Learning on the go - TownNews
1
Student of month Elizabeth Hill is Bror- son Elemen- tary School’s student of the month. Elizabeth is the daugh- ter of Dave and Julie Hill and is in the sixth grade. Elizabeth is a very studious, courteous and respectful person. She works hard in class and still finds time to help others. Elizabeth is involved in basketball, swimming, gymnastics and 4-H. She is currently reading the fifth Harry Potter book. Visit us online www.sidneyhealthworks.org • Indoor Track • Racquetball Courts • Group Exercise Classes • Circuit & Personal Training OUR AMENITIES INCLUDE: 488-4631 Located on the Sidney Health Center Campus Corner of 12th Ave & 4th St SW • Sidney • Cardio Equipment: Treadmills, Bikes, Steppers, Rowing & Elliptical Machines • Weight Equipment: Free Weights & Machines Walk-ins Welcome WEDNESDAY JAN. 2, 2013 105th year, No. 1 Sidney, Montana www.sidneyherald.com 75 CENTS Church offers after-school program. Page 5A. SERVING RICHLAND COUNTY AND THE SURROUNDING AREA FOR 105 YEARS Bulletin Board Lutefisk dinner The First Lutheran Church in Savage will have its annual lutefisk and meatball dinner from 12:30-5 p.m. Jan 13. Cost is $13 for adults and $5 for anyone 12 and under. Happy birthday The Sidney Herald wishes happy birthday this week to friends Warren Johnson, Suzanne Hawley, Irene Emly, Libby Berndt, Shelby Bowl- ds, Jeana Barnhart, Leslie James, Tucker Lien, Laura McRae, Miriam Labusch, Trent Schilling, Wanda Olaf, Tami Larson, Greg Hardy, Amber Carlson, Stephanie Loomis, Tanya Guffey, Darla Shumway, Glenn Siroky, De- niece Schwab, Julia Neves, Malissa Frisk-Steinberg, DeAnn Watson, David Al- brecht, Warren Lee, Tanya Shedd, Margaret Bradley, Payton Huffman, Jeff Hansen, Sarah Bloom, Shyla Hinton, Connie Mantei and Jacoby Allen. Kindergarten program Sidney’s kindergarten programs were postponed due to the high number of students out sick. The programs are now sched- uled for Tuesday at Central School. Bikes for Books Members of the local Masonic Lodge, Lower Yel- lowstone #90, are pleased to support a “Bikes for Books” program at West Side Elementary School. Each time a student reads a book from the school library, they will be invited to register their name in a drawing for a brand new bicycle, the more the student reads the more times they get to enter the drawing. There will be two winners, one boy and one girl, and the program is open to all grades at West Side Elementary. Newsmaker Deaths Evelyn Anderson, 89 Doris Yockim, 86 Page 3A Inside Around Town ..... 2A Classifieds .......7-8A Deaths ............... 3A Dial an Expert . .9A Opinion .............. 6A BY BILL VANDER WEELE SIDNEY HERALD When some think of a classroom, they may feel the space itself is pretty boring. Amy Rassier, a Sidney High School graduate, however, won’t agree. After all, her latest study location was awfully inter- esting. Rassier, a sophomore at the University of North Dakota, studied aboard through the Semester at Sea program this fall. Through the program, established in 1963, a ship is used as a trav- eling, floating campus. Amy, the daughter of John and Deb Rassier, explains credits through the program are connected with the University of Virginia and can be transferred to any college. Rassier, who was a student in the program from Aug. 27 to Dec. 7, found out about Se- mester At Sea during a jobs fair held at the University of North Dakota. “I decided to apply for it, and I got accepted,” Rassier said. She noted her parents were supportive. “They thought it was an amazing program but felt it was a lot to do in three and a half months.” During the journey, Rassi- er visited 14 countries and four continents. Her “Atlan- tic Exploration” included stops in seven European countries, two African coun- tries, three South America countries, the Caribbean and Canada. The political science major said students received 12-15 credits through the program. “For our class, we had to actually talk with the people (in the countries),” Rassier said. She added the easiest place to commu- nicate was Europe where most of the young people speak English. “I know basic Spanish so I could talk some in the South American countries and Spain.” She says people in Spain and South America, however, pronounce words a little differently. The ship featured nine classrooms, 40 faculty mem- bers and 475 undergradu- ate students. The program is also open for lifelong learners. Guest speakers included an astronaut and people from countries that provided information to students about where they were about to visit. The experience is some- what like a traditional campus as it features clubs, intramurals and seminars. “I highly