RiverStone Health, in collaboration with the Missoula City-County Health has launched the Nurse-Family Partnership, an evidence-based community health program that aims to help transform the lives of vulnerable mothers pregnant with their first child.

Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) is a voluntary prevention program that provides nurse home visitation services to low-income, first-time mothers. Nurses begin home visits early in the mother’s pregnancy and continue visitation until the child’s second birthday. Nurses provide support, education and counseling on health, behavioral and self-sufficiency issues.

Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, a nationwide law enforcement organization of more than 5,000 members that include police chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors and attorneys general, identified NFP as a proven investment to cut crime and violence. Providing voluntary parent coaching to at-risk parents of young children through NFP, a research study showed that the children served were half as likely to be abused and neglected.

Groundbreaking was scheduled for Wednesday this week on a new gazebo to replace the one that had been in South Park.

According to a news release, the city of Billings in 2010 demolished and removed the gazebo, which was constructed around 1914. The structure had become unsafe from, time, wear and weather.

The South Side Neighborhood Task Force has been requesting funds for the construction of a new gazebo. Plans are to construct a 40 foot facility that will provide a place for musical performances, festivals, family and group events, weddings and many other programs and events.

With the final plans being decided by the end of July, additional upgrades still needed funding. Within one week, the task force secured $25,000 from two donations: First Interstate Bank and the Billings Downtown Exchange Club.

On Monday, July 30, South Side Task Force officers received the checks at South Park from First Interstate’s Keith Cook and the Exchange Club’s Lisa Von Laven. Some words by our Ward I Councilman Jim Ronquillo, Councilman Brent Cromley and Task Force Chair Mike Yakawich will be given in an expression of gratitude to all those who have contributed to this amazing project not only for the South Side but for the entire city of Billings.

Continue reading: Gazebo to be built

The City of Billings Park and Recreation Department would like to invite Billings residents to attend a ground breaking ceremony at South Park for the new South Park Gazebo at noon Tuesday, Aug. 21.

Please call City Parks and Recreation at 657-8371 or 657-8372 if you have any questions.

By JIM LARSON - The Billings Outpost

Before he returned from the East, celebrity counterman Daniel McCormack sent me a letter. He thought, he wrote, that we should get together for lunch.

This began a series of midday encounters that I shall always count as some of my life’s best moments.

I can’t remember where we went first, but our last was at the McCormick Café, where we had first met.

As usual, lunch was an epic tour of the cosmos, an analysis of our respective psyches, a review of the state of our personal illnesses, and an expert critique of the food, all with relevant references from literature, modern physics and eastern and western religious traditions.

The conversation throughout was peppered with his sly wit, and the darker the subject, the harder he made me laugh.

Continue reading: Lunch with Daniel

By JANE WHITE - The Billings Outpost

N. Gregory Kohn, chairman of the board of the Billings Chamber of Commerce and director of human resources at Rocky Mountain College, stood out as the voice for the environment at the American Energy Alliance’s Bus Tour event at the Big Horn Resort in Billings on Monday.

“Everybody has a responsibility to protect the environment, and energy development has to be done responsibly,” he said. “I don’t think that we should hinder new development of our energy resources - we must do it responsibly.”

Mr. Kohn was the singular person at the AEA event to mention natural beauty. He said, “Montana’s natural beauty, its rivers, its plains, its national parks, are unrivalled. Energy must be developed in an efficient, responsible way ... . Responsible reclamation of land is critical not only by mandate, but also because of sense of shared responsibility.”

Mr. Kohn pointed out that some mines, such as the Spring Creek Mine in Decker, have espoused reclamation and have replanted much vegetation and even started a greenhouse to repopulate the land with indigenous plants. Reviews are mixed, however, on the success of such reclamation projects.

Continue reading: Bus tour touts energy production

We call grass a “one-hour fuel” because after one hour in the sun, it is as burnable as ever.  Soon after clouds and rain, grass dries.  Fire danger should be very high across the Reservation for the start of Crow Fair.  Gusts of 30 mph dried out our moisture Saturday morning.  Sun and temperatures in the 90’s return Sunday through Tuesday.

About 40 lightning strikes since Friday evening sprinkled West and East Pryor Mountains, Garvin Basin, Big Bull and Black Canyon areas, Red Rock Springs, Willow Creek, Pass Creek, Bear Creek, and Corral Creek in the Wolf Mountains.  Lightning often smolders for several days before it shows up as a fire. 

We have five “RAWS” (remote automated weather stations) on the Reservation, that send observations each hour by satellite to the National Weather Service website http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/byz/current.php.  They show some blessed rain Saturday:  .11” in the Pryors, .25” in the Big Horns, and .15” in the Wolf Mtns.  However, a “wetting rain” that actually soaks in to lessen timber fire danger takes more than .25”:  a quarter inch.  Our 2011 Hoss fire in Black Canyon blew up after a quarter inch of rain.

Pryor engines responded in town Friday to the 1/10 acre Little Light fire.  The Crow Tribe has prohibited open burning, but children tried to burn trash in a barrel, and the fire caught the grass. 

Continue reading: Lightning, wind raise risks

From Duane Winslow, director of emergency and general services for Yellowstone County:

Below is a National Weather Service Red Flag warning which will be in effect from noon Monday, Aug. 6, through midnight. The weather conditions will create explosive fire growth potential. If there are any questions concerning this, please contact me. Please urge everyone to use EXTREME caution during this critical period! Thank you.

..RED FLAG WARNING IN EFFECT FROM NOON TODAY TO MIDNIGHT MDT TONIGHT LOW HUMIDITIES...HOT TEMPERATURES...AND INCREASING THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY FOR ALL OF SOUTH CENTRAL MONTANA AND PARTS OF NORTH CENTRAL WYOMING...

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN BILLINGS HAS ISSUED A RED FLAG WARNING...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM NOON TODAY TO MIDNIGHT MDT TONIGHT. THE FIRE WEATHER WATCH IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT.

Continue reading: Red flag warning issued

Most wildfire on the Sarpy Hills complex today consisted of isolated smokes burning in the interior of the fire.  Massive numbers of engines are mopping up burning material that could possibly threaten firelines.  The 82,000 acre fire is 65 percent contained.

Some of the 701 personnel on the incident are working in the northeast corner of the Crow Reservation on fires that have become part of the Rosebud Complex.   They have relieved Big Horn County resources who worked several days on those fires.  At night about 300 people are “spiked” (camping out) at a cow camp on Sarpy Basin Road.  Heavy equipment is staging on firelines and at the Multipurpose building in Crow Agency to respond speedily to any running fire.   

The National Weather Service again predicts critical fire weather Monday through Wednesday for three days of possible lightning on the Reservation without rain.  High temperatures in Crow reach 97 to 102 degrees the next four days, through Thursday.

The fire did not harm the landscape in the pine highlands of Castle Rock or south of US Highway 212.  It burned on the ground beneath the ponderosa pines, fertilizing the forest floor without killing too many trees.  Ponderosa pines do not mind gentle fires.  They carry thick bark as an adaptation to fire.  This landscape will be green again soon after rain. 

Continue reading: Sarpy Creek fire partly contained