New West Network

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The first full issue is hitting newsstands

The premiere issue of The New West magazine, a new regional publication focused on covering design, development and community in the Rocky Mountain West is hitting newsstands and mailboxes this week. Click here to complete a survey to get the magazine free or sign up for a paid subscription here.

The magazine is available on these newsstands in Missoula: Shakespeare & Co., Fact & Fiction, the Good Food Store and the University of Montana Bookstore. Other bookstores and newsstands will soon carry the magazine across Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado and eastern Washington.

At 68 pages, this is our first full issue and we think you'll find it even broader and deeper than our preview edition released earlier this year.

The cover photo at right depicts Mike Horst, a ranch hand who lives and works south of the Bears Paw Mountains in Montana. The story, written and photographed by Anne Medley, tells of calving season on a family ranch and in the backdrop is the story of how even in the face of corporate agriculture, trophy ranches and soaring land prices, two families are holding onto something much bigger than just a family business.

This issue's "Project Watch" section details the bankruptcies of five posh resorts in the region and the issue is anchored by a profile Bill Foley, the billionaire founder of Fidelity National Financial and new owner of Whitefish Mountain Resort and Mackenzie River Pizza Co. and, well, lots of other stuff. And, he may just be getting started.

The best way to check out our magazine is to subscribe. We want to know who's interested in The New West, so we have made the magazine available free to qualified subscribers who answer a short questionnaire.

• Click here for the questionnaire for a free subscription.
  
• You can also subscribe for $9.95 a year by clicking here.

Essay: In The New West magazine

I spread my sleeping bag on the floor and crumpled my coat for a pillow. I put the bag where my bed used to be.

The room still smelled the same. Aside from the echo, there was something homey, something warm, the smell of a vanilla candle still lingering in the empty walls. My brother and I were at the now vacant house for the night. It was Thanksgiving, and we wanted to stay somewhere familiar. The land had sold, but the house hadn’t yet, so we would stay the night on the floor in my old bedroom.

Facing me, in the wall, was a small hole about the size of a heel. My brother and I had been fighting about something teenagers fight about and, in a tantrum, my foot connected with the wall. My brother had laughed. I was 16 at the time.

I had forgotten about the hole, hidden by a dresser long ago. As I ran my fingers over it one more time, my brother walked in, shaking his head. He always told me I was too sentimental about this place. It’s just a house, just a farm. They’re just walls. It’s just dirt.

He didn’t believe it either. [more]

From the Flathead Beacon Blog

The chances of Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton returning to Montana took a hit Tuesday night. After Obama’s crushing victory in North Carolina and Clinton’s narrow win in Indiana, the majority of pundits have declared the race all but over. I hope not. The state press has been blanketed with high-profile attention from each campaign over the last few weeks and it would be a shame to find out that the media was simply used for political gain.

Since Obama and Clinton visited Montana last month, and subsequently opened campaign field offices across the state, the local press has been constantly updated on why each candidate is absolutely great and has the state’s best interests in mind. You see, we’re passed a deluge of daily notes, many with personal touches. [more]

Best of 2007

Jill Kuraitis, Idaho Editor and columnist at NewWest.Net won 3rd place for specialty column and NewWest.Net/Boise was honored with 2nd place in the Web site general excellence category in the Idaho Press Club's Best of 2007 Annual Awards this weekend.

The Idaho Statesman took first in Web site general excellence and the Wood River Journal and the Idaho State Journal tied for third. The Statesman also won daily newspaper general excellence and Dan Popkey won for watchdog journalism with his investigation into the now infamous Larry Craig story, the main headline being: "Men's room arrest reopens questions about Craig." Popkey also won reporter of the year.

For more awards from the Idaho Press Club, click here. And congratulations to Jill! Recognition well-deserved.

In The New West magazine: Spotlight North Idaho

North Idaho has no shortage of real estate developers, but Marshall Chesrown is in a league by himself. Barely in his 50s (retired from the car dealership business since age 39), the self-made millionaire with a high school education lays claim to six high-end developments from Coeur d'Alene to Spokane, his hometown.

Foremost is the Club at Black Rock, which sits on about 600 acres of Coeur d'Alene lakefront property with a golf course and vacation homes. The Ridge at Sunup Bay, on 250 acres nearby, is a private development (residents also get memberships at the club).

