DRUMMOND – It wasn’t always easy, but it was a good first effort for the new look Drummond Lady Trojans as they beat the visiting Sheridan Panthers in three straight, 25-9-, 25-17, 25-17. While the visiting Panthers aren’t exactly monsters at the net, they did give the Lady Trojans a great way to get a good win and feel out some areas where they might need work. One area they found in Game 3 was when senior Donna Seekel went down with what appeared to be a high ankle sprain. “We've not practiced or played with that exact rotation,” said Drummond Head Coach Shona Bradshaw. “We’ve played without her, but that was a different rotation.” Gracie Weaver stepped in when Seekel went down and helped

PHILIPSBURG - It takes a village. Despite the politics that the above phrase was once linked to, it was the central theme Thursday during a staff training day at Philipsburg School as they learned about being prepared. And with September being National Preparedness Month, the message could not have been better timed. The training day is part of the regular staff instruction that all schools give, but the subject matter was something that according to Montana State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Elsie Arntzen, needs to stay at the forefront of everyone's thinking. "When I talk to superintendents it is about budget, it is about curriculum, it is about testing but the number one thing i

General Information: On Thursday, August 30th at 7:00 a.m., Southwest Area Incident Management Team 4 will transition management of the Goldstone and Beaver Creek Fires to a local Type 3 organization. The number of personnel assigned to the fire will continue to decrease due to successful firefighting efforts. Approximately 144 personnel and equipment will remain assigned to the incident. There have been no accidents or injuries reported to date on either fire. Goldstone Fire Operations: The Goldstone Fire has burned 1,510 acres on the Salmon-Challis National Forest and 7,827 acres on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. Crews continue to implement the Suppression Repair Plan, chipping

HELMVILLE - It's one of Montana's enduring Labor Day traditions, and it all gets started this Sunday in Helmville. The 54th Annual Helmville Labor Day Rodeo runs Sunday, September 2 and Monday, September 3 on their newly refurbished rodeo grounds. If you're heading out to attend either day, just follow the signage off Highway 271 as it heads out of Drummond, turning left on to Ovando Helmville Road right after you pass the post office on your left. The Helmville Rodeo Club faced the prospect of having its annual event shut down in 2017, when the rodeo's land owners found out that the facilities had fallen out of compliance with its insurance standards. But a fundraising campaign found that t

DRUMMOND - It's been nearly a year since the scandal over the dismantling and destruction of trophies raised an uproar in the Lower Valley. But Tuesday night, the school took another step in reinstating those trophies to their rightful place By a 4-0 vote the Drummond School Board approved a motion to work with David Parke to create and install the needed wood slats that will hold the district, division and state trophies the school has earned over its storied history. The Trophy Committee has pledged to help put the trophies up once the slats are mounted, which they hope to have done by sometime in October. Parke was one of two people to place bids on the project, with the board approving

PHILIPSBURG - The Granite County Sheriff's Department reported the passing of a counterfeit bill Tuesday morning on its Facebook page. According to the post, a Philipsburg business reported a counterfeit $100 bill. Local businesses should be on the look out for suspicious bills. Similar reports have been reported in surrounding agencies. The matter is currently under investigation. For ways to tell if a bill may be a counterfeit, CLICK HERE. #GraniteCounty #Sheriff #Counterfeit

DRUMMOND - The Lady Trojans and Prospectors kicked off their 2018 Volleyball seasons Saturday in Drummond, with Granite collecting enough points to make it into the elimination bracket. The Lady Prospectors took one on the chin in their opener, losing in straight games to Seeley Swan before rebounding to beat Lima and split with Victor. Pool play left them with 79 points and a seventh-place seed in the elimination bracket. Unfortunately they were pitted against #2 Gardiner, who beat Granite on their way to the tournament championship. "Opening tournament is always fun, it gives you a long list of things to work on come Monday," said Lady Prospector Head Coach Jennifer Graham. "We are running

Granite County Sheriff's Report for August 19-27, 2018 #GraniteCounty #Sheriff #WeeklyReport

The Beartooth Wildlife Management Area (WMA) south of Great Falls has reopened to public use after a fire closed the WMA in mid-August. The WMA closed to the public Aug. 14 due to a wildfire that started from a lightning strike. “The Beartooth WMA has reopened,” said Gary Bertellotti, FWP Region 4 supervisor. “All fire activity has ceased. The suppression equipment and fire fighters have left the WMA.” #MontanaFWP #Beartooth

BUTTE - It wasn't always pretty, but it looked pretty good. The Flint Creek Titans hammered the Clark Form Mountain Cats Saturday afternoon 50-16, advancing to 1-0 on the year. The game was played at Butte's Naranchae Stadium, which will also be the site of the Class C 8-Man State Championship at season's end. But when asked after the game about that fact by a reporter, Titans Coach Mike Cutler was having none of it. "I have no comment on the state championship game," he replied. "What I can tell you is that the field here is awesome and the environment here is awesome. Fans are right on ya and I don't know that there is a high school stadium, at least not in this state, that matches the env

