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It is the week before election Tuesday. I am pretty sure we are all tired of election fliers. I know I have issues that I hold as values that I judge the candidates by, but I’ll try to keep that to myself. Thomas Jefferson said, “The government you elect is the government you deserve.” I’m not going to say who or what issues in this missive, but I have a few scriptural principles I can share and then leave it to you to make up your own mind. Our challenge is we say we want change and we need something different, yet it seems to me that all the...
You can probably look out your window right now and tell more about the weather than I can as I write this. Same with river reports. I trust them almost half the time. We don't know exactly what the next couple of weeks will bring for weather. We could be looking at wind, rain and downed trees - always a hazard. If you're going out, be careful. The coming week calls for broken weather - clouds, rain showers, sunshine peeking through and temps in the mildly cool high 40s on down into the low...
We have news that we are anxious to share with you. The Seeley Lake Community Foundation wants to do more for our community, more for the people and this valley we all call home. Over the past 20 plus years we have endeavored to be one of the leaders in our community. To be a centering place. Through our programs, we have worked to enhance the viability of the many organizations that must rely on donations to survive and prosper. For instance, we established the Change Your Pace Challenge. Both full-time and seasonal residents of our community...
Calling all conservatives to register and vote early avoiding possible Election Day problems that may inhibit voting. Some elections were determined by just a few hundred votes, so your vote definitely counts. We are morally obligated to vote as not voting can promote evil. Even if we despise our party system, distrust politicians and have better values than the candidates, we are morally obligated to vote for whoever best advances the good. No one is perfect, but we must persevere, however slowly, overcoming evil by advancing the good for the...
Folks who live in our Seeley-Swan Valley fall into several categories: old timers, newcomers, “medium timers” and people who returned after many years. One person who returned after many years was Mabel Stilwell. Born Mabel Lundberg in the Swan Valley in 1917, she may well have been the first baby of white settlers born in these parts. Let’s take a closer look at the Swan Valley during these years, and where Mabel’s life took her. During the years around Mabel’s birth, the Swan Valley had homesteaders moving in, drawn by the beauty and amaze...
It has all come full circle. For the past six years, through all types of weather and against all odds, the Seeley Lake ROCKS team repurposed a former baseball diamond at the elementary school into a weather dependent, night lit, fully functioning skating rink, complete with free skates, helmets, nets and changing benches. Given the fickle nature of Montana winters, maintaining and operating an outdoor rink is no small task, and we depended on hearty skaters to pick up a shovel or a broom to sweep the ice from time to time. Countless Seeley...
Why do the people of the world stand in jeopardy? Because they cannot be saved without their families and their associates. They will continue to stand in jeopardy until the gospel is taken to them in such a way that they are willing either to receive it or reject it. These things of eternity pertaining to the spirit world and the hereafter were on the mind of the Savior when He was crucified. This is reflected in His statement to the repentant thief, which has puzzled many people: · And one of the malefactors, which were hanged, railed on him,...
Author's note: Some of you have asked, at various times, whether I'd reprint some favorite columns from previous years. For those of you who asked, and for those who missed it the first time around, here's an updated version of a favorite. Enjoy! Sunday afternoon found me with an almost desperate need to go fishing. I felt winter closing in, and in some ways it seemed as if summer didn't really happen as I approached Jan about going fishing. "I'll be ready to go by 2:30," Jan announces. That...
It’s the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Since Joe Biden and Kamala Harris took office, grocery prices have climbed 21.5%, rent has increased by 22.5% and electric bills have skyrocketed by 30.7%. Those are national averages, and in Montana, we’re feeling it a lot more. Electing Kamala Harris and other radical left Democrats to fix the economy they tanked sounds a lot like doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome. With that in mind, I encourage Montanans to ask the...
Jon Tester tries to project the image of a local Montanan fighting against the bureaucrats in Washington D.C. It is interesting that during Tester’s last election cycle, he did not carry the county in which he lives. Seemingly, those are the people that know him best. At this time, the Democrats hold a razor thin majority in the Senate. Out-of-state donors have contributed tens of millions to Tester’s re-election. Tester’s vote has been key to enabling the Biden-Harris administration to pass woke legislation and policies relating to borde...
We are writing to endorse Connie Keogh for House District 92. She brings years of personal and professional experience to this race including leadership skills, teaching experience and the “can do” attitude honed from years of hard work on the south-central Montana ranch where she grew up. Keogh has been our representative in HD 91 the past three legislative sessions. Due to redistricting, she is now running to represent HD 92. We were extremely pleased with Keogh’s representation when she served HD 91. We found her to be an extremely dedic...
So many topics, but my heart grieves for events locally. As happens in every community, we have had some sad events in our community. A couple of Saturdays ago, a guy was driving erratically, passing in no passing zones and shooting randomly. Leading to a police encounter and ending with him taking his own life. Then the next day, two gals and another couple were involved in a collision just south of our town. There were fatalities and others went to hospital. Of course, it is life in a small town, so the gossip is flying, the rumors are...
The first company to mass-produce the TV dinner was the Swanson company that sold 10 million trays in 1954, its first year of production. Following the lean casseroles of the 1930s of the great depression and the wartime meatloaves of the 1940s, American families welcomed progress and prosperity with frozen meals, canned foods and cereals. With the advent of the television, the family substituted the round-the-table family dinner with TV trays. We may blame our expanding waistlines, poor metabolic health and addiction to the screen on the...
