Trio of veteran Belgrade teachers retiring
Long-time third-grade teachers Lynn Johnson, Jan Savko and Diane Thomas all retired at the end of the 2009-2010 school year, closing the textbook on 113 years of combined Belgrade teaching experience.
Local Stuff
Improving the Chronicle’s online election coverage
June 8 marked the Chronicle’s first “live” election, in which results were updated online throughout the night. Now I want to know what we can do better for the November election.
YouTube and flooding on the Gallatin River
A local video showing some of the flood damage along the Gallatin River on June 7, 2010.
Montana secretary of state starts a Twitter account
As the June 8 primary election approaches, Montana’s secretary of state has started a Twitter account to help quickly get election information to the public.
Network upgrades cause Internet slow-downs for some Bresnan customers
A network upgrade has slowed Internet access for some Bresnan customers in Bozeman.
Montana FWP’s online licensing system crashes on deadline day
The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks says its online hunting licensing system crashed on the last day to apply for special hunting permits.
Montana State University moon robot close to winning NASA competition
A robot moon digger designed by Montana State University engineering students will finish either first or second at a competition at Kennedy Space Center today.
Technology cuts win Montana cost-savings suggestion contest
Delaying purchases of new computers and reducing the number of state wireless devices topped a list of the public’s suggestions for saving the state of Montana money.
Behind the scenes on the Backroads beat: Learning Spanish
I just got back from an interview for my next Backroads story, due out Monday. This will be the third Backroads in a row to profile a local veteran — the series is a lead-in to Memorial Day at the end of the month.
I interviewed Earl Vining, a 78-year-old veteran of both Korea and Vietnam. Earl is a talker, and reporters love talkers. The problem, though, is that you wind up with more material than you can possibly fit into the column inches allotted to your story.
I guess that’s why the journalism gods created blogs.
Anyway, here’s a story that Earl told me during our interview today.
Read More »Behind the scenes on the Backroads beat: Learning Spanish
Montana Attorney General warns of new robo-call phishing scam
The Montana Attorney General’s office warns that Montanans may be targeted by a new phishing phone scam. The scammers’ robo-call happened to call, of all people, the Office of Consumer Protection’s lead attorney Jim Molloy.