Known as a charismatic straight-talker, Chesrown gets high marks from economic planners in Coeur d'Alene. Jonathan Coe, president and general manager of the Coeur d'Alene Chamber of Commerce, calls Chesrown a generous corporate citizen -- giving to the arts and donating land for community use -- and says his developments have helped buffer the area from economic slowdowns in the housing and construction markets. [more]

In The New West magazine: Spotlight North Idaho

The decline and near demise in the 1980s and '90s of logging and mining in North Idaho left a landscape of company towns -- Sandpoint, Priest River and Clark Fork among them -- almost bereft of companies.

The towns searched for new industries and leveraged the area's newfound resort profile with hopes of establishing a diverse and more stable economic base.

"If you go back to 2000, and you compare Bonner County to the rest of the state, we've grown manufacturing jobs faster and added more manufacturing jobs than anywhere else," says Karl Dye, the president of the Bonner County Economic Development Corp. [more]

New West News Brief

The Associated Press' Mead Gruver takes a look at the Wyoming real estate market today with two stories: One about a slight cool down in the pricey Jackson Hole area and another about the still slightly tight overall statewide situation.

New Census numbers show Wyoming is ninth in the nation for the lowest vacancy rate in the first quarter (1.7 percent, compared to 3.2 percent West-wide), tied with Hawaii and Oklahoma. New energy workers moving into the state have helped the market, as has the reluctance to go hog-wild with new construction.

In the Teton Valley, Gruver reports there is a little dip in home sales, although the median price continues to climb. (It's at $1.1 milllion.) And, with a proposed moratorium on new building while the county finishes a management plan, those prices might just continue their rise.
[more]

Gambling on the Farm

In theory, farmers should be sitting pretty with record crop prices.

In reality, they're still pinching pennies, with the price of diesel and fertilizer also soaring.

This year many farmers are putting a lot more pennies into their operations hoping to take advantage of market conditions, Mother Nature permitting. With more money out there for the taking, farmers are willing to pony up for the expensive operational costs.

"Farmers are gamblers and they're willing to bet," said John Youngberg, vice president of governmental affairs for the Montana Farm Bureau. [more]

Quick Update on First Event of the Weekend

UPDATE: Click here for a fuller report from the rally and here for a slideshow of photos before, during and after the rally.

More than 8,000 turned out this morning at the University of Montana in Missoula to see Sen. Barack Obama -- the first event of a packed weekend of presidential campaigning in Montana.

Hundreds (best estimate) of the people who didn't get into the Adams Center were taken to the football stadium, where they got a video feed from the rally and a quick stop from Obama after his Adams Center appearance. When we arrived at 7:30 a.m. or so, the line into the stadium zig-zagged the entire width of the south end of campus.

Most of the stadium was filled in by 9:30 a.m., and Obama took the stage a few minutes after 10. He finished almost exactly an hour later. In between, he brought the Missoula crowd (he said he liked saying "Missoula") to its feet several times -- the biggest applauses coming at his comments on his stance against lobbying and his take on the economy, labor and education. By my internal "applause-o-meter" he got the biggest reaction when he said, obviously pointed at opponent Hillary Clinton, that America didn't need someone in the White House who knew how to play the games in Washington. "We need to put an end to the game playing in Washington," he said to a boisterous crowd.

For many Montanans, where voters are usually bypassed during presidential election season, having both candidates in the flesh was enough to make this one of the biggest weekends of the year. [more]

Interesting Happening

The faded logos and signs that scroll across old Missoula buildings -- the ones hidden in alleys and side streets -- have stories to tell.

Artist Ben Ferencz, with historian Allan Mathews, is helping to tell those stories.

"Seven Buildings," at the Gallery Saintonge in April, studies Missoula's so-called ghost signs through seven black and white photographs accompanied by typeset print.

According to the gallery, "Ghost signs, a dying art form - due in large to the proliferation of computer technology - are visual clues to the historic use of the buildings and the products sold therein."

"Seven Buildings" opens at the Gallery Saintonge on Higgins Ave. Friday, April 4. Click here for more information from the gallery. [more]