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  • Why am I a candidate for Hill County Commissioner?

    Updated Oct 4, 2022

    Hi, I’m Les Odegard, independent candidate for Hill County Commissioner. Seems like this question is the top question I am asked. Sometimes it’s more like “why would you ever want to be commissioner?” I see this position as an opportunity to continue serving a community that welcomed me in 20 years ago. One that I have made my home. Throughout the past 20 years I have served on the 4-H Foundation Board, Crimestoppers, Havre Wrestling Club, Havre Chamber Ag Committee, Havre Public School Board, currently serving my 11th ye...

  • No redistricting without Native representation

    Updated Oct 4, 2022

    Every two years, Montanans who are elected from their communities travel from all over Montana to gather at the State Capitol to convene the Montana Legislature. During our time together, we work to deliver legislation that will help Montanans, including funding for our schools and hospitals, protecting our public lands, and keeping our economy strong. As a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, a Montanan and a state senator, I know firsthand the importance of having a fully representative legislative body...

  • Montana veterans encouraged to see if new PACT Act can help them

    Updated Oct 4, 2022

    We write this with the hope of reaching as many Montana veterans and their family members as possible regarding the recent passage of the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics — PACT — Act sponsored by Sen. Jon Tester. The PACT Act is a historic new law that expands VA health care and benefits for veterans — and their survivors. It recognizes toxic exposure as a “cost of war” by addressing the full range of issues impacting toxic-exposed veterans. Native American veterans serve their country at a higher rate per capita th...

  • View from the North 40: Science is taking us forward, even into history

    Pam Burke|Updated Sep 30, 2022

    Science news this week was dominated by NASA’s DART spacecraft colliding with an asteroid on purpose and proving that mankind can deviate the course of an asteroid — while simultaneously dashing the dreams of oil-rig workers everywhere that they alone will be able to save earth, “Armageddon”-style, from a killer asteroid in the future. That’s right, all current and prospective roughnecks in the oil and gas industry can officially stop practicing their space walk — which is an...

  • Letter to the Editor - Let's build a new lodge and keep the park as a park for everyone

    Updated Sep 30, 2022

    Editor, I want to clear up a couple things about a park board meeting, last one Sept. 12. I have been attending most park board meetings for 14-plus-years. I give reports on cabin owner items and what our group has been up to. We are a group, not an association. I give my ideas or suggestions as a taxpayer. When discussion about fixing the old lodge came up I stated instead of putting a lot of money in that building why not build a new one that will last many years and not be a bandage or a temp fix. I want a new building...

  • Buchanan has Montana heart

    Updated Sep 30, 2022

    I met Gary Buchanan almost 25 years ago when he worked at D.A. Davidson. In the years since, he became a trusted friend and advisor. Gary always tells you what he truly believes, listens and takes into consideration what others have to say, takes the time to educate himself, and can admit when he is wrong. For these reasons and more, I’m honored to endorse my friend, Gary Buchanan, as our next Congress person in the Eastern district. As a former Democrat lawmaker and statewide elected official, some have asked why I would s...

  • Why won't Congress act on COOL?

    Updated Sep 30, 2022

    A new poll conducted on behalf of the Coalition for a Prosperous America finds that 86% of Americans favor reinstatement of Country-of-Origin Labeling — COOL — for beef and pork. In 2015 Congress rescinded the requirement that imported beef and pork be labeled. However, it was only for beef and pork. All other foods, including lamb and seafood, continue to be labeled. Immediately following this action by Congress cattle markets crashed by nearly half, resulting in billions of dollars lost to ranchers in rural states such as...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: Night cooking

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Sep 30, 2022

    Do you ever spend the night working? Without getting out of bed? Not creative thinking, not mentally composing poetry or writing love (or hate) letters you will never send. I mean real physical labor type working. I just spent the night cooking, perfecting my version of pay de chili marron, translated as bell pepper pie. Without getting out of bed. This is not a usual Mexican dish. You could peek into every kitchen in Etzatlan and you won’t find a slice of this exotic pie. A...