recommend it,” Rassier said. “It was the best decision of my life to this point.” One of the countries that she enjoys the most was Ire- land, especially seeing the Cliffs of Moher. “It was so beautiful.” She also particu- larly liked Portugal. Another interesting expe- rience was visiting Ghana. Rassier describes the coun- try as very poor “but it is a really Democratic society. They don’t have too much but are happy.” Other stops included England, Belgium, France, Holland, Uruguay, Brazil, Dominican, Spain, South Af- rica, Canada and Argentina. Rassier returns this month to classes at the University of North Da- kota, but she made many new friends in the unique campus she was part of this fall. “We were only allowed 60 minutes of Internet on the trip and no Facebook. So people actually talked to each other.” [email protected] Learning on the go Student from Sidney visits 14 countries through Semester at Sea SUBMITTED Amy Rassier, second from left, in back row, spending time in Ghana. SUBMITTED Amy Rassier, left, with a friend at the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland. BY LOUISA BARBER SIDNEY HERALD It used to be rural water projects were authorized and Congress simply directed the Bureau of Reclamation to figure out funding. That was before. Then the BOR formalized the process, creating the Rural Water Act of 2006, but it was never fully penned until 2008. “From 2008-2010, they were modify- ing the rules within their own agency just to make sure everything was fitting,” Brian Milne, Interstate Engi- neering, said. Today there’s a new pro- cedure to follow to initiate rural water projects, and Dry-Redwater Rural Water Authority, a project that aims to give rural residents cheap- er, cleaner tap water, is the first non-tribal water system in the U.S. to go through this new authorization process. “The bureau keeps changing what they want for format, what they want for rules, and between the board get- ting super frustrated and us getting super frustrated, it’s still moving through their process,” Milne said. At present, project leaders are awaiting the federal gov- ernment’s review of the De- sign, Estimate and Construc- tion Report, which takes into account the government’s own topography data to de- termine the rural pipeline’s routes, the storage tanks and cost estimates. The review should take place sometime this month, and once it’s complete, the project must be federally authorized to decid- edly show Dry-Redwater is indeed feasible. WHERE WE’RE AT Richland County commis- sioners in December OK’d paying the tab on a $376,500 water main extending from Sidney city limits to the Sidney-Circle Subdivi- sion, essentially propelling Dry-Redwater forward. The decision comes 11 months after water authority officials requested $450,000 from the county; at that time commis- sioners said they would try to fit into the next budget. Not Water project moving ahead in counties SEE WATER, PAGE 10A BY LOUISA BARBER SIDNEY HERALD EDITOR’S NOTE: The fol- lowing is part two of three in a series reviewing each month of the year. We’re heading into the middle portion of 2012, the part that was probably least dramatic, perhaps giving us all some time to recuperate after such a periling start to the year. Let’s continue to take a look back. MAY Richland County Health Department authorities notified the public they confirmed the first Pertussis case in Richland County at the beginning of the month. Commonly known as whoop- ing cough, the contagious respiratory disease was part of a larger outbreak of the illness nationwide, which had people worry if they carried the virus. The community of Lambert said goodbye to its long-standing landmark, the 100-year-old grain elevator when it was demolished after Nortana Grain aban- doned the facility in March. The 80-foot high structure made from old growth Doug- las Fir timber was built in 1914, as old as Lambert itself. On May 4, the U.S. Depart- ment of the Interior re- leased proposals for hydrau- lic fracturing methods on American Indian reserva- tions, requiring public dis- closure of chemicals used in fracking, an oil and gas extraction technique that takes place thousands of feet below the surface when water, sand and chemicals are pumped at high pres- sures into the cracks of the rock formation releasing product. The rules were the first of their kind since the 1980s; currently, there isn’t any specific requirement for operators to dislcase these chemicals on federal and Indian lands. News came this month that oil and gas schools lost more than $13.4 million in the first year under Senate Bill 329, as Lambert School District alone contributed about half. The