Trego's Mountain Ear

"Serving North Lincoln County"

Tag: Lincoln County MT

  • Uncontested Elections

    What do you call it when only one person runs for office? An uncontested election. It seems like this must be a bad thing, and also that it is increasing in frequency. Is it?

    It seems, given the explanation about removing term limits at the last Interbel Meeting, that the situation is at least increasing in the telephone cooperatives. Watching the local school board shows a similar trend.

    How common are they by state? The data’s a bit hard to find- but at least some of it is out there. According to ballotpedia.org in 2020, 100% of Wisconsin’s local elections were uncontested. This seems a bit high- and they didn’t cover the local elections for Montana, so we can’t compare.

    That said, Massachusetts had 100% for state executive and 75% for state legislative. Alabama and North Dakota were 100% for state judicial. If it’s showing up at the state level, where it really ought to be easier to find two candidates, uncontested elections are likely more frequent at lower levels.

    Is this a bad thing? There’s an argument that electing (appointing?) the same people over and over ensures that an experienced person holds the position. However, there’s also an argument that doing so increases the likelihood of solving today’s problems with yesterday’s solutions.

    And, if the outcome is predetermined, why show up and vote? Our cooperatives have attempted to solve member disengagement by reducing the number required for a quorum. It’s a treatment- but it doesn’t consider any of the underlying causes.

  • In Case You Missed It

    In Case You Missed It

    It’s that time of the year again- time to watch for frog eggs, listen for sandhill cranes, examine thatch ants and watch for salamanders.

    Game Camera: Sandhill Cranes

    Perhaps you’ve heard the distinctive call of the sandhill cranes recently? -Patches We’re actually in at the very south edge of the breeding range for Sandhill Cranes. They’re not particularly picky eaters- they’ll eat snakes, frogs, insects, seeds… Often, we’ll see them in the spring, hunting frogs in shallow water.

    Frog Eggs and Toad Eggs

    Spring seems to have finally arrived, and soon the pond will be full of little frogs. As it turns out, frog eggs and toad eggs are different, and far easier to tell apart than the tadpoles. Frog eggs typically form nice clumps. -this years batch are particularly muddy. Toad eggs, however, will generally be in…

    Thatch Ants

    Our mound-building ants in this part of the country are Western Thatching Ants, Formica obscuripes.These ants are rather special because they generally have multiple active queens in a single colony – the young queens often help out and reproduce at home, instead of founding their own new colonies…

    Usually I don’t see Salamanders

    We seem to have made a good location great for salamanders – ours are long-toed salamanders.  Despite being in a near-perfect location for salamanders, most of the time we don’t see them.  The information is online- and the field guide does a pretty good job explaining why we see them rarely.  They’re classified as “mole”…

  • 75th Annual Meeting of Lincoln Electric Coop

    75th Annual Meeting of Lincoln Electric Coop

    Like last year, the meeting took place at Lincoln County High School, and could be attended by car. Unlike last year, in person attendance was also possible. Voting for trustees had already been done (Exclusively by mail), though the results were announced at the meeting.

    In a somewhat novel experience, there were (for one district) more candidates than vacancies, so the election had the possibility of making a difference. All three incumbents were reelected, including Tina Taurman (District 7). Taurman ran unopposed, with 335 votes.

    With coffee, breakfast (Four Corners) and 75th Anniversary cake (Second Chance Bakery) available outside the auditorium (and a video stream of the stage), it was a very comfortable meeting. Attendees could choose between the easy to get out of chairs outside the auditorium (but no back support) or the chairs inside the auditorium that offered back support if perhaps a bit more difficulty in getting up. Of course, the food (and coffee) was outside the auditorium.

    Folks were evidently pleased by the opportunity to be around friends and neighbors. It had the sense of after church coffee hour, if after church coffee happened during the service. Talking stopped for the pledge, and things were a bit quieter during the doorprize drawings, and much quieter for the luck of the draw scholarships. This year, the gift cards included one to Trego Pub.

    I did try to get closer to the speakers, since the actual meeting content sounded interesting. Unfortunately, standing up gave neighboring tables a view of my service dog, and the whispering kept things just as hard to hear as when I had been seated.

    So, having cake and hearing the meeting did not combine well. That said, I do still have at least some details to share. Ryan Hall (whose article can be found in the recent issue of Rural Montana) spoke about the efforts that Montana Electric Cooperatives’ Association (MECA) made to combat a feasibility study of breaching the Lower Snake River Dams. Replacing the Lower Snake River Dams with other clean-energy options would be very expensive, and, at least in the case of solar, impractical.

