Fire heroes help keep family intact

The mobile home was going up in flames Saturday night when a pair of heroes emerged on the scene.

With a 2-year-old girl stranded inside the burning structure, Kurtis McGathy and Dana Arstill ran into the home, grabbed the toddler out of her crib and carried her to safety.

Just like that - in a rescue that took all of 30 seconds - a child was saved.

The family of seven lost its home and most possessions, but thanks to the timely intervention of Arstill and McGathy, the most precious commodity - human life - was preserved.

We salute these local heroes.

He played a goofy, bungling character, but Bob Denver made Gilligan into a unique American icon.

"Gilligan's Island" only ran three seasons on television in the 1960s, but it has lived on and on for decades in syndicated reruns.

Denver, who died this week at age 70, gave the show a special flair. His bumbling antics as the "little buddy" to the skipper became known and loved by millions of TV watchers of a certain age.

It's hard to say what drew audiences to the skinny kid in the white sailor's hat, but Denver as Gilligan certainly endeared himself to the American public.

Perhaps it was his everyman's klutziness and sincerity that made him a television legend for a cornball show about a misguided three-hour tour.

One thing for sure - Bob Denver is one person about whom you can correctly say: "Gone, but not forgotten."

It will take time, but Montanans are eventually going to know a lot more about the state's largest grizzly bear population.

It's worth the wait and worth the effort.

While a massive DNA-based study will produce an unprecedented "snapshot" population estimate of grizzly bears in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem, a tangential study will focus on population trends by monitoring birth and death rates among radio-collared female grizzly bears.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has taken the lead on the trend study, which should be highly revealing within five years. Environmental groups have long claimed that the bear population is declining, while others believe it is increasing, based on sightings of bears in places on the ecosystem's periphery where they haven't been seen for years.

One way or the other, we'll have better information that should lead to sound management decisions that affect bears and people.