funds, sup- posed to have gone toward school districts statewide, were deposited into the state’s general fund. On May 15, suspects in the Sherry Arnold case pleaded not guilty to deliberate homicide and attempted kidnapping. Heavy truck traffic remained a sore issue in Fairview. The town council passed an ordinance disal- lowing semi-trucks from driving and parking on residential streets, except to load and off-load during lunch hour, drawing some ire from residents. Continuing Sidney’s sewer lagoon saga, city officials deemed the system “dead” to any outside sources, fearing it couldn’t handle anymore waste. “Right now, it’s kind of a crap chute,” Public Works director Jeff Hintz told the Sidney City Council at the time. “We’ve reached a point now, and we need to do something.” The city ceased all outside dump- ing until further notice. Meanwhile, city officials OK’d the first phase of infrastructure work on the largest property in Sidney’s history, the Sunrise Village Subdivision. Sidney brought home two winners after the Class A state track and field meet in Bozeman. Whitney Leuen- berger repeated as shot put champion for a mark of 38 feet 7.5 inches, beating sec- ond place by one foot, seven inches. Jalyssa Gorder took first in pole vaulting as well, beating her personal record of 11 feet 3 inches by three inches. In Class C, Lambert’s Alexis Johnson (discus and shot put), Fairview’s Cody Vitt (discus) and Savage’s boys 400-meter relay team earned state championships. JUNE The Savage Volunteer Fire Department held its annual catfish tournament, and it was especially gratify- ing this year after the 2011 tourney was still in the aftermath of the flooding. This year’s tournament drew the largest calcutta to date with $28,605 being split between six teams and the fire department. Longtime Richland County Extension agent Judy Johnson retired after 22 years in Richland County and 26 years in Extension. She was the family and con- sumer sciences agent. Primary election results included David Halvorson receiving 842 votes to win the Republican primary for House District 37 over Tami Christensen. No Democrat ran for the open office. Savage High School graduates Bridger Rice and Braden Ler were chosen male and female Student Athlete of the Year by the Sidney Herald. The Montana Highway Patrol’s annual report was released, showing highway accidents had increased in Richland County by more than 42 percent in 2011 with six fatalities. The Herald reported midway through May on the changes taking place in Dore, N.D., just a few miles north of Fairview, where an expanded rail facility by Musket Corp. was opening. Native Daryl Finsaas and 2012 – A year we won’t forget SEE YEAR, PAGE 10A
Transcript of Learning on the go - TownNews
Student of month Elizabeth
Hill is Bror-son Elemen-tary School’s student of the month.
Elizabeth is the daugh-ter of Dave and Julie Hill
and is in the sixth grade. Elizabeth is a very studious, courteous and respectful person. She works hard in class and still fi nds time to help others.
Elizabeth is involved in basketball, swimming, gymnastics and 4-H. She is currently reading the fi fth Harry Potter book.
Visit us online www.sidneyhealthworks.org
• Indoor Track • Racquetball Courts • Group Exercise Classes • Circuit & Personal Training
OUR AMENITIES INCLUDE: 488-4631Located on the Sidney Health Center CampusCorner of 12th Ave & 4th St SW • Sidney
• Cardio Equipment: Treadmills, Bikes, Steppers, Rowing & Elliptical Machines • Weight Equipment: Free Weights & Machines
Walk-insWelcome
WEDNESDAYJAN. 2, 2013105th year, No. 1Sidney, Montanawww.sidneyherald.com75 CENTS
Church offers after-school program. Page 5A.
SERVING RICHLAND COUNTY AND THE SURROUNDING AREA FOR 105 YEARS
Bulletin Board Lutefi sk dinner
The First Lutheran Church in Savage will have its annual lutefi sk and meatball dinner from 12:30-5 p.m. Jan 13. Cost is $13 for adults and $5 for anyone 12 and under.
Happy birthdayThe Sidney Herald wishes
happy birthday this week to friends Warren Johnson, Suzanne Hawley, Irene Emly, Libby Berndt, Shelby Bowl-ds, Jeana Barnhart, Leslie James, Tucker Lien, Laura McRae, Miriam Labusch, Trent Schilling, Wanda Olaf, Tami Larson, Greg Hardy, Amber Carlson, Stephanie Loomis, Tanya Guffey, Darla Shumway, Glenn Siroky, De-niece Schwab, Julia Neves, Malissa Frisk-Steinberg, DeAnn Watson, David Al-brecht, Warren Lee, Tanya Shedd, Margaret Bradley, Payton Huffman, Jeff Hansen, Sarah Bloom, Shyla Hinton, Connie Mantei and Jacoby Allen.
Kindergarten programSidney’s kindergarten
programs were postponed due to the high number of students out sick. The programs are now sched-uled for Tuesday at Central School.