    Dam breaching is proposed for environmental benefits, in this case restoring fisheries to benefit salmon is a major concern. The electric cooperatives consider the new proposed study to be part of a strategy by people that want the dams breached to keep ordering studies until one meets their needs. Members attending the meeting were encouraged to fill out postcards to be sent to the governor, supporting MECA’s aims with regards to the Lower Snake River Dams.

  • TFS: Free Community Internet and Public Phone

    TFS: Free Community Internet and Public Phone

    We have an update from the community hall– as follows:

    Trego, Fortine, Stryker Community Hall (TFS Community Hall)

    Announcing Free Community Internet Access and Public Phone

    Trego— March 12, 2022 — As of today, free Wi-Fi is available at the TFS Community Hall for our community and visitors.  This area is void of cellular service and having accessible Wi-Fi coverage and phone will benefit the community by allowing communication where there previously was none.  With generous support and guidance from InterBel in Eureka, this service is now available to anyone in the Trego area.

    Safety and Convenience

    There is very little cellular service in the Trego, Fortine, and Stryker area and this means that travelers through the area are on their own if they need to reach family and friends, get directions or have an emergency and need services.  By having a publicly available land line and wi-fi that enables wi-fi calling on cell phones, the Hall is providing a valuable service to the community. There is a sign at the hall near the phone that outlines how to connect to Wi-Fi and enable wi-fi calling.    Once this is done, users can reach friends and neighbors, contact emergency services or 1-800 numbers.  No long-distance calling is permitted.  In addition, users will be able to access the internet for directions or any other purpose from the TFS Hall Parking lots.

    Product/Program Availability

    The phone will be located in the alcove at the front of the TFS Community Hall and is free for use for those without mobile phones or who cannot enable wi-fi calling.  It is available 24/7.  The wi-fi password is TheHall1947 and is available to anyone wanting to connect to the internet. 

    The TFS Community Hall hosts many community programs and with the support of InterBel, having access to phone and internet during these programs makes them far more efficient and enjoyable.  Currently the TFS Community Hall is available for rent for fundraisers and private events, they host a weekly Kids Play Day on Wednesdays at 10:30am, and distribute food on Fridays at 10:30 to over 150 families a week, and host a monthly community dinner.  All of these programs are free to the community.  The TFS Community Hall is exploring other programs and uses for the building.  If you would like to host an event or learn more you can contact them through Facebook or any board member.

    Annual Meeting

    The Annual meeting for the TFS Community Hall is March 25th at 5:30pm, free dinner will be provided by the TFS Community Hall and it is open to anyone who owns property in School District 53.

  • A Spy on Pinkham Creek

    Well, maybe we should call him an undercover agent.  In my youth, the term would have been narc.  Still, this story, from the old Forest Supervisor, C.S. Webb, is the closest to an official story of a Forest Service spy, working from the Supervisor’s office, monitoring the Pinkham Creek residents.  His whole story is at npshistory.com.

    In 1933, we were allotted 4 CC camps, and in 1931 the 4 CC camps returned and sufficient Dev-Nira and Imp-Nira funds were allotted to hire 200 men all season. In these two years, we built many miles of low-standard road, new towers and houses on dozens of lookouts, and telephone lines to serve them. A good start was made on a topographic map of the forest, and we built all the ranger stations as they stand today, except the Libby Station and the residence structures at Sylvanite, Warland and Rexford. The latter three were remodeled. The airfields at Troy and Libby were also constructed during those years. Times were hard, men plentiful, and the local populace was very appreciative of the employment provided by the Forest Service.

    It was in 1932 that Charlie Powell, ranger at Rexford, overheard a conversation at a trail camp between two Pinkham Ridgers, indicating that the Ridge-runners planned some incendiarism. He promptly reported this to me. The Ridge-runners were a rather canny clan who migrated from the mountains of West Virginia and Kentucky years earlier and took homesteads on Pinkham Creek and Pinkham Ridge. Their chief pursuits were stealing tie timber and moonshining, but occasionally they would set a few fires, “just for the hell of it – to bother the ‘Govment’ men,” and also to provide a few days’ work. A bad epidemic of these fires was experienced in 1922.

    Their planning in 1932 was to make lots of work. Bill Nagel, supervisor of the Blackfeet, and I hired an undercover man to go to Eureka to loiter and fish and get in with the Ridgers. He took an old Ford, rambled around the country, got acquainted with all of them, and finally joined their planning discussions after being accepted into their confidence. They completed their plans and set a date (August 22) for setting a string of fires from Edna Creek on the Blackfeet clear through to Sutton Creek on the Kootenai. A man was appointed to go into each drainage and the approximate spot was prescribed where he would set his fire. The complete plan, which was pretty thorough, was reported by our man directly to Nagel at Kalispell. This man was always around Eureka in the daytime, and whenever he had anything to report he drove into Kalispell during the night and was back before morning. We never phoned or wrote to him, nor did he to us. He was an ex-forest officer known to Nagel and me as a fully reliable man.

