Area Briefs
Youth Court
sponsors egg hunt
The annual Youth Court Easter Egg Hunt is set for 1 p.m. Saturday, April 19, at J. Neils Park.
Children old enough to walk through 12 years may participate.
The hunt starts promptly at 1 p.m.
Montana farmers
shy from wheat
BILLINGS — Some Montana farmers are backing away from spring wheat in favor of planting other crops this season.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports there will be 350,000 fewer acres of Montana spring wheat this year. Planting intentions were published this past week in the USDA’s prospective plantings report.
Wheat prices entered 2014 on a three-month slide before rebounding recently, and farmers have been looking at options.
Glasgow area farmer Ray Davis tells The Billings Gazette that seed wheat sales have been down this year.
Montana farmers expect to plant 520,000 acres of dry edible peas this year, nearly three times the acres planted in 2011.
Man arrested
for Obama threat
HAMILTON — A former employee of a veterans center in Hamilton has been arrested by the U.S. Secret Service for threatening President Barack Obama and his family.
The Ravalli Republic reports 43-year-old Dan Rachell of Darby was arrested late last week on two federal charges.
A veteran told federal agents and the Valley Veterans Service Center board that Rachell claimed he had trained his wife to assist him in an assassination attempt should the president ever come to Hamilton. The veteran said Rachell had also threatened to “smash (his) skull in.”
Explosives stolen
in Ravalli County
VICTOR — Law enforcement in Ravalli County is investigating the theft of about 285 pounds of high explosives, explosive boosters and dynamite.
Authorities say the materials were stolen around March 15 to April 1, from a storage facility operated by Ajax Contracting Inc. west of Victor.
Officials are offering a reward of up to $5,000 for information that leads to the location of the stolen materials and to the conviction of those responsible for the thefts.
Possession of stolen explosives and theft of explosives is a federal offense, and perpetrators would face up to 10 years in prison for the crime.
Missoula student
wins Montana bee
BILLINGS — Jesse Zhang, of Missoula, is the new Montana state champion in the National Geographic Bee.
The 26th annual bee was held Friday in Billings with 100 students from across the state competing.
Zhang will represent Montana in the national competition in Washington, D.C., where he has a chance to win a $50,000 college scholarship.
Zhang tells KULR-TV that a game given to him by his parents is what initially got him interested in geography. The game made him look for different places across the world
He says he practiced for nearly two months to get ready for the bee and his hard work paid off.
Disagreement
lingers over lease
GREAT FALLS — John Murray, tribal historic preservation officer for the Blackfeet Tribe, opposes oil and gas exploration in Badger-Two Medicine in Lewis and Clark National Forest, a wild area of Montana that’s home to grizzly bears and a place of worship for Blackfeet.
Sidney Longwell of Louisiana has held a permit to drill for natural gas in the Badger-Two Medicine for 21 years, but his efforts have been blocked. He contends he’s being unfairly treated by the government in not being allowed to proceed after decades of delay.
The two men and others with a stake in what’s known as the Hall Creek oil and gas exploration lease met face-to-face Thursday in Great Falls at a meeting called to work out their differences.
The Great Falls Tribune reports that at the conclusion of the four-and-a-half-hour meeting, Longwell and Murray, the central figures, shook hands, but they could find little common ground.