Big Sky Blog

“The Last Best Place,” a phrase long used and cherished by Montanans to describe their sprawling, scenic state, will soon be protected forever, a U.S. senator says, and anyone will be able to use it without fear of running afoul of trademark law.

Read the rest of the article here.

Last Saturday, I stopped by the Farmer’s Market in downtown Great Falls and happened upon a booth operated by Brent and his family, where they were selling their Manly Man Candles, their home-based business located in Power, Montana. I loved the scents, bought a few, and asked Brent if I could promote his business on my site. Despite his modesty and shyness (ha!), he said sure. So I posted an entry the next day praising the manly goodness of his scented candles. And then a bolt of lightning struck…

…The crew at local CBS affiliate KRTV noticed my blog entry and figured it would be a neat story - local man with an unusual business. They did a brief feature on Brent and his biz. It was scheduled to air on Wednesday, but got bumped to Thursday.
Friday morning, the folks at CNN Headlines News picked up on the story. Then it spread to CNN and onto Fox Business News.
The result, as reported by Brent on his Manly Man blog:

I can’t even begin to tell you what the past 24 hours have been like. It’s been amazing. Last night I went to bed smiling, having just watched a two minute segment on my little candle company. I woke up to nine emails and a few orders, and I was quite pleased. My wife and I went off to work thrilled.
The news kept coming in as the day went on. Emails started pouring in. I learned that the segment aired on Headline News. Then went to CNN. Then went to Fox Business News. People from all over the country started emailing saying that they had seen us on their local news programs. People from other countries started emailing, saying they had seen it and wanted to sell them.

Excellent — couldn’t happen to a nicer guy!

And continuing with the blog angle to this lightning strike: earlier today, I noticed that my site visits were pretty high; I checked the referrals, and a large number of them were results of Google searches for “manly man candles,” presumably from people who had just seen the news clip on TV. Here’s a screen shot of what Google looked like around noon today:

Notice that my blog entry actually ranked higher (#3) than the actual Manly Man Candles site.

The other part of this is that I signed up to be an affiliate of Brent’s company, and look at the last 24 hours:

More than 360 people have clicked through to Manly Man Candles from GreaterFalls.com. Some of those clicks (double-digits) resulted in immediate sales; others may have bookmarked the site for later purchases.

So, what’s the lesson here? A few come to mind: first, free publicity is awesome - Brent didn’t have to spend a dime on this week’s free advertising. Second, you never know when lightning will strike; in this case, a chain of events cascaded into a modest avalanche. Third, every business needs a web presence. Brent is smart - he’s covered all his bases, with a business site, a blog, and profiles on social media sites.

The bottom line: everyone wins! I got some awesome candles and great traffic to my site, the KRTV team got a great story that was picked up by the networks, the Manly Man folks got worldwide publicity, and folks who buy Manly Man Candles for the first time are in for a treat!

(this entry was originally posted at GreaterFalls.com)

Montana lost a little bit of 20th-century history a few weeks ago when the Western Aire drive-in movie theatre in Lewistown closed down:

After the Fourth of July weekend, the field will fall silent as the gates to the Western Aire Drive-In close for the final time. The Western Aire opened in 1944 in Lewistown, and not much has changed at what is believed to be Montana’s first drive-in movie theater in the 64 years since, said longtime resident Lily Zwolle.

According to Drive-In Theatre.com, that leaves Montana with only three drive-ins still in operation:

Silver Bow Twin Drive-In
Butte, MT 59701
(406) 782-8095

Midway Drive In Theatre
Junction of Highway 2 & 40, Columbia Falls MT 59912
(406) 892-4515

Midway Drive In Theatre
120 2nd Street East, Kalispell, MT 59901
(406) 752-7800

A little bit of history slipping away - sad. Just a few weeks ago, my girlfriend and I were talking about the Western Aire, and planned to visit and see a movie this summer. Wonder if drive-ins will ever make a comeback?

Mountain goats move into Yellowstone, for better or worse. The Good news is that they are establishing themselves very well in the higher reaches of Yellowstone. Uhmm, that’s the Bad news as well.

Mountain goats definitely fit into the category of “charismatic megafauna.” Beautiful, graceful and athletic, they survive on scant food in incredibly hostile environments. Plus, they’re exciting to watch.
The problem is, they aren’t native to the Yellowstone region.

Non-native species aren’t usually tolerated in Yellowstone, but an exception may be made in this case. Stay tuned as the story developes.

The Bozeman Chronicle profiles Jaren Whitman, a Belgrade steer wrestler. He is currently in 3rd place standing with the Northern Rodeo Association for his event.

Jaren recently turned a time of 3 seconds for a run. Consider that the world record is 2.4 seconds that’s sayin’ a lot; a whole lot.