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The Senior Center is starting a community newsletter called “Pioneer Pals.” The purpose of this newsletter is to bridge the gap between our schools and our community. It will tentatively feature two kids from the grade school, two kids from the high school, one teacher, and one senior citizen from our community each week. We would also like to incorporate all community members. If you are not a senior citizen and would like to participate, please message us on Facebook or contact the Senior Center. We want to take pictures of our senior cit...
Most of you reading this can only complain about one government, but I am fortunate enough to be able to complain about not one but two. Both the US and Canadian governments get my critiquing. This article is centered on the Canadian side of the border. So read and enjoy another country’s disorganization. As some of you may have read, I was “jumping through hoops at the border” back in July. I had called the border three times with questions to make sure I had my ducks in a row. I arrived at the border with full vaccination, passport, rabies ce...
Big Sandy Schools have already held meetings with parents of home school students. I was told they were informational and positive. With that in mind and to continue with an informational and positive note I have decided to print the following which is exact wording which was sent to me from the Montana Department of Education. GUIDANCE FOR SB 157 Qualified Students Attending a Non-Public or Home School to Participate in Extracurricular Activities in the Student’s Resident School District: Introduction The 2021 Legislature passed SB 157 a...
Big Sandy businesses are feeling the effects of the national labor shortage, particularly the larger employers in the area. The school system, the Medical Center, and Big Sandy Activities are all dealing with staff shortages, which is a particular problem because all three organizations provide services that cannot simply be cancelled. The needs of residents, patients, and students do not take a day off simply because there aren’t enough people to do the work of caring for, treating, t...
The Big Sandy Booster club has finished a special project just in time for Pioneer Football! Rich Jespersen, Special Project Manager for new lockers in the boy's locker room, had the lockers delivered to his home, where he assembled everyone by hand. In the meantime, the locker room itself needed to be gutted and painted. With the help of Coach Thomas Dilworth and some Pioneer Boys, Rich Jespersen removed the old lockers, which was not an easy project, as they were old, rusty, and heavy. There...
With the start of a new year for Big Sandy Schools, there has been a staff change that will be noticed by students and staff at every level: Lianna Ophus Heimbigner is the new head cook for the school system. She takes on the position after Kelly Pursley Owen took a job as head cook for a school in Havre. Lianna is going into her 5th year with the school in Big Sandy. She is following in the footsteps of her great grandmother, Pearl Ophus, who was a cook in the Big Sandy schools during the 60s...
Emerging Winter Wheat, Grasshopper Pests and Systemic Seed Treatment The following information was prepared by Kevin Wanner (MSU Extension Entomologist). Emerging winter wheat can be particularly vulnerable to damage by grasshoppers. The larger adult stage grasshoppers are difficult to control and move into emerging winter wheat fields from surrounding grassy areas. Grasshopper treatment thresholds for emerging winter wheat are 3-7 per square yard within the field, or 11-20 per square yard around the margin. Populations in these ranges will...
"Red Cows, White Lights and Blue Grass" headlined the 2021 Red Angus Roundup trip held July 13-18 in Tennessee and Kentucky. Local youth attending include Andrea & Lance Rutledge and Jacynta Bomgardner as well as chaperone, Kristie Rutledge. There were 46 other juniors from across the country in attendance as well including 6 Youth and 3 chaperones from Montana. This trip was postponed last year and this year's turnout was the largest Roundup to date with 49 youth and 9 chaperones in...
“It’s like a family. I spend as much time with my nurses as I do with my kids and my husband. They’re part of the reason I want to go to work. Knowing that you have a good crew on at the start of your day, just makes your day start better,” explained Ashley Jacobi, Director of Nurses and Infection Control at Big Sandy Medical Center. Ashley’s praise for the nursing staff was glowing and ongoing. After nearly two years of pandemic restrictions, the trials of the times have refined the nursing c...
First Bank of Montana hosted its first customer appreciation luncheon Thursday afternoon as a way of thanking the community for its support of the new branch that opened in our town. "The whole point of the day is to thank our customers and thank the community for the support they give us. Hopefully, we have a partnership for decades into the future. I appreciate everybody's support... since First Bank of Montana is new to the community in the last two years, and with Covid and all the other...
In other words--pulling for each other. This year, the Chouteau County Fair is a go after being determined not to have one last year due to COVID-19. The theme is Pullin For The Fair. The Fair will be held August 19-22. Pig Wrestling will be held Thursday, August 19 at 6:30. The object is to place a pig in a barrel, rear-end first, in the shortest amount of time. Each team has four members. The Entry fee is $40 a team. All entries must be received on or before Tuesday, August 17, by 5:00. It must be complete with an entry fee, team, name, and...
I live on Hopp Road and received a text message there was a fire out my way. I got in my Ford Explorer to research it out, and as soon as I was away from the shelterbelt, I saw the fire. It was already burning up Eagle Butte. The wind was strong, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before it was in the breaks. I drove over to the fire, seeing the combines leaving the fire behind them, so I was glad no equipment was destroyed. I learned later, no livestock were lost either. I didn’t go into the area because they didn’t need me starting another fire i...