Bikes for BooksMembers of the local
Masonic Lodge, Lower Yel-lowstone #90, are pleased to support a “Bikes for Books” program at West Side Elementary School. Each time a student reads a book from the school library, they will be invited to register their name in a drawing for a brand new bicycle, the more the student reads the more times they get to enter the drawing. There will be two winners, one boy and one girl, and the program is open to all grades at West Side Elementary.
Newsmaker
DeathsEvelyn Anderson, 89
Doris Yockim, 86
Page 3A
Inside Around Town .....2AClassifi eds .......7-8ADeaths ...............3A
Dial an Expert . .9AOpinion ..............6A
BY BILL VANDER WEELESIDNEY HERALD
When some think of a classroom, they may feel the space itself is pretty boring. Amy Rassier, a Sidney High School graduate, however, won’t agree.
After all, her latest study location was awfully inter-esting.
Rassier, a sophomore at the University of North Dakota, studied aboard through the Semester at Sea program this fall. Through the program, established in 1963, a ship is used as a trav-eling, fl oating campus.
Amy, the daughter of John and Deb Rassier, explains credits through the program are connected with the University of Virginia and can be transferred to any college.
Rassier, who was a student in the program from Aug. 27 to Dec. 7, found out about Se-mester At Sea during a jobs fair held at the University of North Dakota.
“I decided to apply for it, and I got accepted,” Rassier said. She noted her parents were supportive. “They thought it was an amazing program but felt it was a lot to do in three and a half months.”
During the journey, Rassi-er visited 14 countries and four continents. Her “Atlan-tic Exploration” included stops in seven European countries, two African coun-tries, three South America countries, the Caribbean and Canada.
The political science major said students received 12-15 credits through the program. “For our class, we had to actually talk with the people (in the countries),” Rassier said. She added the easiest place to commu-nicate was Europe where most of the young people speak English. “I know basic Spanish so I could talk some in the South American countries and Spain.” She says people in Spain and South America, however, pronounce words a little differently.
The ship featured nine
classrooms, 40 faculty mem-bers and 475 undergradu-ate students. The program is also open for lifelong learners. Guest speakers included an astronaut and people from countries that
provided information to students about where they were about to visit.
The experience is some-what like a traditional campus as it features clubs, intramurals and seminars.
“I highly recommend it,” Rassier said. “It was the best decision of my life to this point.”
One of the countries that she enjoys the most was Ire-land, especially seeing the Cliffs of Moher. “It was so beautiful.” She also particu-larly liked Portugal.
Another interesting expe-rience was visiting Ghana. Rassier describes the coun-try as very poor “but it is a really Democratic society. They don’t have too much but are happy.”
Other stops included England, Belgium, France, Holland, Uruguay, Brazil, Dominican, Spain, South Af-rica, Canada and Argentina.
Rassier returns this month to classes at the University of North Da-kota, but she made many new friends in the unique campus she was part of this fall. “We were only allowed 60 minutes of Internet on the trip and no Facebook. So people actually talked to each other.”
Learning on the goStudent from Sidney visits 14 countries through Semester at Sea
SUBMITTED
Amy Rassier, second from left, in back row, spending time in Ghana.
SUBMITTED
Amy Rassier, left, with a friend at the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland.
BY LOUISA BARBERSIDNEY HERALD
It used to be rural water projects were authorized and Congress simply directed the Bureau of Reclamation to fi gure out funding.
That was before. Then the BOR formalized the process, creating the Rural Water Act of 2006, but it was never fully penned until 2008. “From 2008-2010, they were modify-ing the rules within their own agency just to make sure everything was fi tting,” Brian Milne, Interstate Engi-neering, said.
Today there’s a new pro-cedure to follow to initiate rural water projects, and Dry-Redwater Rural Water Authority, a project that aims to give rural residents cheap-er, cleaner tap water, is the fi rst non-tribal water system in the U.S. to go through this new authorization process. “The bureau keeps changing what they want for format, what they want for rules, and between the board get-ting super frustrated and us getting super frustrated, it’s still moving through their process,” Milne said.
At present, project leaders are awaiting the federal gov-ernment’s review of the De-sign, Estimate and Construc-tion Report, which takes into account the government’s own topography data to de-termine the rural pipeline’s routes, the storage tanks and cost estimates. The review should take place sometime this month, and once it’s complete, the project must be federally authorized to decid-edly show Dry-Redwater is indeed feasible.
