Serving Southern Jefferson County in the Great State of Montana

FOR YOUR INFORMATION

In last week's Ledger, Jack Smith covered some vital information regarding the Cardwell School. If you didn't read it, go back and do it. There are two school board positions open - the high school in Whitehall is represented by two positions from Cardwell and Sue Pullman has opted to not run again to fill one of them. At Cardwell, Trent Biggers is moving from the District and will not be able to run again. There are capable residents who can fill either of these. Sooo, get a petition from the Clerk at either school, fill in out and get it submitted by March 29th. Not much time. The other issue is the mill levy to be requested on the ballot in May. As Jack Smith pointed out, it's been 30 years! since Cardwell School officials have asked for a mill levy. This obviously means that officials have been good stewards of the finances of the school. No matter the enrollment, expenses continue and upgrades can be costly. Contact the School Clerk, Lisa Morgan, or one of the School Board members, AnnMarie Carey, Dawn Lewton or Trent Biggers, for further information.

Up the road from my house I saw a sign that made me sad. It is a "For Sale" sign on the property of R.J. Hunter. This 20 acres has a beautiful home, some haying equipment and easy accessibility to highway 359. The house was built by Greg Rich for Chris Wagner as an investment. Chris's sons were Greg's helpers. R.J.'s daughter, Tracie Rich, is the contact person if you are an interested buyer. Phone: 287-7992 or 490-7992.

Last Tuesday, seven former Cardwell students shared with the current students of what it was like all those years ago. Afton (Shaw) Fell, Dr. Gayle Sacry, Bill Powell, Walt Shaw, Tom Carey, Donna (Ogan) Clark and Allene (Ogan) Swainson represent families from the beginning of the School in 1918. Memories of Walt Shaw included his first day at school and meeting Tom Carey, a Whitehall High School student by then. Dr. Sacry talked about the beginning of the fire escape and swimming in the basement - that's right. When the Jefferson River would flood, the basement would fill with water since there were no sump-pumps. He and the janitor's son, Jack Patrick, are probably the only two to ever have had that experience. The basement was a classroom for 'manual training', but school was out for the summer by the time the basement became a swimming pool. Too bad that we didn't record them. Dr. Sacry's wife, Kathryn noticed that the children were getting wiggly so she just got up and taught them a song., 'Black Socks'. It was very clever and did the trick. They really were well behaved and ask a ton of questions.

There was so much more. The hour concluded with the students showing all of us the progress they are making on replicating the town of Cardwell of 1918. Mrs. Patti Hanley is overseeing this project which will be on display at the Centennial celebration on August 4, 2018.

The Whitehall Pinochle meets like clockwork. Joyce Held was the hostess for this gathering. Janet Davis, a guest, got first; Florence Weyer, second; Martha Hanson, low; and Lucile Buchanan got the pinochle. Other guests were Erv Hedegaard and Norman Ridder. Marion Poff will be the next hostess.

Many of you know Buz Cowdrey and his wife, Judy, owners of Rodeway Inn and Cowdrey Court. They enjoy time in Arizona when not at their home in Bozeman. Recently, while Buz was being a 'Good Samaritan', helping out a stalled motorist, his car was rear-ended, catching him between his and the car he had stopped to help. Even though he was badly injured, broken bones and other injuries, he had no head injuries or paralyzing back problems. Several weeks in the hospital and rehab therapy has helped with his road to recovery. He is at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona and looking forward to being back in Bozeman soon.

Does basketball never end? Three Forks hosted a 'three on three' contest last weekend. Rebecca Wagner and Joelle Martin organized some girls to play. Along with these two, Anna and Natalia Grinder and Carlee Wagner made up the team. They competed well. Now it's March Madness with college b-ball competition!

Converting an old dairy barn into a wool processing facility was quite an undertaking. It was very intriguing to me to see the process of making yarn. There were fleeces in three old claw foot bathtubs that had been turned into the washing area, racks with fleeces drying, (they were so soft) and machines to clean/pick the wool before it was put through the carding machine. While I watched, Cheri Shaw weighed wool, arranged it on the carding machine - which also makes bats and roving - sprayed it with a minute amount of a special anti-static formula and let the conveyor move it along at the correct pace to be carded and be transferred to a rug yarn machine where it is spun into rug yarn. It's a learning experience and makes me realize how valuable my wool coat is and why it has worn so well. This equipment is capable of spinning other plies of yarn. Have some fleeces you don't know what to do with? How about checking this out. No telling what you could do with the yarn.

Encouragement for this week is from Charles Swindoll's "Growing Wise in Family Life". "Our greatest need is fresh insight from our ever relevant Lord, whose Word is still unsurpassed as a source document of reliable counsel in any generation." Read it and see for yourself.

 

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