Articles

School's still out, technically, but for 50 soon-to-be sixth-graders at C.S. Porter Middle School, class has already started. The kids have been taking part in a pioneering orientation program designed to ease the sometimes-daunting transition from elementary to middle school. “This is something we're using to ease the anxiety of coming into sixth grade,” said Porter assistant principal Lisa Hendrix, who will welcome about 180 new sixth-graders next week. “It can be hard, coming from smaller schools and being mixed with kids from all these other schools.”

A.J. Gibson is likely Missoula's most famous architect, so perhaps it's fitting that some of his buildings are undergoing a renaissance of sorts. As condominiums. “I think that the people who will buy into these sorts of places are people who want some part of preserving a part of the past,” said Realtor Ed Coffman, who is selling condos in one of Gibson's buildings. Gibson, who designed the Missoula County Courthouse, the first five buildings built at the University of Montana and the Daly Mansion in Hamilton, was a prolific architect around the turn of the 20th century.

EST GLACIER - These mountains have always been old, weighed heavy with age and rooted in deep time, the kind of place where you can heft a handful of early, early earth and wonder at the world before. Rippled rock at 10,000 feet is sediment laid down 1.6 billion years ago, the oldest rock there is, Proterozoic history heaved up some 170 million years back when the Rocky Mountains pushed skyward. A sheet of stone three miles thick and 160 miles long crashed eastward then, advancing 50 miles and folding old rock over new, creating the block from which vast chisels of ice would carve what we now know as Glacier National Park.

By ROB CHANEY of the Missoulian

The fire that destroyed Janice and George Olk's home had barely started before their Travois Village neighbors were busy helping the couple put their lives back together.

“We were just getting ready for bed,” George said. “They think an electrical plug shorted out.”

“The bathroom lights started flickering, and I smelled rubber burning,” Janice added. “I came out of the bathroom, but couldn't get any further than the side door because of the smoke. Then the oxygen bottles started exploding.”

By ROB CHANEY of the Missoulian

A Montana effort to improve children's health insurance coverage dovetails with a national campaign to challenge the health care status quo.

A couple of Democratic state office candidates joined Service Employees International Union members for a “Road to American Health Care” rally in front of the Missoula County Courthouse on Monday morning. While the national union crew was criticizing Republican presidential candidate John McCain, the Montana candidates stumped for the I-155 “Healthy Montana Kids” ballot initiative.

By BILL SPELTZ of the Missoulian

Watch the senior bowlers

Take away the funky rental shoes and back-straining urethane ball and bowling just wouldn't be the same.

Actually, it's better.

At least that's what the seniors say at Clark Fork Riverside retirement apartments in Missoula. They've caught Nintendo Wii bowling fever, and it's highly contagious.

By BETSY COHEN of the Missoulian

These are busy days for the University of Montana School of Law.

Construction workers are steadily working toward completion of the school's $13 million addition and expansion - which means fall semester law school classes will be farmed out to six different buildings across campus.

Navigating the upheaval began Wednesday, when faculty welcomed UM first-year law students with a convocation ceremony and a talk by Montana Supreme Court Justice Brian Morris.

By VINCE DEVLIN of the Missoulian/Photographed by MICHAEL GALLACHER of the Missoulian

POLSON - If you happen upon a certain flock of birds flying west of Pablo Reservoir around 6:30 in the morning, your first reaction may be, “What in the heck is wrong with them?”

The answer: Nothing.

Sure, they may seem to come to a screeching halt in mid-flight and start doing backward somersaults as they twist toward the earth like a spinning yo-yo, and sure, you won’t catch anything from an eagle to a sea gull doing anything so preposterous.

By PAMELA J. PODGER of the Missoulian

Old T-shirts are given a new life as skirts in Carol Lynn Lapotka’s fledgling business.

Recycled materials are in vogue these days in everything from construction materials to carpets to couches – and now clothing.

Lapotka, 31, said she’s been working 70 to 75 hours each week sewing skirts, shopping for materials at Goodwill and other thrift stores and staffing her booth at the Missoula Saturday Market downtown.

By MICHAEL JAMISON of the Missoulian

Watch an aerial tour of Glacier National Park

WEST GLACIER - The tourists huddled in a shivering pack amid what should have been the heat of July, crowding around Laura Kloeck while she explained a bit about climate change.

“There is definitely a frightening side to global warming,” Kloeck told them, “but there is hope, too.”