Trekking "The Bob"

Bob Marshal trekIf you can't hike like Bob Marshall, then you can always follow along in spirit and get a good photo while you're at it.

That's how photographer Chris Peterson spent his summer.

He originally wanted to do a series of day-hikes for the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act.

The 17-year veteran of the Hungry Horse News planned on trekking 50 miles a day for five days, and had already completed one such hike in the Scapegoat Wilderness.

Then he came upon wilderness pioneer Bob Marshall's hiking journal, posted on the website of the foundation that bears his name.

It's a log, jotted in pencil, of an eight-day, 288-mile hike Marshall undertook in 1928 at the age of 28, traveling from the Swan Range to the Mission Mountain Wilderness.

For posterity's sake, someone transcribed Marshall's looping script on a typewriter, where the numbers lay clear the intimidating clip at which Marshall hiked.

He set out alone in the Jewel Basin and traveled all the way south through what's now the Bob Marshall Wilderness, crossed what's now Highway 83, and went "way back" into the Mission Mountains at an impressive pace.

"Bob was just an amazing, out-of-his-mind hiker," Peterson said.

He did the math, and estimates Marshall must've been averaging 4 to 5 miles an hour.

MORE>>>Billings Gazette

 

Program Changes at Montana NPR

Montana NPRMontana Public Radio has started a new schedule for its broadcast offerings, including changes to its Montana news and evening programming.

One of the main changes is that rather than grouping Montana news into a separate “Montana Evening Edition” program, MTPR will instead be including local stories and headlines during “Morning Edition” from 7-9 a.m. as well as “All Things Considered” in the evenings from 5-7 p.m

“This is going to allow us to continue to give a fresh take on the news, and provide more in-depth stories,” program director Michael Marsolek said.

MTPR is a public service of the University of Montana and is a National Public Radio affiliate the broadcasts in western and central Montana.

NPR national news program “Here and Now” will be added in each weekday at 1 p.m.

Several of the more popular programs are moving to a new time slot at 7 p.m. after the end of “All Things Considered,” what Marsolek called “some of the best of National Public Radio.” Shows like “Moth Radio Hour”, “This American Life”, “TED Radio Hour”, “The Write Question”, “Musician’s Spotlight” and “Radiolab” will now occupy this segment over the course of the week.

“We looked at it as also an opportunity to look at the schedule, rebuild the evenings, and move some popular programs into a prime time block,” Marsolek said.

MORE>>>The Missoulian

Fishin'

By Kyle Ploehn

Kyle PloehnKyle Ploehn is an artist, illustrator and writer living in Billings Montana. He likes to spend the few hours he isn't painting hiking the mountains of Montana.

Fishin' by Kyle Ploehn. Original 16x20 acrylic on canvas painting.Fishin' was one of those weird images that just jumped from seemingly nowhere into my head. I had enjoyed painting up the pixilation trout right before this image, but hadn't planned on doing another fish so soon when this surreal image just hit me. I found it light and funny in my sketches and decided as long as painting fish was still fresh in my mind I should just go ahead and paint it. The idea behind it plays out like life, we're going along with all these distractions and lures to catch out attention. New car, new house, new phone, we are always seeking out that new thing, but sometimes we've got to look beyond the immediate for the hand trying to catch us for dinner.

 
The original is still available, an 16x20, framed for $550.
8x10 matted to 11x14 prints are available for $45. Contact me at [email protected], if you're interested in purchasing a print. Visit my online gallery and blog at http://kyleploehnart.blogspot.com or drop by Facebook and say, hey. https://www.facebook.com/kyleploehnart

Roadkill Dining Permits Issued

roadkill diningNearly a year after Montana initiated a method to legalize collection of roadkill, more than 800 permits have been issued.

“I’m elated,” said Rep. Steve Lavin, R-Kalispell, who carried the bill in the last Legislature.

Lavin said his purpose behind supporting the bill was to get meat into the freezers of people who could use it, so animals killed in collisions with vehicles wouldn’t go to waste.

“I’ve heard a lot of positive comments about it,” said Lavin, who is also a captain in the Montana Highway Patrol. He also endured a lot of jokes about the issue.

Painless permits

Under the new law, free permits can be downloaded from the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks’ website. They can also be issued by officers, such as the Montana Highway Patrol, who respond to wildlife-vehicle collisions.

“We’ve made it pretty painless for folks to get online and do this,” said Jim Kropp, FWP’s chief of law enforcement.

Although the agency had initially opposed the measure, Kropp said the program seems to be reasonably problem-free.

MORE>>>Billings Gazette

140 Bison Moved to New Home

bison in MontanaNearly 140 bison originally from Yellowstone National Park that were quarantined on a ranch owned by media mogul Ted Turner to create a herd free of a cattle disease will be transported late on Wednesday to an Indian reservation in Montana.

