Flathead Valley Feature: Kalispell, Montana News

Brock Osweiler’s powerful right arm is a mystery even to him.

His legs have helped him elude linebackers on the football field and elevate to block shots on the basketball court, but it’s that arm that has shattered quarterback records at Flathead High School and given him such a pretty release on his jump shot. He can’t explain where he got it from – his mom, maybe. And now that arm is taking him to Arizona State University to play quarterback, and possibly beyond.

Following a slow start, deer hunting in northwest Montana has picked up over the past two weeks, due more to the arrival of rutting season than favorable weather conditions. A lack of snowfall continues to hurt productivity in some areas, and check station counts for whitetail bucks and total mule deer are still well below the past decade’s average.

UPDATE: Republicans today sent out a news release with more party leadership criticizing Democratic House Speaker Bob Bergren of Havre for what they call an "unprecedented power grab." State GOP Chairman Erik Iverson, former gubernatorial candidate Roy Brown, and former Republican leader Bob Marks of Clancy weigh in:

“Montana voters elected 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats to the House of Representatives. Folks expect legislators to share leadership and conduct the people’s business diplomatically and cooperatively as done in past split sessions,” GOP Chairman Erik Iverson said. “Speaker-elect Bergren's unprecedented power grab sets a hostile, highly partisan tone for the upcoming session. I'm still hopeful that cooler heads will prevail and that fair-minded Democrat Party leaders will step in and stop this plan.”

As consumers nationally, worried about their jobs and the market turbulence, have cut back sharply on spending, the fight to bring new retail businesses to empty lots in Kalispell becomes increasingly difficult.

“If retailers are thinking about coming here, unless they’re way, way down the line and that money is allocated already, I think they’re simply going to delay because economic conditions don’t allow them to make those expenses today,” developer Phil Harris said.

Elaine Badley has worked at Semitool for the past eight years. Now, following her Nov. 10 layoff along with 99 other employees, she enters what she calls the “world of the unknown.” Indeed, with a shortage in federal funding for displaced workers’ programs and a destabilized job market, the Flathead is a land of uncertainty for those looking for work.

And there are a lot of people looking for work.

The first ever LIFE magazine was published on Nov. 23, 1936. The photograph depicts five concrete monoliths, the architecture made stronger by the stark black shadows and white highlights, contrasted in proportion to the two people at the base of a column. The picture was made by Margaret Bourke-White and her subject was the Fort Peck Dam (here) on the Missouri River in Montana. She titled the photo, "New Deal, Montana: Fort Peck Dam," (although the photo is actually of the spillway three miles east of the dam).

Now, almost 72 years to the day, Time Inc. has announced that access to more than 10 million images in LIFE'S Photo Archive will soon be available in a new hosted image service from Google (here).

The stage is set for large-scale development along Kalispell’s south side, with the city council voting Monday to annex 82 acres between U.S. Highway 93 and Lower Valley Road, and holding a public hearing on a zoning change that would facilitate development of some 550 acres along the west side of U.S. 93.

No major objections were brought forth by the public at the hearing to change the zoning in an area loosely defined as south of Cemetery Road, east of Airport Road, west of Demersville Road and north of Rocky Cliff Drive. Siderius Family Limited Partnership wants to eliminate the light industrial and suburban residential zoning designations in this area to accommodate a 207-acre development with high-density residential homes and a commercial center. Initial sketches of the project indicate 523 dwelling units, though numbers are likely to change as the project progresses.

At the food bank in Kalispell, with just a week before the Thanksgiving holiday, Director Lori Botkin is stocking up on supplies: turkeys, huge bags of potatoes and loaves of bread. For the first time in her four-year tenure, she’s out of canned vegetables.

And in the food bank’s lobby there’s another first: An overflowing crowd of local citizens waiting patiently to take home their share of foodstuffs. Many of them are “middle-class families,” who have never needed the food bank before.