Sunday was one of those crisp, clear, Indian Summer days I had been longing for since the smoke cleared. Like a lot of people I feel robbed of summer. Now its counterpart, and always my favorite time of year, is here. Our neighbors recently invited us to pick MacIntosh apples from their trees. Jan picked the apples and will make a pie. The leaves on our trees turned color and just as soon started blowing off. For just a little while longer, everything is glorious and alive before the onset of...
A few weeks back my opponent and I were able to share both of our visions for rural areas like the Seeley-Swan. I respect Rep. Connie Keogh for coming to our rural community to debate topics from property taxes to 2nd Amendment Rights. As I’ve stated, I respect Rep. Keogh, and thank her for her service as a representative for House District 91, a city house district. We agree on topics, such as preserving our public lands, and a Homestead Exemption that will lower full-time resident property taxes, and make second homeowners pay their fair s...
As a retired Missoula Municipal Court Judge, I write to ask for your support of District Court Judge Dan Wilson, candidate for the Montana Supreme Court. I have known Judge Wilson for many years, and he embodies the qualities we need on the Supreme Court. His background demonstrates a solid foundation to serve the state in that role. He has served as a prosecutor, and defense attorney, a civil attorney, a Justice of the Peace and, for the last eight years, a District Court Judge. He has provided training and mentoring to lower court judges. He...
Montana leads all 50 states in the total federal aid it receives as a percent of its total state revenue, 31.8%. Stated another way you could consider us a “welfare” state. Also, the largest employer group in Montana is government, local, state and federal combined. So when a candidate says he or she is going to cut federal spending and shrink government, we must understand we may be the most adversely affected. Montana has a large amount of federal forest service, BLM and national park land. Our state and federal park areas are combined nearly...
Allow me to share how the Rosary changed my life tremendously by helping me to understand the Faith more deeply, though it took many years after converting to start reciting and praying the Rosary daily. Why? Ignorance of the Rosary commanded by God through the Blessed Mother and also repetitious prayer seemed monotonous, but not as monotonous as my repetitive sins must be to God, I fear. What is the Rosary? The Rosary is a recitation and meditation on the life of Christ with prayers assembled from Holy Scripture: the Apostles’ Creed, Our F...
By reading the column “A Place for All” in the Pathfinder over the years, we can learn about the places, organizations and programs that make our valley a special place. We can remember what went on in the past underlies all of what we have now. In times like today with lots of changes happening, it’s important to look back at this history and ask ourselves a question. Is what we are today because of external — things from the outside -— or internal, driven by those who live here? The answer is both. Indigenous peoples were present in our ar...
On a sunny Thursday in August, Lisa Hathaway and Rachel Jaquith knelt on the concrete floor of Missoula's Johnson Street Emergency Shelter to help a patient with a painful wound on his abdomen. "Let's see what we can do to help you out today," said Jaquith calmly. Jaquith, a registered nurse, and Hathaway, a physician assistant, are members of Partnership Health Center's Community Care Team, or CCT. Sometimes called a "street medicine team," the CCT supports Missoula's unsheltered neighbors...
In 2020 Montanans elected a super-majority of Republicans to govern our Last Best Place. Republicans currently control every branch of government. The consequences of that election cost ordinary Montanans dearly. Homeowners saw huge property tax increases. Housing costs increased and that burden is passed on to renters. Our utility rates were also raised by 28% by a Republican dominated Public Service Commission. Montanans are understandably upset about being priced out of our homes. Who is getting blamed for this catastrophic mess? Montana...
We are truly at a crossroads in our great state. Do we maintain our traditional values of freedom and let live or do we sell our state to out of state billionaires? I for one am truly tired of newcomers coming and deciding what is best for Montana. I am a newcomer as I moved here in 1994, but I have embraced the values of our treasured state. I am very concerned about Tim Sheehy and his special interest groups. He just doesn’t feel like a good fit for Montana. Although I do not always agree with Sen. Jon Tester, Tester has done us right e...
In my 35 years as an attorney, I litigated cases in courts from Libby to Billings and in Municipal courts to the U.S. Supreme Court. I have had many complaints about many judges, but one judge of whom I never had any complaint is Jerry Lynch. I appeared many times before Judge Lynch when he was the U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge in Missoula. Although he often didn’t agree with me, I always believed he ruled according to the law and not because of personal bias or political beliefs. I have never before written a letter supporting a j...
My first experience with Christian nationalism was around the conflicts over the Ten Commandments being displayed on courthouse lawns. On the one hand, people of faith I knew and loved were concerned about the removal of these displays, fearing it was a sign that our government systems were rejecting the good, divine principles by which they believed it necessary to promote in order to have and form a society that was pleasing to God. On the other hand, other people of faith I knew and loved agreed that these displays needed to be removed....
For a good deal of my medical career there worked in my office an avid quilter. She participated in quilting groups, received quilting magazines and periodically went on quilting junkets, riding around a multi-state region on a bus with other quilters, allegedly stopping at quilting stores and networking with other quilters. I always wondered about quilters. If, for instance, you wanted to run a secret, special-ops, counterintelligence sort of thing, who would ever suspect quilters? We think of...
