Columns
Searching for opinion based articles? Below we'll share opinion news articles on a wide variety of topics.
17 million words (or so): that’s all she wrote
Well, dear folks, the time has come for me to put down my pen — back away from the computer is more like it — an...
A sundry history with Yellowstone
The recent news of the devastating flooding in Yellowstone National Park and the surrounding towns had me thinking back to the summer of 2007 when I rode my bike into the park on the same highway that suffered ca...
New sawyers cut it up
When our dad suspected my brother and me of late-night carousing, he’d wake us up early to go get firewood.
Much ado about mulching
Anyone who’s lived in Northwest Montana for more than a few years is familiar with its typical rainy season — June. So far this month, that “wrings” true like a wet rag.
Ronan, C-Falls, Glacier and ‘a good time’
Kris Salonen reiterated this week that she loved basketball more than track as a high school athlete at Great Falls High. “But I was better at track, so I did that,” she said.
After the pen comes the pitch
As the minutes speed by until my turn, I am alternately amused and jealous of the quicker wits in this classroom at Flathead Valley Community College, the host venue for monthly gatherings of the Montana Screenwr...
Stellar jumps, sprints — and hoodies
Covering track and field is not supposed to hurt, but here I am nursing a swollen knee and it wasn’t for any sort of, you know, effort.
The Recession Queens
In 2009, when my daughter Talia was going to college in Seattle and living in a dorm, my sister and I concocted a scheme (Actually, my sister Barb recollects the getaway was solely my idea and that I was the one ...
Marker effort drives for safety
“Someone said, ‘We need to get with this white-marker program,’” Bob Bigler remembers of that American Legion meeting in 2005. “Well, I could help with that.”
Spring water safety
During the last couple of weeks there have been three tragic drownings of local folks enjoying some of Northwest Montana’s rivers and lakes.
Taking the long way home
Nine years ago, after my husband had completed work on an 18-month job in New Jersey, I flew out there to join him on a cross-country road trip back to Montana
Love of trees takes root
Kalispell Parks and Recreation pulled out all the stops for the 150-year anniversary of the tree-dedicated day in the United States.
The hummingbird, the opossum and the tarantula
Few would consider southern California a hotbed for wildlife — at least of the natural animal/plant kingdom variety.
For officeholders, the ears have it
The 2022 race for Flathead County commissioner has four contenders in the upcoming election. What makes it such a hot seat? I also wondered, What does a county commissioner do all day?
Food, a universal human right
I had intended this column to be about my memories of Easter Sunday growing up in Columbus, Ohio.
Some jobs start after the buck
“You and I, we could sign up and ride in the rodeo next weekend,” emergency medical technician Kim Vierra told me about the amateur rodeo staged between Kalispell and Whitefish.