Outdoors: Help us feature OUR outdoors

Hello folks who love the outdoors as much as I do. My name is George Ferguson and I am the sports editor here at the Havre Daily News.

I am writing this column to tell you all about some changes/additions we are making with our Outdoors page here at the HDN.

For many newspapers, and especially those in Montana, sports and outdoors seem to go hand-in-hand. I've always thought so, too. So I am announcing that we are now making our Outdoors section, in essence, an extension of the Sports section here at the Havre Daily News, and the page and content will now fall to me.

I am excited about the opportunity to work on the Outdoors page, for many reasons. As I mentioned, professionally, I've always felt that the two sections should be indeed melded together.

But my excitement goes well beyond that. I grew up here, I've lived here for my entire life, minus the five years I spent at college in Missoula. So the outdoors, especially in our coverage area, has always been a passion of mine, just as I am sure it is for the many who read our section each week.

Needless to say, I grew up hunting and fishing all over the Bear Paws, Hill County and beyond. I grew up camping, and tromping around Beaver Creek Park and, to this day, love any chance I get to spend out there. In other words, I love what our area has to offer in the way of outdoor recreation and beyond, and I very much want that, our area, to be the cornerstone of our Outdoors section.

Now, to do that, I will need your help. I have lots of great ideas and things I want to feature in our Outdoor section, which will continue to run every Thursday. I want to feature as much of our own area's recreation, from fishing derbie, to skiing, hunting stories, hiking, mountain biking, Beaver Creek Park, Fresno Reservoir, our wildlife and anything else that I, and you, think should be in the Havre Daily News' Outdoor section.

So like I said, that's where you come in. Since I'm just getting started with this, I want to ask all of you who are involved and who care about the outdoors in our coverage area to please not hesitate to contact me with information, story ideas, photos and photo ideas, news and upcoming events. In other words, I want to hear from all of you. I want to get to know all of you, and I want to include all of you and what you have to offer in our Outdoors Section.

It's my belief that those of us who love the great outdoors here in Havre and all over the Hi-Line, literally live in one of the best places for it. From the Missouri River, to the Canadian Border, our coverage area has so much to offer in the way of outdoors and outdoor recreation - and I want to highlight that in our Outdoors section as much as I possibly can.

So again, please, let me hear from you, via email at [email protected], or by giving me a call.

I'm excited to take this adventure on. After all, the outdoors is an adventure, and it's one that here in our coverage area, I think is a great adventure 365 days a year.

So let the outdoors fun begin, and I look forward to hearing from you, covering all your great events, and featuring our great area in print and in wonderful pictures each and every week.