"Hey community! We need to save this business! Can you give us 5 to 8 hours once a week? One person once a week. That's between $50 and $80 someone can earn. One person once a day. It's just if somebody could give eight hours, it would be amazing," explains Heather Pleninger, Executive Director of Big Sandy Activities (BSA). The organization is facing a labor shortage crisis as it heads into the late summer without enough direct care staff. "I have 5 solid openings. I have reached desperation...
Due to the extended drought in Montana, water availability in many areas is severely limited. Reservoirs have dried up and are becoming covered in weeds. Montana State University Extension educators are cautioning livestock managers to evaluate weed feed and grazing land for nitrate toxicity during drought. “Due to the severe drought, weeds have become prevalent across pastures. In addition, many producers are limited in their cattle movement this year,” said Custer County Extension Agent Mike Schuldt. Although weeds can be high in protein and...
Lester and Carol Sluggett have been a ranching, agricultural, and rodeo minded team since they married June 2, 1962. Lester came from a farm/ranch that his father Lester Sluggett Sr homesteaded in 1924, 30 miles south of Big Sandy near the Missouri River. His wife to be Carol Henderson, grew up on her family ranch in the Bear Paw Mountains near the tiny town of Warrick. After they were married Lester and Carol bought his dad's Big Sandy ranch and ran it until 1972, when they purchased their...
Big Sandy Schools has filled all of the open teaching positions for the upcoming school year. With businesses and other organizations struggling to fill open positions, the public school system isn’t immune from the labor shortage crunch. Kelly Haaland, the superintendent of Big Sandy Schools, replied to my question about how hiring is going with a simple, “We are done.” When I asked how the hiring process was this time around the reply wasn’t sugar-coated, “It was horrible.” Other school admi...
The Big Sandy School gym received a facelift this summer, which has resulted in a longer closure of the facility to students and the public. During the lockdowns of last spring and summer, school administrators were inundated with questions about when the gym would be reopening. This week, I found out that though there is not a start date for the public using the facility again, the time closed has been used well. The floors in both the main gym and the annex have been redone entirely and some...
Lainey Gregory and Seanna Demontiney had planned to go to Hawaii to play volleyball last summer, but with Covid-19, the opportunity was canceled until this summer. So both Lainey and Senna traveled to Honolulu, Hawaii July 6th and stayed there for a week. They played in the Nokaoi Volleyball Tournament. Seanna said, "Hawaii was absolutely amazing! It was something I have never experienced before. It felt so great to finally be able to travel and see more of the world." Lainey said, "It was well...
Horticultural Tips for August Below are some rules of thumb when tending vegetables, lawns, flowers and trees during the month of August. • Renovate strawberries by mowing a minimum of every three years. Some people mow their strawberries every year following fruit production. Be sure to set the mower high enough to mow the leaves. Mowing to low may damage the crowns and kill the plant. • Topdress strawberries after harvest with a complete fertilizer like 16-16-16. • Pinch the tops of indeterminate tomatoes and reduce watering to promote ripen...
I was going to attend the Big Sandy School Board meeting on the internet but could not connect. I visited with Kelly Haaland in his office about the last school board meeting. Maddie Jenkins was hired as an English teacher for the Big Sandy High School. She has three years to get her English endorsement with a Class Five license, or she will be in an internship for three years. Maddie has a history endorsement currently but can teach English according to Montana law while working towards her English endorsement. She has taught English before...
I met Renee Hansen and Karen Reinertson at the Montana Room at the Big Sandy Library. This is where you will find all the old Mountaineers bound and available to the public to read. They use them to do their research for the Old-Timers column. So many people were asking who we got to recompile the column, I thought it would be interesting to visit with them about it. Why did they decide to write the column? Karen said, "I hated to see the column disappear." It was too important to her. Renee...
This week’s article is provided by Marsha Goetting, Montana State University Extension Montana State University Extension has updated its MontGuide “Montana Medical Care Savings Accounts (MSAs) for the 2021 Tax Year.” The revised guide is available at https://store.msuextension.org, and paper copies are available from county or reservation Extension offices. A medical care savings account is an account used to reduce the cost of saving for medical expenses and long-term health care. According to Marsha Goetting, MSU Extension family econo...
This first article about school funding is my attempt to try in a small part to explain to all of us how Big Sandy School is funded. I might need to rewrite this article to explain further if I get a small portion wrong. I was given 38 pages title Understand Montana School Finance and School Districts Budgets. The years’ complete financial budget is not fully completed. They are waiting for the state to complete the paperwork, so I’ll be referring to last years’ funds in general terms as well as the unofficial Budget Report of 2021. The state...
Throughout the month of August, I will be riding in the Great Cycle Challenge to help raise money to fight children’s cancer. The Great Cycle Challenge (GCC) is a national fundraising effort on behalf of the Children’s Cancer Research Fund (CCRF). It began in 2015 and rapidly grew to one of the biggest cycling events in the United States, raising over $39,000,000 in the process. The goal is to fight kids’ cancer and give each child the bright future they deserve. They believe that each individua...
Big Sandy Barracudas had six senior swimmers, which means they have five senior swimmers and one that will not swim in the future. Four of them will be going to state next week to swim for the Barracudas one last weekend. Cam Schwarzbach, son of Shaud and Melanie Schwarzbach and has swam for Big Sandy for 10 years. He plans to swim for the college of Idaho and major in Business Administration. His most memorable moment: "Celebrating his birthday at the Choteau Swim Meet by eating three trays of...