  • The Postscript: Bad-news expert

    Carrie Classon|Updated Sep 27, 2022

    It’s not always easy living with me. But my husband, Peter, has to. I know it is not easy, because I live with myself every day, and I feel the bits of anxiety and nervousness and occasional emotional overload escape out of me and flood the house that Peter has to live in. Sometimes, I feel bad for him. The problem I am currently facing is a little too much good news. I am well-conditioned to bad news. I know it is like a physical pain that will pass, often much sooner than I...

  • View from the North 40 - Porch pirates vs. the responsible citizen: A PR issue

    Pam Burke|Updated Sep 23, 2022

    Don’t get me wrong, I love dogs but I love cats, too, and I feel bad that as a species cats have a continual public relations problem. I followed this UPI headline — “Missing cat returns home, rings doorbell in New York” — to a video of exactly what the headline promised. The story goes that a family moved to Mastic Beach, Long Island, and two weeks later their cat Lily didn’t come home one night, the family feared the worst. Four days later, the cat came home to the porch a...

  • Looking Out My BackDoor - Shake, rattle and roll

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Sep 23, 2022

    That was some rattle-my-bones earthquake! When the shocks reached me, I was sitting at my computer, working on my Spanish. Immediately my chair became a rocking chair. Instantly I knew it was a quake. I could see the light fixtures swaying over my stove and sink. The twenty-litre bottle of drinking water threatened to jump from the ceramic holding jar. My mind erased everything I had learned about quake safety. All I knew for sure was that I wanted to be outside in the open ar...

  • Column - On the sidewalk

    Carrie Classon|Updated Sep 20, 2022

    I met Betty sitting outside on the sidewalk. Betty spends a lot of time there. She lives in the adjacent building. It is a place for older folks who need a lot of help and don’t have a lot of money. Betty lost both legs, below the knee, at some point. She wears a curly wig pulled down low on her head, and she is usually smoking a cigarette, out on the sidewalk, accompanied by a few other residents from her building. I walk by Betty’s building a lot. “How are you doing today...

  • Column - Busy week with education in interim committees

    Russ Tempel|Updated Sep 20, 2022

    I spent much of last week in Helena hearing Interim Education Committee issues and attending a joint meeting with the Interim Budget Committee. Monday was spent engaging with the Board of Education, Office of Higher Education, Office of Public Instruction and hearing report outs. We also followed-up on the bills our committee worked on over this past year between sessions. For the most part, members of the committee are in agreement on the proposed bills, except for proposed bill PD32. This proposed bill was to update...

  • Supreme Court: Mack Truck v. Motor Scooter

    Bob Brown|Updated Sep 20, 2022

    Judicial independence is a matter of constitutional law and American tradition. By the strict design of our Founders, our separate court system has been independent of party politics, and therefore not guided by party platforms and party leaders as are the other two branches of our government. In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt tested that separation. Frustrated by the U.S. Supreme Court’s resistance to his New Deal programs, FDR backed legislation to essentially expand the court from nine to 15 members. With his o...

  • Letter to the Editor - Remember: Parking restricted during festival days

    Updated Sep 16, 2022

    Greetings community of Havre, As we celebrate Havre Festival Days 2022, many fun events will take place in the downtown area bringing an increase of pedestrians and vendors to gather and celebrate at Town Square. For the safety of everyone and to provide ample space for the community to unite and celebrate together, street closures will be implemented from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 17. Affected areas are Third Avenue between First and Second streets, as well as the parking lot at Town Square. The parade will take...

  • Letter to the Editor - Protect our rights in November

    Updated Sep 16, 2022

    Editor, What do you picture when you think of Montana? Is it the huge swaths of hikeable nature? Our varied individual liberties? The nation’s best fishing and hunting? Or is it privacy from the chaos and prying of more populated states like California? Fifty years ago, Montanans decided that these things were important enough to our culture to be enshrined as rights within the state Constitution. The product was the creation of the greatest constitution in the nation; one chock-full of rights that average Montanans see the f...

  • Letter to the Editor - Protect the Montana Constitution in November

    Updated Sep 16, 2022

    Editor, The Montana Constitution is in peril and its consequential protections towards citizens are at risk. My name is Liam Edwards and I am an intern at the Montana Public Interest Research Group. The current Montana Constitution has offered protections for us for over 50 years. It guarantees our right to privacy, right to a clean and healthful environment, and the right to oversee government proceedings. These rights are important because they guarantee public land and water access. Public access to land and water means a...