WHERE WE’RE ATRichland County commis-
sioners in December OK’d paying the tab on a $376,500 water main extending from Sidney city limits to the Sidney-Circle Subdivi-sion, essentially propelling Dry-Redwater forward. The decision comes 11 months after water authority offi cials requested $450,000 from the county; at that time commis-sioners said they would try to fi t into the next budget. Not
Water projectmoving aheadin counties
SEE WATER, PAGE 10A
BY LOUISA BARBERSIDNEY HERALD
EDITOR’S NOTE: The fol-lowing is part two of three in a series reviewing each month of the year.
We’re heading into the middle portion of 2012, the part that was probably least dramatic, perhaps giving us all some time to recuperate after such a periling start to the year. Let’s continue to take a look back.
MAYRichland County Health
Department authorities notifi ed the public they confi rmed the fi rst Pertussis case in Richland County at the beginning of the month. Commonly known as whoop-ing cough, the contagious respiratory disease was part of a larger outbreak of the illness nationwide, which had people worry if they carried the virus.
The community of Lambert said goodbye to its long-standing landmark, the 100-year-old grain elevator when it was demolished
after Nortana Grain aban-doned the facility in March. The 80-foot high structure made from old growth Doug-las Fir timber was built in 1914, as old as Lambert itself.
On May 4, the U.S. Depart-ment of the Interior re-leased proposals for hydrau-lic fracturing methods on American Indian reserva-tions, requiring public dis-closure of chemicals used in fracking, an oil and gas extraction technique that takes place thousands of feet below the surface when water, sand and chemicals are pumped at high pres-sures into the cracks of the rock formation releasing product. The rules were the fi rst of their kind since the 1980s; currently, there isn’t any specifi c requirement for operators to dislcase these chemicals on federal and Indian lands.
News came this month that oil and gas schools lost more than $13.4 million in the fi rst year under Senate Bill 329, as Lambert School District alone contributed about half. The funds, sup-
posed to have gone toward school districts statewide, were deposited into the state’s general fund.
On May 15, suspects in the Sherry Arnold case pleaded not guilty to deliberate homicide and attempted kidnapping.
Heavy truck traffi c remained a sore issue in Fairview. The town council passed an ordinance disal-lowing semi-trucks from driving and parking on residential streets, except to load and off-load during lunch hour, drawing some ire from residents.
Continuing Sidney’s sewer lagoon saga, city offi cials deemed the system “dead” to any outside sources, fearing it couldn’t handle anymore waste. “Right now, it’s kind of a crap chute,” Public Works director Jeff Hintz told the Sidney City Council at the time. “We’ve reached a point now, and we need to do something.” The city ceased all outside dump-ing until further notice.
Meanwhile, city offi cials OK’d the fi rst phase of infrastructure work on the
largest property in Sidney’s history, the Sunrise Village Subdivision.
Sidney brought home two winners after the Class A state track and fi eld meet in Bozeman. Whitney Leuen-berger repeated as shot put champion for a mark of 38 feet 7.5 inches, beating sec-ond place by one foot, seven inches. Jalyssa Gorder took fi rst in pole vaulting as well, beating her personal record of 11 feet 3 inches by three inches.
In Class C, Lambert’s Alexis Johnson (discus and shot put), Fairview’s Cody Vitt (discus) and Savage’s boys 400-meter relay team earned state championships.
JUNEThe Savage Volunteer Fire
Department held its annual catfi sh tournament, and it was especially gratify-ing this year after the 2011 tourney was still in the aftermath of the fl ooding. This year’s tournament drew the largest calcutta to date with $28,605 being split between six teams and the fi re department.
Longtime Richland County Extension agent Judy Johnson retired after 22 years in Richland County and 26 years in Extension. She was the family and con-sumer sciences agent.
Primary election results included David Halvorson receiving 842 votes to win the Republican primary for House District 37 over Tami Christensen. No Democrat ran for the open offi ce.
Savage High School graduates Bridger Rice and Braden Ler were chosen male and female Student Athlete of the Year by the Sidney Herald.
The Montana Highway Patrol’s annual report was released, showing highway accidents had increased in Richland County by more than 42 percent in 2011 with six fatalities.
The Herald reported midway through May on the changes taking place in Dore, N.D., just a few miles north of Fairview, where an expanded rail facility by Musket Corp. was opening. Native Daryl Finsaas and
2012 – A year we won’t forget
SEE YEAR, PAGE 10A
