Zachmann sworn in as mayor
Steve Zachmann was sworn into office, as the mayor of the City of Baker, by Kevin Dukart, City Clerk on Aug 18. Zachmann was appointed to the office of mayor the night before at a special meeting called by the Baker City Council in the wake of the resignation of Mayor JoDee Pratt.
Horse show kicks off Fallon County Fair Stenberg starts career that ends with demolition derby crashes with third grade Staff Report
Mollee Stenberg is where she wants to be. The newly minted graduate of Montana State University- Bozeman grew up in a small town and wanted to start her teaching career in a small town. Now, she is living in Baker and will be a brand new third grade teacher at Longfellow Elementary School. “I graduated from college in December and when I was looking for a job, I was interested in living in a rural community again,” she explained. “I was looking for a smaller school and Baker kind of fit that.” She grew up in Big Timber and found a place that has her near relatives in Miles City and across the border in North and South Dakota. “I have always wanted to be a teacher for as long as I can remember,” she explained. “My mom was a teacher. I saw how much she could help kids. I really liked that and I wanted to follow along that path.”
Stenberg said she really liked the idea of teaching in the middle grades. Stenberg said she has a passion for history that she hopes she can help instill in her students. “I really want them to be excited about learning when they leave the third grade,” she explained. “I have a history minor so I am excited to be teaching social studies to the younger kids. I want to get them excited about social studies.” She also knows that what she originally expected as a firstyear teacher may be different in reality, especially with the impact the pandemic has already had on education earlier in the year. “It is definitely not what I expected,” she said, noting how teaching in Montana has changed in just a few months. “But it is something that everyone is having to handle, work around and figure out – eventually – to make it work,” she said. “It will be just another challenge to add on.” The teacher is also hoping to activate her class’ interest in local history and the community. “This year, there is a lot of focus in third grade learning about their community. I am hoping that I will be able to create some kind of project for our students to learn more about their community or think about ways that they can help their community,” she said. “There is definitely a lot of interesting stuff around here, history-wise,” she added.
The annual Fallon County Fair started early Aug. 11 with the 4-H Horse Show in the arena. It ended with audience filling up the grandstands for the PRCA Rodeo and the Demolition Derby Sunday. In between, the fair brought people out to have some fun, according to fairgrounds manager Shyla Hadley. “We had about 4,000 people attend the shows (in the grandstands),” she said. “That is not representative of how many people came out (to the fair). Those are the people that were comfortable coming to the shows.” The Cowboy Channel broadcast the rodeo live, so that gave some people a chance to stay home to watch the rodeo, she explained. “It was televised for the first time, so I think a lot of people were more comfortable at home watching it on TV. I think that it helped a lot for the people who were not comfortable with the virus coming out to see it. It was a great thing to offer.” It will be up to the Cowboy Channel, whether or not the rodeo next year will be televised, Hadley explained. “I think it went over well so we would always love that earned media.” The fair, although a little smaller, still drew positive comments,
she said. “Everyone seems to love our free stage acts. For the most part, the things I heard the most about was that people were excited to have something going on since 2020 has been such a bummer of a year.” The balloon maker and the bubble tower were also popular, along with a newcomer, the ROBOCARS. “The kids really loved those,” Hadley said. She also heard good reviews of the lumberjack act that spent time on the midway and also performed in front of the grandstands on Friday’s extreme jousting night. In the exhibit hall, the number of entries were down this year. “But overall, were just happy to have about 75 percent of what we usually have,” she said. The derby drew comments, both for the show in front of the grandstands Sunday evening as well as the dunk tank set up by the Baker Wrestling Club, Hadley said. “Overall, our midway was pretty bare, but those things added to it,” she said. In addition, the fair also held a parade which rolled through town Saturday morning. The fair board will be meeting later to evaluate how the fair went, she added.
COVID-19 total drops to zero in Fallon County Staff Report
Fallon County now has zero cases of Coronavirus. The two positive cases identified earlier in the summer have moved over to the recovered list, as reported by the state Tuesday. As of Tuesday, the state of Montana had a total of 5,846 confirmed positive cases since testing began. That included the 57 new cases also reported Tuesday. Of the nearly 5,900 reported cases, the state lists 4,206 as having recovered from COVID-19. But 84 people did not recover from the pandemic since it arrived in the Treasure State. There are 97 people in the state hospitalized with COVID-19, the latest in the total of 339 who were hospitalized in the past few months. The state has given 205,512 tests since the program started earlier this year. In eastern Montana, Fallon is not alone with having zero current cases of COVID-19.
Powder River County along the Wyoming border had one case, since recovered. Also to the south. Carter County has no cases. To the north, Wibaux County has three recovered cases. Prairie County has one recovered case. But COVID-19 is never far from the county. Custer County to the west of Fallon County has had a total of 61 confirmed cases and two deaths this year, The county has nine active cases currently with 50 people who have recovered. Rosebud County, to the west of Custer County, has had 79 confirmed cases and currently has 56 active cases. Twenty-two people have recovered in Rosebud County. One has died. To the north of both Wibaux and Prairie counties, Dawson County has 17 active cases, with 14 of the 31 cases having recovered. But the hot spots in the state have been in Yellowstone and Big Horn counties. Yellowstone County has had a total of
1,539 confirmed cases this year. Of that, there were 32 fatalities. The county currently has 654 active cases, with 853 people having recovered. Fourteen Montanans have died because of COVID-19 in Big Horn County. There have been 543 confirmed cases with 284 listed as recovered. As of Tuesday, Big Horn County had 245 active cases. As a state, Montana is still at the low end when it comes to comparing cases with the rest of the nation, Hawaii has had three deaths per 100,000 residents, while Alaska has four. Wyoming has five fatalities per 100,000 population, while Montana has eight and Oregon, Vermont, Maine and West Virginia each having nine deaths per 100,000 residents.. By comparison, New Jersey had 179 deaths per 100,000, while New York had 169 deaths per 100,000 residents, showing the impact the pandemic had earlier this year in the New England region.