Features

CHARLO – Focused on supporting art and culture in the Mission Valley, volunteers with the Ninepipe Arts Group held fundraisers and baked treats to bring art camps, scholarships and theater to the area. Last weekend, the group’s fundraising efforts came together to pay for a theatrical presentation by Montana Shakespeare in the Parks again this year.  “I think this is the best turnout we’ve had,” volunteer Ben Ferencz said as he looked at a crowd of about 300 people gathered under the tall willows in Charlo on Saturday. Ferencz wasn’t sure what brought so many people to the event this year. He speculated that it might be the “perfect we...

By Briana Wipf                   Cut Bank Pioneer Press Bobbing his head to the music, swinging his brown jaw-length hair from side to side, Jack Pierre sings dramatically along with the music, the Killers’ “Somebody Told Me,” sometimes lettin...

SEELEY LAKE — Strings, anchors, balloons, the colors of the rainbow: To hear students and teachers talk about the Kaleidoscope Connect program’s lessons sounds like listening to attendees of a New Age carnival. But to the seventh and eighth graders at Seeley Lake Elementary, each color and code w...

When Don Lilley was 16, he figured he didn’t need school, and quit.  When he turned 17, his dad figured it was time Don learned a thing or two and took him to the local draft board.  Shortly thereafter in 1964, Don was in Butte volunteering for three years as a paratrooper and was assigned to...

In late 2017, Montana legislators voted to substantially cut funding for mental health care, in response to a budget shortfall. In the wake of the budget cuts, a group of Montana newsrooms, in collaboration with High Country News and the Solutions Journalism Network, explored how communities are preventing t...

After graduating from Harvard Medical School in 1986, Bill Thomas started working as the medical director of a small nursing home in central New York. It was a run-of-the-mill institution, “depressing and dispiriting,” he says. He was attending to an elderly resident’s rash one day when she...

ST. IGNATIUS – Youth leaders on the Flathead Indian Reservation pointed out that kids need positive connections with other kids to help prevent health problems, addiction, and even suicide.  Willie Stevens, Youth Leadership program coordinator, said that adults are listening. The program he hel...

About a mile west of Highway 93 off the beaten path, sits one of Lake County’s smallest airfields. But you can’t buy a ticket or even catch a flight.  The airfield, located at the corner of Minesinger Trail and Farm Road, is home to the Mission Valley Model Aviators (MVMA), a group of ope...

Jack Fay’s buddies who had gotten their draft notices told him he was on his way to being next. He didn’t want to dig foxholes for the Army and he liked water and ships, so he talked to a Navy recruiter in Missoula. On Sept. 5, 1961 he officially joined the Navy. Boot camp was 12 weeks in San ...

Sarah sat in her Livingston home with the front door locked and her eyes closed, picturing the path to Gallatin Mental Health Center in Bozeman for day treatment. It’s 26 miles, across a pass, with strangers at the end of the trip — too far, for someone who struggled to imagine walking around the...