News you can use
News you can use
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The Montana Wilderness Association, Island Range Chapter, kicks off the 2015 Wilderness Walks program in Havre on Tuesday, May 19, 6 – 8 p.m., at the Triple Dog Brewing Co., 651 1st St. West. Outdoor enthusiasts will have an opportunity to pick up a free copy of MWA's 2015 Wilderness Walks book. Snacks will be provided along with a chance to win a door prize. A presentation by local hike leaders will feature hikes in the Havre area. In addition, Josh Chase, an archeologist w...
Laurel — Havre is once again coming to the aid of someone in need. Rick Neuwerth, the owner of Grateful Bread in the Atrium Mall, has been beset with health problems. He’s on the rebound, but he has lots of medical bills to pay. People have been donating to help him get a handle on the bills, so he can keep his store open. Best of luck, Rick. Dart — The American Petroleum Institute is challenging in court new federal regulations designed to reduce the chance of explosions in train cars carrying oil. There have been far too m...
A group of sportsmen, backpackers and conservationists are urging the federal Bureau of Land Management to take another look at its plan for the future of public lands along the Hi-Line. Speaking with reporters Wednesday morning, members of the coalition said they wanted to preserve some of the best hunting land and open space in the West from encroachment of energy exploration, power lines or roads. “This is one of the last places in the country that looks like it did when Lewis and Clark were here 200 years ago,” said Dav...
The man who assisted Larry Denny of Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation in continuing to get paychecks from the U.S. government for a job at which he was no longer working was found guilty of his charges Wednesday. John Grimson Lyon, of Virginia, was convicted by the jury on counts of wire fraud, making false claims and theft of government property after making sure Denny was paid when he left his job at the Bureau of Land Management in Virginia to go to Rocky Boy to work with his own company there. Lyon’s sentencing hearing is...
Staff report The federal Bureau of Land Management is teaming up with other agencies to offer a day of education about wildfires in Glasgow April 8. “With a little warm weather, our countryside will certainly green up and some of that vegetation will become potential wildfire fuel later this summer and fall,” said Karly DeMars, a BLM fire mitigation and education specialist and chair of the event. “If this wildfire education day helps prevent one fire or helps one person stay safe around a fire, the effort will have been...
The jury trial for the supervisor of Larry Denny, who was indicted for accepting payments from a government job he had stopped working, began Monday. John Grimson Lyon, of Virginia, is accused of wire fraud, making false claims and theft of government property after allegedly assisting Denny in making sure Denny was paid when he left his job at the Bureau of Land Management in Virginia to go to Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation to work with his own company there. Witnesses who were sworn in to speak at the trial at Missouri R...
A Rocky Boy man who left his position working for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Virginia to come back to Montana — while still accepting checks from his former job — pleaded guilty to charges Wednesday. Larry Ray Denny, 66, pleaded guilty to fraud or scheme to defraud the United States, filing fraudulent claims relating to federal employment, claiming false representations as to outside income and theft of government property. Denny returned to Montana and contracted with the Chippewa Cree Tribe, and another BLM emp...
From Bureau of Land Management MALTA - Bitter temperatures and numbing winds did not stop smiling students from enjoying a day on the ice during the annual Nelson Reservoir Kids' Ice Fishing Day held Feb. 10. Students and teachers from Hays Lodgepole, Malta, Saco and Whitewater, joined members of the Malta Chapter of Walleyes Unlimited, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to learn how to fish on a frozen lake. "My stud...
Editor: Montana's Hi-Line is generally associated with grasslands, endless fields of wheat, large herds of cattle, and remoteness. It is all that, but it is also a place where a wilderness experience can be found. For those willing to get off the highway and explore the back roads, you'll find rugged prairie, breaks, badlands and island ranges that offer a natural setting where opportunities for solitude and primitive recreation are as great or greater than the mountains to the west. Most people have heard of the C.M. Russell...
Gilbert Bruce Meyers of Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation said he decided to try another tack this year in improving lives in Indian Country and filed as a candidate in House District 32 in this year's election. Meyers, a Republican, faces Rep. Clarena Brockie. D-Hays, in the election in a district stretching from outside Havre in southeastern Hill County including Rocky Boy through southern Blaine and Valley counties including Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. Meyers has worked...
CHINOOK - A Hays man has been convicted on two misdemeanor criminal counts in connection with the illegal killing of two elk in southeastern Blaine County last year. William J. Hughes, 35, initially was charged with hunting without a valid license for illegally killing a bull elk on Bureau of Land Management land in the Missouri River Breaks, hunting during a closed season for shooting at a cow elk with a rifle during the archery-only season, and accountability for the...
2 former BLM employees charged with fraud BILLINGS (AP) — Two former Bureau of Land Management employees in Virginia are charged with defrauding the government, one by abandoning his federal job and returning to Montana to work for the Chippewa Cree Tribe and the other by covering up his absence. Larry Ray Denny, of Box Elder, and John Grimson Lyon, of Clifton, Virginia, pleaded not guilty to wire fraud, false claims and theft of government property during recent arraignments in U.S. District Court in Great Falls, The B...
