Ledger: Looking Back 25 Years: 7/25/1996

JULY 25, 1996

It’s time to kick up your heels and swing into the fun of Whitehall’s Frontier Days. The biggest weekend of Whitehall’s summer gets underway Friday, and there will be events galore throughout the weekend. From the Friday crafts fair and trade show to the Sunday rodeo, the weekend will be jam-packed with activities, most of them free and all of them inexpensive.

Whitehall’s senior citizens may have finished growing up, but they are having growing pains, anyway. When the Whitehall Senior Citizens Center was purchased in 1974, the kitchen there served about 150 meals per week. Now the facility regularly puts out 275 meals a week. That, says the group’s president Louise Swearingen, means more space is needed. “Since people using the center and the number of meals served has increased, it is imperative that we add to the building to provide more adequate kitchen space, a storage area and remodel our restrooms and entrance so handicapped people can be accommodated,” said Swearingen.

The Boulder Hot Springs is calling all former visitors, workers, customers and friends to a reunion there on Sunday, Aug. 11. Old timers and more recent patrons are invited to an afternoon of story-telling, tours, living history, music, refreshments and fun. Everyone is invited, but special invitations are being extended to folks who know or lived some of the history of the Hot Springs (previously operated as the Diamond S Ranch Hotel).

A rodeo cowboy doesn’t have time to think about roping when his horse is galloping 35 mph after a skittish calf. “This has got to be an automated response. We are looking at leaving the roping box, taking two swings and a throw, essentially in about 2 ½ seconds,” according to long-time rodeo researcher Michael C. Meyers, an assistant professor of Health and Human Development at Montana State University/Bozeman. A better place to think about roping might be MSU’s Movement Science/Human Factors Lab where scientists are studying calf roping and team roping as one of their many research projects, Meyers said. The rodeo research is designed to help cowboys and cowgirls make the most out of their time in the arena by analyzing their roping techniques beforehand.

Madison and Jefferson counties were well represented at the 1996 State 4-H Youth Congress held at Montana State University July 9-12. This year’s delegation included Eric Alley, Andy Sorensen, Ben Sorensen, Jessica Brower, Augie Brower, Rachel Endecott, Davina Johnson, Dusty Klaumann, and chaperone, Karen Brower. 4-H Congress celebrated its 51st anniversary this year with the theme of “4-H: The Greatest Show On Earth.”