Montana News

One person is confirmed dead after a plane crashed yesterday in the parking lot of Lost Trail Powder Mountain on Highway 93 south at the Montana/Idaho border. Ravalli County Undersheriff, Steve Holton,  says Ravalli County dispatch began receiving calls about the crash shortly after 5:00 yesterday afternoon. Preliminary information suggests the plane was a Grumman G-21, an amphibious twin engine aircraft.

An explosion and fire at one of Plum Creeks’ Columbia Falls plants Tuesday June 10th will keep the operation shut down a month. The fire happened in the Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF) Plant, the neighboring sawmill and plywood mill were unaffected, and operations continue at those facilities.

Vice President of Northwest Resources and Manufacturing for Plum Creek Tom Ray said more than 60 workers on shift at the time evacuated safely.

The Montana Newspaper Association and MontanaPBS joined together to sponsor the first United States Senate and United States House of Representatives candidate debates of the political season.

The debates were held in the Library Auditorium at Montana Tech in Butte on Saturday, June 14, 2014.

Montana's parole board this week rejected a clemency application from Barry Beach.
    That means he'll continue to serve a 100-year sentence for the 1979 killing of high school classmate, Kim Nees, on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation.

The Missoula County Sheriff's/Coroner's Office has identified the victim of yesterday's river recovery as 71-year-old Melvin Arthur Beedle. 

It'll sound like something terrible is happening inside a Missoula elementary school tomorrow, June 13th, but rest assured; it's all staged and meant to train teachers and staff for a worst-case scenario.
     Missoula County Public Schools continues the district's Active Resistance Training from 8:00 a-m to 5:00 p-m at Paxson Elementary on the corner of Higgins and Evans Avenues.

Two alternative ways of getting teens to achieve their high school diplomas came together in Kalispell about a year ago. Director of the Linderman Education Center Jodie Barber says the Bridge Academy was one of the first in the state to offer an online graduation option for students.

The former director of the Missoula Symphony Orchestra is being remembered as a man who not only brought significant change to the organization, but did so in a gentle and thoughtful way.
       Joseph Henry died last Sunday at the age of 84.

Visitors to Glacier Park’s Logan Pass have likely seen and perhaps been followed by the Parks iconic mountain goats. This summer you might notice something a little different, goats with radio collars. Natural Resources Program Manager Mark Biel with the Park says researchers are looking to find out where the goats go in the fall and winter, if the goats that hang at Logan Pass are the same few goats, or several different herds, and who’s driving the human-goat interactions.

On June 7th, 1964 a warm weather system swept into Montana, dropping 10-to-12-inches of rain over the course of two days. The rapid snowmelt combined with the heavy downpour led the rivers to quickly overflow. Long-time Columbia Falls resident Ron Buentemeier says there had been high water years and flooding in the past, but in 1964 the water came up much faster than anticipated.