The federal agency that was looking at a potential land swap to open access to the Bullwhacker area in southern Blaine County said that swap is off the table. Bureau of Land Management announced in a press release Monday that it was no longer considering the swap proposed by brothers Dan and Farris Wilks, wealthy Texas businessmen with large amounts of land in central and north-central Montana. "The Bureau's preliminary assessment of a (variety) of land exchange options found...
Your daily look at news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today. CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION LIMITS LIKELY TO STICK THROUGH ELECTIONS: Officials say a court decision on whether individuals and political parties can give unlimited amounts of money to state candidates likely won't be made until after the Nov. 4 elections. Commissioner of Political Practices Jonathan Motl says the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals may schedule oral arguments months after a September legal brief is filed, which would push back...
BILLINGS (AP) — Montana's U.S. House candidates claim to offer "all-of-the-above" solutions to the nation's energy problems— a familiar mantra among politicians keen to give equal attention to fossil fuels and renewables such as wind and solar. Yet stark differences in the details of their proposals reveal a wide divide. Republican Ryan Zinke is a staunch fossil fuels advocate who questions humanity's role in climate change. Democrat John Lewis touts the potential for renewables that he says could transform the state's ene...
Montana Range Days began Monday at Camp Kiwanis in Beaver Creek Park, teaching students of all ages to identify up to 100 plants. Jan Pratt, a member of the board of directors for Range Days, said the adults and high school students learned about 100 plants Monday and the 9- to 11-year-olds learned about 30. "This is a real family event," Pratt said. This is Pratt's 25th Range Days event, she said. The program chooses a host town every two years and holds the event there for...
Range Days, a three-day event to teach students of all ages about identifying plants and assessing land for ranch use, begins today at Camp Kiwanis. Jennifer Kenck, administrator at Hill County Conservation District, said that this year is the second year the event will be held in Hill County “It’s been 10 years since this event was even close to Havre,” Kenck said. The event spends two years at a town and then moves to another host. Range Days is part of a state-wide program and changes host towns every two years. “It’s...
RENO, Nev. (AP) — The Obama administration is launching an effort to accelerate protection of sage grouse along the California-Nevada line with $31 million in spending through 2024 to help ranchers and others improve habitat in what one top official says may be the best, last chance to keep the bistate population off the list of threatened species. "This is the last train out of the station," Jason Weller, chief of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service, told The Associated Press. While t...
It's a big idea and it's rightfully reaping big debate nationwide. Can and should states assume control of federally held public lands within our borders? Many colleagues and experts throughout the west have studied the issue intensively, and we now believe there's no reason why we can't. The challenge is to get the facts on the table, put protections in place consistent with Montana values and prepare our state agencies for an orderly transition. Montana's study of public lan...
There are arguments pro and con — more con, we think — to the idea that state governments should take over federally owned lands in western states. A group of western Republicans met in Sandy, Utah, this weekend with the intent of pushing state-takeover of federal lands, claiming that states can do better at managing the properties for natural resource development, recreation and forest-fire fighting. Sen. Jennifer Fielder, a tea party favorite from Thompson Falls, became a spokesman for the cause, contending that the feds on...
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Officials from nine Western states say it's time they take control of federal lands within their borders. The lawmakers and county commissioners met at Utah's Capitol on Friday to discuss their joint goal of wresting oil-, timber- and mineral-rich lands away from the feds. The Legislative Summit on the Transfer of Public Lands, as it was called, was not publicized until midday, when the Utah House sent out notice of a 4:30 p.m. news conference. The result of the meeting wasn't clear. But at the news c...
There are a host of issues facing Montanas as they head to the polls this year, said Matt Rosendale, who is running for Congress. But most of them boil down to one particular problem, he told a handfull of supporters in Havre Tuesday night. There is an overreach of federal authority into state issues. Rosendale held a meet-and-greet with supporters at Wolfer's Diner in downtown Havre. He and liked-minded people in 10 other states are trying to convince the federal government...
HELENA (AP) — A conservation group has filed a lawsuit seeking documents concerning Attorney General Tim Fox's joining other states in protesting Bureau of Land Management plans to regulate hydraulic fracturing on federal land. Lee Newspapers of Montana reports that the Montana Environmental Information Center filed the lawsuit against Fox late last week in state District Court in Helena. In August, Fox joined attorneys general in Alabama, Alaska and Oklahoma in sending a letter to U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell e...
Too often in our debates over Montana’s public lands, we seem to forget just how incredibly lucky we are to have these lands at all. This is especially true of the 2.4 million acres of land managed by the Bureau of Land Management in the Hi-Line District of central and eastern Montana. These lands are the grasslands, sagebrush, hoodoos and coulee country that may lack the breathtaking scenery of Glacier National Park or the Beartooth Plateau but are every bit as valuable for livestock grazing, energy development, hunting a...
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials are seeking information from the public about the illegal killing of a bull elk in southern Blaine County. FWP Warden Dirk Paulsen of Chinook said the elk was shot and killed sometime between Oct. 24-27 on Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation school trust land in the John Coulee area east of Cow Creek and south of the Hays road. The poaching took place in Hunting District 621, where a special permit is required to harvest a bull elk. Paulsen said the animal’s b...