The relocation of the bison temporarily confined at Turner’s Montana ranch were part of a successful government experiment that isolated the animals to produce a band free of brucellosis, a bacterial disease that can cause cows to miscarry and affects about half of Yellowstone’s more than 4,000 buffalo.

   The Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission last month unanimously approved giving the brucellosis-free bison to the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in northeastern Montana.

  The commission chose the tribes over a proposal that would have seen animals from the country’s last wild herd of purebred buffalo sent to such facilities as New York’s Bronx and Queens zoos.

MORE>>>Reuters

Donkeys at Large; Illegal Use of Porta-Potty; Heavy Heist; Aimless Goats on Hwy 93; Chickens Murdered; Pumpkin Bombs

police reports 6:21 a.m. Two kids, unaware of the time change, were advised that school wouldn’t start for at another couple of hours and that they should return home.

9:11 a.m. A Kalispell man reported that someone broke in and stole the weight lifting equipment out of his bedroom.

9:32 a.m. A Whitefish man reported that someone trespassed onto his property and used his porta-potty without permission and, while in the porta-potty, the trespasser’s truck rolled away and into the resident’s garage. The garage was significantly damaged.

10:36 a.m. A woman called from Columbia Falls to report that her ex-boyfriend intentionally cut her off on U.S. Highway 2 West in Columbia Falls.

10:55 a.m. Someone on Chubb Lane reported that his chainsaw had been stolen.

11:17 a.m. A woman on Nicholson Drive complained that she was unsuccessful in her attempts to “shoo” away the neighbor’s loose and sometimes vicious dog.

11:36 a.m. There was a report of a small, loose husky on Grand Drive in Bigfork.

3:10 p.m. A woman on Valley View Drive complained that the neighbor’s chocolate lab was on her front porch again.

MORE>>>Flathead Beacon Police Reports

 

Bob Newhart in Montana--Finally!

Brian D'AmbrosioBrian D'Ambrosio is a writer/editor living in Missoula, Montana. D'Ambrosio is the author of more than 300 articles and five books related to Montana history, people, and travel. 

At 85, Bob Newhart is still a bundle of nerves prior to a performance. Before the curtain is slung wide open, there are pangs of insecurity.

“I always have the jitters,” said Newhart, who performs at the Mansfield Theater in Great Falls on Thursday, November 13, marking his first ever appearance in Montana. “If it is six o’clock and I’m going on at eight, I am pacing around, and that’s what I do. I’ve done it since the first day and I’ll be doing it until the day that I can’t do it. I’m a pacer. I pace. There is such an adrenaline rush before a performance.”

Born in 1929 in Oak Park, Illinois, Newhart’s early jobs included pinspotter at a bowling alley, delivery runner at a meat market, as well as advertising copywriter for Fred A. Niles, a major independent film and television producer in Chicago.

“I had a degree in accounting, and I came out of the Korean War in 1954. I worked as an accountant, but that was not meant to be. They had been offering me a promotion to Poland Springs, Maine. I decided that that was not going to be my life. I had a friend in the advertising business, and I worked six months as a copywriter.”

While working at the ad agency, Newhart and a co-worker would make long, indiscriminate phone calls to one another throughout the work shift. They recorded the phone calls as audition tapes for comedy work. The friend lost interest; Newhart, on the other hand, continued doing the phone calls solo – a routine that would in due course become indispensable as a stand-up bit. In 1959, a Chicago disc jockey heard his material and introduced Newhart to the chief of talent at Warner Brothers Records.

“That disc jockey was a man named Dan Sorkin,” said Newhart. “Dan Sorkin was not your typical disc jockey, he was more of a stream-of-consciousness thinker, with a great sense of humor. I always felt like I had a creative way of looking at things. I used to listen to “Bob and Ray” and their radio show, and I would have considered it a successful life to have written for them. The nightclubs took a chance on me, a guy who never did standup, and all those things happened.”

Warner Bros. signed the 30-year-old accountant to a contract based off of his recordings. Newhart couldn’t predict whether his act – signified by politeness, orderly behavior, playful intellect, and a strong sense of convention – would have longevity.

“I figured that I would try it for a year,” said Newhart. “If it didn’t work, at least I had the satisfaction of knowing that it didn’t. One year turned into two, two to three, and three to four, and it always held promise. I’d work part-time jobs, never pretending to be there long. I worked at the Illinois Unemployment Compensation Board behind the counter and at department stores. I couldn't spend the rest of life wondering if I was any good, I had to find out. I kept thinking that it would be good to give it another three months or six months.”

The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart blended the comedian's sense of awareness with silly situations.   Button-Down was the first comedy album to reach No. 1 on the Billboard chart, even edging out Elvis Presley's 1960 album The Sound of Music.

The rest of it – the variety shows, the sitcoms, the hundreds of standup and evening performances – is television history.