  • View from the North 40: That does not mean what you think it means

    Pam Burke|Updated Sep 16, 2022

    My column headline is a paraphrase of a quote from the book and movie “Princess Bride” in which one character repeatedly comments “Inconceivable!” every time something outrageous occurs to thwart his plans, finally prompting another character to say, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” The reason for the paraphrase though, is because this time we’re talking about a candy rather than a word. Specifically, it’s a gummy bear-style cand...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: Nobody talks about that!

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Sep 16, 2022

    I had a restless night, had made a hasty decision hard to unmake, nothing important, but irritating, and my mind wanted to run it on a Mobius Loop. I said, Enough of this. I’ll think about something else. On my bedroom wall I’d hung a beautiful depiction of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It’s not art, more like a framed poster. In the full moonlight, it was easy to focus on her calming face. I began wondering what the not-historic parts of Mary’s life might have been like and this is...

  • View from the North 40: The great story is everything

    Pamela Burke|Updated Sep 9, 2022

    “I’m jealous,” my husband wrote as a comment to an article link he sent me. “What a cool way to lose an arm.” How many times does a person get to say that in a lifetime? A lot for some of us, and for sure John’s persona story about losing an arm is epic. An 18-year-old gets into a motorcycle crash just as a paramedic instructor is driving by. What are the odds? The surgeon on call at the hometown hospital that day had honed his trauma surgery skill as a Navy hospital surgeon at the front lines of the Vietnam War. Does it get...

  • The Postscript: Sepia-toned teenagers

    Carrie Classon|Updated Sep 9, 2022

    “I don’t remember you at all!” the portly man informed my husband, Peter. Peter smiled, introduced himself, and reminded the gentleman where they might have met half a century ago. The man shook his head. “Nope!” This was the first high school class reunion I had ever attended, and it was filled with moments like that. I have never gone to my own class reunions. I’m not sure why. I was busy. I lived far away. I never knew more than a tiny fraction of the students in my class...

  • Looking out my backdoor: Down the Rabbit Hole with 'adicles'

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Sep 9, 2022

    Such a simple thing, making the bed when one gets up in the morning. If one does. Make the bed, that is. If that is one’s habit. Who’d have thought, who could have imagined, there would be at least five different things one did wrong every morning of one’s life while making the bed. Cor blimey. (I read that in a book. It means something similar to “what the hay” or “dang me, orter take a rope and hang me” and other phrases of utter astonishment.) How do I know that I and po...

  • From the Fringe: Thanks for helping the Havre Daily

    George Ferguson|Updated Sep 2, 2022

    Thank you Havre, thank you Hi-Line, that’s really all that needs to be said. Thank you. I’m saying thank you because, as many of you know, the Havre Daily News went through a difficult portion of the summer where our press required a major repair. As the old saying goes, you can live without a lot of things when putting out a newspaper, but a printing press isn’t one of them. During the almost two months our press was down, we did the absolute best we could to still bring...

  • View from the North 40: A little understanding makes everything better

    Pamela Burke|Updated Sep 2, 2022

    Sometimes, you just need to talk to someone who understands your condition. For instance, I have specific criteria to meet before protocols trigger a call to speak with a medical person. My doctor knows through experience I don’t call to see her for any old problem because she practiced medical due diligence, and asked one day why I waited so long before coming in. And I was, like, Hey, doc, I call for three reasons: 1) I’m off my feed. If I can’t stomach food, I’m critical. 2) I have something that registers in my mind as we...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: At the Orderaria

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Sep 2, 2022

    What a week. When my son flew back to Washington, along with a bundle of two-foot long cinnamon sticks for gifts to friends, he took my energy. I wasn’t worried. I knew that the following day my supply would be replenished. Sure enough, the next day I flew into a cleaning frenzy. Order was soon restored but I have a question. Where does order hide out that it needs to be restored? At the Orderaria, of course, Spanglish for the Order Store. You know, like “carneceria” (meat...

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