Reward could solve crash puzzle

Inter Lake editorial

Will a $60,000 reward help solve the mystery surrounding a brutal highway crash that claimed three lives?

We hope so.

Thanks in major part to the largesse of billionaire Tim Blixseth, a reward fund has been set up to find information about the Aug. 26 collision in which a Hungry Horse couple and a Montana Highway Patrol trooper died.

The reward quest is simple - to find the driver of the light-colored car that caused the crash. "Somebody drove that car. Somebody knows what happened," Blixseth said Wednesday in announcing the reward offer.

We hope someone will come forward so this case can be solved. Families of the three victims as well as the community deserve answers. And justice needs to be served as well.

It's not just the apparent recklessness of the driver who caused the crash that is so vexing; it's also the callousness of that driver who kept on going even though a horrific crash had occurred.

Anyone with information on the third car and driver involved in the crash is encouraged to call the detective division at the Flathead County Sheriff's Office at (406) 758-5600.

In our do-it-yourself society, perhaps it was inevitable that the last full-service gas station in the Flathead closed for good on Wednesday. Most of us have gotten used to pumping our own gas in order to save a few cents, but it's sad to see this Kalispell icon close.

The Kalispell Conoco, under different names, had been a part of the community for 67 years. It was known as a place where motorists not only could get their gas pumped and oil checked, but also could have a headlight changed or any number of mechanical repairs done without much of a wait.

Full-service filling stations are a slice of Americana that hearken back to simpler times. They were neighborhood gathering spots where you made conversation and eye contact with the fellow washing your windows. Self-service made pumping gas just another impersonal job.

Full service will live on, though, in old reruns such as "The Andy Griffith Show." Or travel to Oregon and New Jersey, the only states that mandate gas-station attendants.

Noah Webster would be amazed at the expansiveness of today's English language. And he'd no doubt have a thing or two to say about how the language has evolved - for better or worse.

Yale University is commemorating the 250th birthday of Webster, the teacher who proposed the first comprehensive dictionary of the American language. Even now, historians point out that "you cannot look up a dictionary definition today and not stumble across many definitions that were written by Noah Webster."

History books describe Webster's egotistical, opinionated nature. He held grudges and often times rubbed people the wrong way. But it's also clear he was a visionary whose 70,000-word dictionary published in 1828 - a project Webster spent 28 years on - helped shape not only our language but also America's identity. The fact that we still rely on Webster's fundamental dictionary format to increase our knowledge is a testament to a wise and insightful American forefather.