It’s self-evident that the culture of television has changed – some might say devolved or coarsened – since Newhart made his first network television appearance on the “Jack Paar Show” in the early 1960s. Attention spans have shrunk and the micro-celebrity “look at me" culture of people fretting about themselves and their Facebook status fermented. Newhart keeps a broadminded attitude when evaluating these changes.

“When I was playing in 1967, “The Driving Instructor” skit used to run around nine minutes. Now it’s bang, bang, bang. Nine minutes went down to six. Six minute routines went down to four minutes. When I was doing the show, we would take a minute to set up a joke and it was well worth it. Today, you can’t take a minute. It is 15 seconds and you have to have another one. When I was working on “The Big Bang Theory,” I was worried that I was holding up the show, because my delivery is different than the timing of the show. I wanted them to be very much aware that their pace was different than my pace – and that’s a reality. But that’s a reflection of what people what. And they are the ultimate decider.”

Newhart said that adaptability is still a necessary.

“I still totally feed off of the audience,” said Newhart. “There are certain lines you use or don’t use depending on how soon they react. They are your sensors. They tell you when to speed it up or slow it down, or if you should do or don’t do a routine. There is a presumed certain intelligence in my material – and a presumed intelligence in the audience.”

Newhart’s comedy is a highly witty design – and in large part an act of spontaneity. What situational gags will he tailor to the crowd in Great Falls, if any?

“A lot of it comes at the last minute, so I won’t prepare anything about Montana just yet,” said Newhart. “I have never been there and I’ve played just about every state, except Montana, and I don’t think Idaho. I have heard a lot about what it looks like.”

Newhart said that one of the addictions of comedy is that it is dangerous.

“It’s the danger of it that I love,” said Newhart.  “Walking on the stage, it’s like a scene from “The Deer Hunter,” with Christopher Walken, and they are spinning the cylinder, with the shell in the chamber. That’s part of the reason I do it. Would I play if there were a guarantee that all of the houses would be full and all of the people would laugh? I wouldn’t take it. The danger is in performing every night under different conditions.”

Comedy is an amusing game, and Newhart proves that it can be played with elegance, that an entertainer can ensnare a crowd without behaving vulgar, impolite or rude.

“I was never into shock just for shock value,” said Newhart. “I was never into material just to hear a gasp from the audience. I do agree that anything that happens to you is comedy. But I worked clean, and there were temptations to break away and get into shock. It never felt comfortable, though. Those forays just weren’t satisfying and I never derived a satisfaction from that. I am glad that the audience has a good time without my having to have referred to that.

“But I have no problem with others doing it. Richard Pryor was a seminal comedic influence of the past 50 years. I never considered someone like Richard Pryor shocking, because there was a Mark Twain-ish concept to his work.” 

A life that is empty of purpose generally stays a life that is empty of purpose, regardless of age, geography, or socioeconomic status. Indeed, Newhart doesn’t believe in a long, comfortable retirement, only a long, comfortable purpose.

“I can’t say that I’m really tired of making people laugh, or say that I hate making people laugh,” said Newhart, who lives in Los Angeles. “I can’t imagine thinking that. I have no hobbies. I have no other plans. The alternative is a dark room on Sunset Blvd with someone coming into the room turning on re-runs of “The Newhart Show.” That’s not my ideal.”

Newhart fell in love with the sound of laughter and he is indebted to it. He appreciates the world – and as a comedian he has always strived to involve himself with it and not stand aside from it; he is quick to point out that the audience is the experience.

“I will be changing plans in, say, Denver, and invariably someone will say, ‘thank you for all of the laughter.’ And I will answer, ‘it’s my pleasure.’”

 

Montana's State Parks Need Budget Boost

Montana State ParksLone Pine State Park. Wayfarers. Wild Horse Island.

This scenic area is home to many of Montana’s most popular state parks.

Through September, more than 500,000 people visited state parks in Northwest Montana, a slight bump over last year, according to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks data.

Statewide, the system of public parks attracted 1.94 million people, 3 percent more than a year ago, meaning 2014 is on pace to be the fourth consecutive record-breaking year for visitation.

With a total of 55 public state parks, Montana has the largest parks system compared to neighboring states, including Idaho, Wyoming and South Dakota.

Yet the operating budget and staffing levels are among the lowest in the region, creating a dilemma for managers hoping to maintain resources and infrastructure.

MORE>>>Flathead Beacon

Custer's Last Stand Cancelled for 2015

Custer's Last StandThe Custer's Last Stand re-enactment will not be a part of Hardin's Little Big Horn Days next year.

The Hardin Chamber of Commerce decided to cancel the annual show with Chamber Vice President Dan Kern saying it's time to re-evaluate the production.

Kern says with the Real Bird Re-enactment in Crow Agency the same weekend, the Chamber is trying to determine if there is a need for two re-enactments. But he says the plan is to bring back the re-enactment in 2016.