be held at 3 p.m. at Seeley-Swan High School (SSHS), is the final concert for the 2 Valleys Stage 2015/16 season. The venue was originally to be the Presbyterian Church, but has been changed to SSHS. The four musicians of the quartet have vast experience and acclaim, nationally and internationally. The networks and collaboration these four have with famous...
MISSOULA – As it begins revising its 30-year-old Resource Management Plan (RMP), the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Missoula Field Office wants to make public involvement in the process one of its top priorities. The RMP, a key source for the field office’s planning and operations of 156,000 acres of surface BLM-managed lands and about 268,000 acres of sub-surface minerals, provides goals, objectives and direction to the field office for managing those public lands. The Missoula RMP revision process could last up to four years and will...