    The day before the scheduled setting of the fires, we had two or three men in the vicinity of where each fire was to be started and quite a few others at anticipated places of travel by the Ridgers in or out of the woods. Our men met several of the Ridgers, who appeared very surprised to see someone. Our fellows saw others they did not meet, and likely our men were seen, too. We had hoped to catch at least one or two Ridgers in the act, but not a fire was set. Our undercover man was out on the fire-setting expedition with one of the Ridgers and joined in their talks after they returned to Eureka. They had tumbled immediately to the fact that we had gotten wind of their plans, since everywhere they went they encountered someone. But, they never suspected our undercover man, and to this day, old timers there are wondering how we got next to their plan. I have never heard since of any attempts at incendiaries in that area. Previously, there had been several outbreaks, and one man served time in Deer Lodge for setting a fire on Pinkham Ridge.”

  • School Maintenance and “Out of the Box” Thinking

    Time on the school board has brought building maintenance and neglect thereof to my mind.  Unfortunately, the only school that has done a respectable job is Fortine.  Here at Trego, we received a new school at Federal expense in the mid-sixties so that the community would be capable of serving the many kids who came in with parents working on the tunnel and railroad relocation.  Fifty years went by without establishing a building reserve fund or a maintenance schedule.  A new building doesn’t need much maintenance – but planning for maintenance, scheduling maintenance, and having a building reserve to pay for maintenance keeps from having to call for a special levy and passing a bond.  We have started the building reserve fund – but it should have been started at least 25 years earlier.

    It’s easy to defer maintenance.  There is always someone who needs money for a different purpose – and the building stands quietly when it is short-changed.  I have a lot of respect for the school boards that stay conscious of the fact that it’s cheaper (in the long run) to maintain the school than go to the voters to authorize a bond to build a new one. 

    So I’m reading the Tobacco Valley News, and I notice that we’re not alone – Rebecca Nelson’s article (p5, V62, I42) tells of Eureka’s woes:

    “Mepham said he believed the bond wouldn’t have passed, but that the district absolutely needs new buildings.  “To put all our money into one K-4 building with the idea that someday we’re gonna get some more money and put it into the junior high, that’s good in theory, but the bottom line is, that means the junior high would have to make 20 more years in the condition it’s in.” he said.

    Mepham reminded the board of a 2007 facilities report which he said essentially put the junior high as the worst facility in Montana, with the elementary close behind.  Now the most urgent needs are for a boiler at the junior high and a roof for the high school, each with a price tag of at least a quarter of a million dollars.  “We’re going to nickel and dime this district to death.” he said.”

    Tobacco Valley News, article by Rebecca Nelson

    That’s an interesting choice of words – the purpose of a building reserve fund is to accumulate nickels and dimes so that the school can have the funds to pay for maintenance projects as they are needed – without passing special levies.

    Mepham acknowledged the restrictions of the elementary district’s bonding capacity and rising construction costs, and suggested it might be good to think outside the box and make use of the higher bonding capacity of the high school district, to build a new high school and junior high and remodel the current high school as an elementary.”

    Tobacco Valley News, article by Rebecca Nelson

    I’m not sure that turning Lincoln County High School into an elementary is out of the box thinking. There was a boiler in the building when I attended LCHS, and I have a strong suspicion that folks thought outside the box and made use of the higher bonding capacity of the high school district then remodeled my old school into Eureka Middle School.  If I’m reading the tea leaves correctly, Superintendent Mepham wants to get the taxpayers of Trego and Fortine to help pay for a new high school so that the old one can go to replace the unmaintained buildings in Eureka.  Sweet Jesus, Mepham, can’t you even bring a box of chocolates first? 

    Darris Flanagan’s book: Eureka Montana Standing the Tests of Time, on p.20 tells of the origins of this “outside the box” scheme: “In 1955 a new grade school was built.  A major administration change occurred in when a joint board with LCHS and Roosevelt Grade School operating together just as they still do today.  Voting is complicated with Trego and Fortine board members voting only when an item concerns the high school.”

    I think that translates something like “The LCHS board members from Eureka can outvote the two from Trego and Fortine.”  It’s good to get a little bit of a heads-up before they come to us with a tax levy for a bigger bond. 

    Flanagan also pointed out “In 1955 a new grade school was built.”  That’s less than a dozen years older than Trego.  I’m not sure that we shouldn’t be looking at building a high school in Fortine – they have a record of maintaining their buildings.