Big Sky Blog

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Remember a few weeks ago there was an entry about blogs in small Montana towns? Emilie told us about the Yahoo! 360 blog devoted to news in Eastern Montana, and now the folks “over there” could use some help:

There’s all kinds of things of exciting things happening in Eastern Montana..from airshows to the millions of dollars pouring into the energy industry out here every day. BUT the station does not have a vechicle for the news team. SOO..if your event is at the Comfort Inn..or the Dawson County Fairgrounds or Makoshika or DCC ..or farther out than walking distance from the station, the news team won’t be there. SOO….if you have a car you’re not using that Emilie can use, send her an email at newsdesk@kxgn.com. Help keep Eastern Montana INFORMED.

It would be really, really cool if the blogosphere was able to come to the rescue in this instance.

Over at Dustbury there’s a map that illustrates where there are more boys than girls, and vice-versa, across America. There are only two communities in Montana that show up on the map. It looks like Billings has more single gals than single guys, but over on the far side of Montana, there appears to be a surfeit of guys in one particular area. I’m not sure what town or community that blue dot is supposed to represent – any ideas?

Perhaps we should consider some sort of exchange program between these two towns – X number of boys shipped to Billings for an equal number of girls shipped to the Blue Dot area.

The Miss Montana 2007 Pageant is going on right now in Glendive. Young ladies from all corners of Montana are competing: Billings, Plentywood, Great Falls, Frenchtown, Dillon, Miles City, Lambert, and more. Here’s a list of all previous Miss Montana winners.

And did you know that Miss Montana 2006, Christie Hageman, has a blog? She documents her various public appearances and events, and recounts meeting a friend of her grandfather’s, a one-time Montana legislator – very cool.

UPDATE, SUNDAY MORNING: just spoke with a staff member at the Glendive Chamber of Commerce — Miss Montana 2007 is Kristen Mantooth of Lewistown! In 2006, Kristen was the First Runner-Up and also won the Talent portion of the competition, but this year she went all the way — congratulations to our new Miss Montana!

While conditions remain good in Montana, winter wheat prices are closing in on $6.00 a bushel, having rallied almost $1.00 a 60-lb. bushel in the last two weeks. The immediate factor is the heavy rains that are delaying the harvest, and may be damaging the Kansas and nearby winter wheat crops as these crops remain in the drowned-out fields:

The above is the weekly high-low-close in $ a bushel of the nearby winter wheat futures contract on the Kansas City Board of Trade (KCBOT).

Thus, for the second year-in-a-row, an historically unlikely event, Montana winter wheat famers will be harvesting their winter wheat crops at a time when they will be able to sell their harvests at very good prices.

Today, Tuesday, June 12, the Environmental Working Group has made the records available of which individuals in Montana, and in all the other states, are receiving farm subsidy payments.

Until last year, the names of the individuals that received farm subsidy payments were concealed behind farming companies and other ownership structures, but on a new set of records the USDA connects each owner of a company to the subsidies they received.

In a guest opinion in the Friday, June 8, Billings Gazette, Noah Chertkoff, the Reform student rabbi at Congregation Beth Aaron in Billings, answers others who, in their prior guest opinions, ” … claim that Jews control the government or the media … “.

Two items in the news regarding part-time Montana resident David Letterman: first, the man who was sent to prison for concocting a scheme to kidnap Letterman’s baby son and bilking Dave out of cash escaped from jail a few days ago, and is still on the loose. Second, the free Willie Nelson concert in Choteau is proceeding as scheduled, with winners being selected via postcards, although some radio stations will be giving away tickets soon, so you might still be able to see Willie on July 3rd. The concert was arranged and funded by an anonymous donor, although many speculate that it is none other than Letterman himself.

On the “Small Town, Long Streets” podcast the other night, there was a discussion of the size of the various blogging communities in Montana. There was agreement that the large towns in Montana are well-represented – Billings, Missoula, Great Falls, etc – and most of us can think of at least several “name brand” bloggers in each of Montana’s largest communities…but there was some puzzlement about the small towns. I think that that smallest town we know of that has a blogger is Conrad. We also wondered about the vast Eastern Montana landscape – places like Glendive, Miles City, Culbertson, and such. Are there any bloggers out there? Small towns and Eastern Montana blogs – if you know of any, drop a note here and we’ll get them added to the Big Sky Blogroll.

Tonight: “Small Town, Long Streets,” the mtpolitics.net podcast! Craig will be live tonight, and among the topics to be discussed: the very topical hot-button Snyder Drug situation; the Presidential candidates; and Craig’s Pokemans (he will show you them). If you would like to participate, you can call, e-mail, or IM – and really, we need people to call in to keep Craig on his game:
Phone: (718) 664-9769
Yahoo! IM: mtppodcast
Email: podcast@mtpolitics.net