Looking Back: Blown transformer puts saw mill out of production

A look back into the local weekly archives

20 years ago

Lake County Leader, July 6, 2000

Local athletes make some noise at state rodeo high school rodeo 

MILES CITY — Mission Valley athletes competed in the Montana State High School Rodeo last week, led by St. Ignatius Megan Ruhkala, who won the saddle in goat tying and finished eighth in pole bending.

Josh Harris, Polson and Pete White, St. Ignatius, took second in team roping, and Harris added a fifth-place finish in calf roping.

The top four athletes in each event qualify for National High School Rodeo Finals in Springfield, Ill., July 24-30, which will include athletes from 38 states and four provinces. The fifth-through eighth-place finishers qualified for the Reserve Champion Rodeo, held last weekend in Fallon, Nev.

Mission Valley was also well-represented at the earlier District Five Rodeo on June 10 in Dillon. District Five covers western Montana from Libby to Dillon. Ronan's Matt Aipperspach won bull riding, while Harris won calf roping, was third in all-around, and fourth in steer wrestling. Troy Ruhkala placed second in steer wrestling and fourth in team roping with Troy Jaques of Corvallis.

Ruhkala had second-place finishes in all-around, pole bending and goat tying.

40 years ago 

The Flathead Courier, July 3, 1986

Tax bill will help most Americans

Tax reforms currently being considered in Congress will give Americans some needed fiscal breathing room, Montana Senator Max Baucus told about 100 people at a town meeting at the courthouse here Tuesday night.

Baucus, on a swing through Western Montana to examine proposed wilderness areas and visit with his constituents, said in his opinion, the bill, which has already passed in the Senate, is the first really new reform proposal that has come along in some time. He said it has four goals: to lower taxes; to simplify deductions, credits, etc.; to set a minimum tax of at least 20 percent on high-income individuals and corporations; and to eliminate tax shelters.

As a general rule, Baucus said, the bill will help larger families with fewer deductions. It will mean that about 80 percent of the country's taxpayers will be in the lower of two tax brackets, at about 15 percent for a family of four with a yearly income of $42,000 or below. Popular individual retirement accounts (IRAs) will be phased out, but Baucus noted that much of the tax

wilderness needs were balanced against logging and other business interests. "We're just four people trying to figure out how to get the job done," the senator replied. "And we're all Montanans." Baucus said the lawmakers must trust their own gut feelings.

"This is the most polarized, most. contentious subject that we all face," he said, because the notion of preserving wilderness involves "what it means to be a Montanan …

60 years ago 

The Flathead Courier, July 3, 1966

Production To Resume At Saw Mill

Entering the seventh day of idleness, the Dupuis Bros saw mill is expected to be back into full production by the Thursday night shift, Steve DeMers, general manager, said.

The mill went out of production last Wednesday evening at about 6:30 p.m., when an oil circuit breaker blew, causing the 1,000 KVA transformer to short out and ground out. The new transformer was expected to arrive here late Wednesday night, DeMers said, and will be housed in a new building outside the mill house.

While the planer plant is still in operation, the mill breakdown put approximately 50 men temporarily out of work, he explained. 

DeMers said the repair crew has been working around the clock to remedy the situation. He described the cooperation and assistance received from the power division of the Flathead Indian Irrigation Service as being "excellent."