PHILIPSBURG - Cutler. Say that name after the 2017 football season and everyone thinks of the coach of the Flint Creek Titans. But when 2018 opens play for the local co-op team Saturday against Clark Fork, Cutler will also be the answer to the question, "Who's the new quarterback for our guys?" "(There's) a little bit of pressure," said Kade Cutler, sophomore QB for the Titans. "I'm confident in myself and my team and I think we're going to do pretty well." Cutler follows last year's Class C Western Division Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year in Colton Grange. Reciting his stats seems redundant, so let's just say he had one heck of a year. But for Cutler, the experience of playing da

GRANITE COUNTY - The Drummond Lady Trojans, Granite Lady Prospectors and the Flint Creek Titans all start play on their respective 2018 schedules Saturday. Drummond and Granite will get a bonus by playing in the Tip-Off Tournament at Drummond High School. The Lady Trojans, under the guidance of new head coach Shona Bradshaw, will start play at 9 a.m. against Lincoln in the New Gymnasium (NG). They move on later in the day to play Clark Fork (11 a.m., Old Gymnasium (OG)), Seeley Swan (Noon, NG) and Darby (1 p.m., NG). Jennifer Graham brings the Lady Prospectors into yet another season and will face Seeley Swan at 9 a.m. in the Old Gymnasium (OG). The remainder of their day finds them playing

DRUMMOND - When they say "it" rolls downhill, they weren't kidding. A motor home gassing up and getting snacks at Fic's Conoco Station in Drummond Friday had its brakes fail, sending it rolling across Fic's parking area, across 'D' Street and into the diesel fuel pump at the Drummond Stage Cenex Station. The driver, a woman from Florida who was on her way home from visiting the northwest, stopped to get fuel and a few snacks from inside Fic's when she saw her motor home rolling across the street. It missed the Cenex car wash and hit the diesel pumping station on the east side of the property. The collision punctured the upper portion of the gas tank, but did not spark or ignite the fuel. The

PHILIPSBURG - "We weren't better than everybody last year. We were a better team than everybody else." It's those words from Titans Head Coach Mike Cutler that constantly ring in the ears of his players, coaches and parents. And it was that mantra that lead Flint Creek to its first MHSA Class C 8-Man Football State Championship in 2017 Now he takes a team that lost three seniors into a new season, attempting to defend that title. Well, sort of. "Our preparation is always going to be the same whether we have the success we had last season or not," said Cutler, who enters his second season as the Titans Head Coach. "Our job now is to get these kids to understand that this year's team didn't wi

This is the submission of Tim Allen for the 2018 EPPY Awards in the category of Best Investigative/Enterprise Feature on a Website. In September 2017 Granite County Commissioner Scott Adler (R, second term) ordered the entire contingent of the county's road crew and heavy equipment to his home to use road millings to pave his personal driveway. This action caused a tremendous uproar among residents who felt that Adler was abusing the power of his position. In reporting this story, I was able to uncover a number of facts that have furthered this story and the Attorney General's investigation of the matter. Aside from Commissioner Adler's ever-changing account of trucks and personnel, I was a

Goldstone and Beaver Creek Fires public meeting tonight in Salmon August 22, 2018 Daily Update General Information: The Incident Management Team will host a community meeting for the Goldstone and Beaver Creek Fires today at 6:00 P.M. at the 17 Mile Fire Station located south of the QB Corporation Plant (1420 HWY 28) 16 miles south of Salmon, Idaho. The meeting will be recorded and posted on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge and Salmon-Challis National Forests’ Facebook pages (see links below) for those unable to attend in-person. Goldstone Fire Operations: The Goldstone Fire has burned 1,463 acres on the Salmon-Challis National Forest and 7,801 acres on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. The

To the Editor, Was the Granite County Attorney's open letter in the Philipsburg Mail to Mr Richard Motta (Aug 16, 2018) a letter of advice or more like a threat? Per the Editor's note, it was "copied to and reprinted with the author's permission". However, Mr Richard Motta has never received a copy, either by email or regular mail. Maybe, just an innocent oversight by the Granite County Board of Commissioners (GCBC) ? So, who exactly came up with the idea of an "open letter"? Mr. Bradshaw, the County Attorney? Or was it at the suggestion and request of the GCBC ? By the way, the County Attorney is an elected public servant who serves ALL of Granite County, which includes you, me and Motta

GRANITE COUNTY - Hello? Anybody there? Residents around Southwest Montana couldn't get a dial tone or a modem handshake Tuesday night for approximately 2-1/2 to three hours as both Blackfoot Telecommunications and Verizon Wireless lost service . It was noticed at approximately 6 p.m. that internet services were down in Granite County. At approximately 7:15 p.m., cell phone services went away as well, leaving residents with no way to communicate with the outside world. That is, unless you had Cricket Wireless. Cricket piggy backs off of the towers used by ATT. During the communications blackout, the Flint Creek Courier encountered two Cricket Wireless users in Drummond who had full service an

Montana Senator Jon Tester wants the FCC to increase the access for wireless access users before going after increased service elsewhere. Read the complete story HERE. #Tester #FCC #WirelessService

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP) issued a decision notice to move forward, in collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), on pilot investigations for a potential native trout restoration project on the North Fork Blackfoot River. The objectives of the pilot study are to estimate current distribution of hybridized trout and to calculate the volume and placement of the fish toxin, rotenone, that would be required to remove existing nonnative hybrid fish from the river and tributaries. The study is planned for a few select streams in the East Fork of the North Fork Blackfoot River on the Helena National Forest, within the Scapegoat Wilderness. Results of the pilot could be used to gu