Evel Knievel makes his last leap

Say what you will about Evel Knievel, he left his mark.

It might have been the scars on his oft-battered body. It might have been the tire marks on the ground where he came to earth after a motorcycle jump over a dozen cars or a half-dozen trucks. It might have been the way he turned daredevil stunt work into a sideshow worthy of P.T. Barnum.

Fact of the matter is, Knievel missed his mark as often as he hit it. He had the broken bones to prove it. But whether he landed true or landed hard, Evel Knievel always gave the people their money's worth.

Whether it was jumping the fountain at Caesar's Palace, jumping the Snake River Canyon or just bantering with Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show," Knievel was always entertaining, always brash and always "in character."

The red white and blue jump suit said it all. Evel Knievel was a true Montana original, and a real American folk hero in a time when heroes have been few and far between. Of course, like lots of folk heroes, he was larger than life. The real man had plenty of faults. There were allegations of domestic violence and drug abuse, and he would do seemingly anything for publicity.

But he was authentic, and that more than anything, accounted for his success and his celebrity. As the song playing at his funeral in Butte confirmed, "He did it his way."

There's a lot of support out there for our troops in Iraq.

Kim Jones of Bigfork found that out when she set out to get all 200 men and women in her son's infantry brigade "adopted" by people stateside.

Her quest to make sure someone is sending letters and care packages to each soldier succeeded many times over. She lined up volunteers from across the valley and from as far away as California and Colorado.

And packages and letters stemming from this recruiting effort are arriving regularly at the brigade's outpost southeast of Baghdad.

Jones deserves a salute for proving once again that one person can make a difference.

When they answer mail call these days, the soldiers in Todd Jones' outfit can attest to that.

Kalispell eighth-grader Cheyenne Moore may be destined for the record book.

Moore, 13, brought down a massive bull elk Nov. 23 in the MIssouri Breaks area of Eastern Montana.

The animal is probably the biggest bull ever killed by a youth hunter, and the impressive 7-by-7 rack may well rank as one of the largest taken by any hunter in Montana.

Her hunting success is more notable in that she was one of the limited number of hunters to draw an elk permit in District 700 - a district for which her father and hunting partner, Mike Moore, had been unsuccessfully applying for permits for the past 29 years!