Working

FRENCHTOWN - It’s snowing in Frenchtown. Chunky flakes fall like a billion tiny parachutes outside the windows of the Frenchtown Club while Jimmy Buffett’s “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” plays. Tom Erving tends bar as if he’s done it for years. He has drinks waiting for customers before they even sit down, and he leans over the bar and talks to them like he’s genuinely interested in what they have to say.

By MARTIN J. KIDSTON Helena Independent Record

EAST HELENA - With snow on their backs and ice on their whiskers, the calves at the Diehl Ranch Co. crowd around the trough, noses buried deep in the hay.

While the calves typically go to market in mid-November, one of the Helena Valley’s biggest ranching operations chose this year to keep them through winter.

By JENNIFER McKEE of the Missoulian State Bureau

HELENA - Chief Justice Karla Gray's place in Montana history is secure. Gray, who retired this week after 17 years on the court, was the first woman elected to the Montana Supreme Court. Eight years later, she became the first woman elected chief justice.

Under her leadership, Montana's court system has seen its most sweeping changes since the 1972 state constitution, all with little disruption.

Michele Landquist is ready to hit the ground running. What she wasn't prepared for when she won a seat on the Missoula County commission in November was the starting line moving up.

“The only thing that took me by surprise was how many different entities would like to get to know me and have some time with me prior to me actually taking office,” Landquist said Monday after taking the oath of office in the Missoula County Courthouse annex.

By MICHAEL JAMISON of the Missoulian

COLUMBIA FALLS - Some 200 employees at Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. will lose their paychecks in 60 days, as the plant closes its doors against a global economic recession.

“A lot of people out here are in pretty glum moods today,” said CFAC spokesman Haley Beaudry. “This is pretty tough news to break, especially to such a great work force.”

Beaudry blamed high raw material and power costs, low aluminum prices and a recent court ruling for the shutdown.

By MICHAEL MOORE of the Missoulian

LOLO - Ava Cook is a volunteer’s volunteer.

She spends every Wednesday at the Missoula Food Bank, where she’s stocked the shelves for 15 years. Every other day of the work week, she spends part of her day with elderly women, helping them with shopping and other errands. That program is run through Missoula Aging Services.

“I really just like helping people,” said Cook. “There are so many people in need, and there’s so much you can do for them.”

Elvis has not left the building. Not yet, anyway. The black tiger-striped kitten is just one of 38 cats and kittens currently in residence at the AniMeals warehouse, awaiting a new home as part of a new rescue and adoption collaboration between AniMeals and Missoula City-County Animal Control. “With this phenomenon where there is no local kitten season anymore, our shelters are just overrun with cats,” said AniMeals founder Karyn Moltzen.

By BETSY COHEN of the Missoulian

When you have a thriving business and great employees, expanding doesn't seem so scary - even in uncertain economic times.

Tom Hilley, owner of the downtown Missoula pub Sean Kelly's, has thought about a second location for years.

The idea has long simmered, thanks in large part to his talented employees, all of whom, he said, are managerial quality.

As luck would have it, the other tangible pieces to turn Hilley's dream into reality fell into place during the last eight months.

By MICHAEL MOORE of the Missoulian

Take to the cold and blowy streets of Missoula with videographer Tim Akimoff

Let us count the possible frowns that could have formed on Ryan Wickum's face early Monday morning.

First, of course, it was Monday. Never good.

Second, he was working on a sewage lift station. More about that in a minute, but the important part is sewage.

With the nation's economy in free-fall, you might not expect folks at the Missoula Food Bank to be in a celebratory mood.

But they are.

Although the food bank at 219 S. Third St. W. is seeing record numbers of people in need of food, the need is somehow being met.