Bitterroot Star - January 12, 2022

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Covering the Bitterroot Valley – “Where Montana Begins!” – Established 1985 – Locally Owned & Independent

‘The Volume XXXVII, Number 26

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Wednesday, January 12, 2022

Studios, students team up for Culture Crawl by Nathan Boddy Icy sidewalks in Hamilton were not enough to damper the Culture Crawl on Saturday, January 9th. Art lovers carefully picked their way up and down Main Street to participating locations for poetry, music, and to see some of the art expressions of area artists, as well as installations of artwork from Hamilton High School students. Barbara Liss, owner of Montana Bliss Artworks, has long been the driving force behind the Culture Crawl events which take place between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Saturdays in downtown Hamilton, and was happy to see some of the new faces that appeared following Barbara Liss, owner of Montana Bliss Artworks, poses with a joint project she is creating with high school artist, Emily the participation by Ziegler. Photo by Nathan Boddy. Hamilton students.

Hamilton city council kicks off new year by Nathan Boddy The Hamilton City Council began the new year by welcoming Darwin Ernst, new representative of Ward 3, to their ranks. Ernst, along with Councilors Kristi Bielski and Rod Pogachar each won a term for their respective wards in November. Although new to the City Council, Ernst expressed his enthusiasm about the new role. “I hope to be beneficial and not a hindrance in any way,” said Ernst. “I serve Darwin Ernst, new council member on a lot of different boards and my ideas representing Ward 3, speaks to the See HAMILTON, page 4 council. Photo by Nathan Boddy.

“It’s a different profile,” said Liss. “We’ve seen a lot of kids coming in today, so that’s exciting! They are coming in in groups.” While the Culture Crawl has been going on since Liss reinvigorated the event in 2017, participation by high schoolers is the result of joint planning between Liss, the Hamilton Downtown Association, and Hamilton High School art teacher, Daniele Vickers. After several months of creative effort, the students were ready to expose their artwork to the community at multiple locations in Hamilton, including Big Creek Coffee, Chapter One Bookstore, and the Paper Clip. Their theme, Pop Culture, presented See CULTURE CRAWL, page 2

Bids to be let for sewer lines to serve TEDD by Michael Howell An addition to the City of Hamilton’s sewer system that will serve the county’s Targeted Economic Development District northeast of town is about to go out to bid. The new mainline will be installed along Old Corvallis Road along the property owned by Tonix Pharmaceuticals and flow by gravity to the lift station located near the Ravalli County Economic Development Authority’s building. The Ravalli County

Commissioners approved putting the project out to bid last week. According to Commission Chairman Dan Huls, a few final details remain to be worked out concerning the required railroad track crossing and the Corvallis Ditch crossing before the bids can actually go out. The project changed shape as it underwent review by the County Road Department. One suggestion resulted in the line not being placed down the center of the road as is See COUNTY, page 3

Local Imagination Library gets big boost by Victoria Howell

solid base to support the current participants and also add more children.” As of December 31st, one thousand and fifty-six children in Ravalli County have registered for the program, which sends a free book a month to all participants. The program is open to all children from birth to 5 years old. 184 local children have graduated from the program. Country music icon Dolly Parton launched Imagination Library in 1995, to benefit the children of her home county in East Tennessee. Dolly’s vision was to foster a love of reading among preschool children and their families. Through mailing high quality, age appropriate books directly to their homes, Parton hopes that children will be excited about books and feel the magic that books can create. Now Imagination Library sends out more than one million books per month to children across the United States and the world. Ravalli County’s population in the 0-5 group is about 2000. Solomon would like to get every one of those children registered. The program

Syble Solomon, the local coordinator for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library program in the Bitterroot, is feeling a bit overwhelmed by the latest fundraising effort initiated and spearheaded by Jaime Devlin, the owner of A2Z Personnel and her staff. Last week Solomon was presented a ceremonial check for $22,645 by Liz Cook who coordinated the fundraising for A2Z. The check represented the total that A2Z raised for the local Imagination Library program. Solomon was busy preparing thank you letters and tax receipts on Monday. She said the bulk of the donations came from the Stevensville area, but people from as far away as Ohio, California and even Canada read the stories in the local newspapers and sent in donations. In all, Solomon said that almost $25,000 was raised. “It was really awesome,” said Solomon. “While we were doing okay, we couldn’t aggressively expand Syble Solomon, left, coordinator of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library for Ravalli and take on new children. Now we County, accepts a ceremonial check for $22,645 from Liz Cook of A2Z Personnel. See IMAGINATION LIBRARY, page 2 have enough money to have a nice


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