GLENDIVE RANGER REVIEW Thursday, April 29, 2021 • Vol. 59, No. 34 • Glendive, Montana $1.00 Museum kicks off summer season Fair will with a presentation and new plans not include By Hunter Herbaugh Ranger-Review Staff Writer carnival as The Frontier Gateway Museum is gearing up for its 2021 season with STAGE 1 FIRE the museum foundation holding their plans are first meeting of the year on April 25. RESTRICTIONS: During that time, the museum’s cura- tor Tom Linn and foundation presi- finalized Due to the ongoing dent Eileen Melby presented plans for projects they hope to either get By Hunter Herbaugh drought conditions, off the ground or continue. Ranger-Review Staff Writer Dawson County is now Linn has several projects he hopes under fire restrictions, to accomplish, including revamping The 2021 Dawson County Fair is the museum’s gift shop and adding taking shape and it is going to look Page 3 information displays to the cannon quite a bit different this year. As outside of the building. the Dreamland Carnival Company He also has some bigger goals. The has decided to cancel appearances first being a “Wall of Heroes,” a dis- this season, the annual event will play that would honor those who have not feature a carnival, leaving the served in either the military or law Fair Board to pick up an alternative enforcement in Dawson County. option. More ambitious though is a dino- The 2021 Dawson County Fair is saur dig experience that he is hop- scheduled to run from Thursday, July ing can get off the ground later this 29 to Sunday, August 1. summer. Fair manager Eric Smeltzer read This would be a partnership the letter sent to him and the board between the Museum, Dawson Com- from Dreamland at the board’s meet- munity College and Makohiska State ing on Monday night in which man- Park which aims to give kids and ager Riley Cooke informed them that students the chance to experience a Hunter Herbaugh photos Lewistown had decided to cancel real paleontological dig. their carnival, leaving his company “(Makoshika State Park Manager Frontier Gateway Museum curator Tom with not enough scheduled shows to Chris Dantic) and I will be working Linn (above right) and foundation presi- justify operating this season. hand-in-hand for a good part of the dent Eileen Melby (above left) laid out “As much as we do not want to write summer together,” Linn said. their plans for the summer on Sunday, this letter, we must. Lewistown/Cen- The details for the dig are still in including a research project into the life of tral Montana, even though they were the very early stages of planning, so Grace Gilmore (right). not under contract, has decided to go JAVELIN MASTER: specific details are not available at without a carnival this year and can- this time. However, DCC’s Director interesting lady and quite the social- celled their contract. This along with Glendive native of Workforce Development and Con- ite, quite the figure in Glendive but other spring route and fall routes continues to achieve in tinuing Education Sara Engle was these boxes filled in all sorts of other being completely cancelled, we do able to say she is hopeful that these information,” Melby said. not have enough season left to justify throwing sport, “paleo-camps” are able to get started The material was preserved and bringing the carnival out due to the and then grow over the years to reviewed with the help of local histo- uncertainty of the pandemic and the Page 8 come. She said there will be further rian Avis Anderson, who was unable health situation we seem to be faced announcements coming soon. to attend Sunday’s meeting. endured the winter of 1886/1887, the with. Because of it, we have made One of the summer’s primary proj- Gilmore was born in Ohio in 1869. winter that nearly annihilated the the decision that Dreamland Carnival ects served as the feature presenta- The daughter of a Civil War veteran, cattle industry in Montana, was twice will not be going out in 2021,” Smelter tion for the meeting. It includes a she eventually made her way to Mon- married and twice widowed, had her read from the letter. CENSUS RESULTS: dive into the life of Grace Gilmore, tana with the rest of her family in horses stolen by natives, started Glen- With no carnival, the board decided one of the area’s earlier settlers. 1880. On their way, they stopped in dive’s first Women’s Club, organized a to fall onto their back-up plan and Montana population Melby noted that she and others Bismarck where she actually saw Sit- local Red Cross nursing class during enlist the services of an inflatables grows enough to earn a uncovered records of Gilmore’s life ting Bull on his way to the Standing World War I and even became well company that will be able to provide in storage and as they reviewed them, Rock Reservation, the first of many acquainted with Janette Rankin, the various games instead. They moved second seat in the U.S. they found Gilmore to be a fairly prominent figures she would have Montana Congresswoman and first to hire Games Galore, a Fargo, N.D. House of interesting individual they believe contact with. From Bismarck, her woman to serve in the U.S. Congress. based company that can provide a warrants further research. family moved to Glendive. Representatives, “I always knew she was a really Over the course of her life, she See MUSEUM, page 2 See FAIR, page 2 Page 7 Legislator pleased as his bills are signed into law By Hunter Herbaugh passed, especially Dawson County as they asked him TALKING COWS: Ranger-Review Staff Writer to sponsor it, he feels as though HB543 is the more Dawson important of the two. With the current legislative session, two bills car- “Not that I wanted to stiff the residents of Glendive, Community College ried by Rep. Bob Phalen have been signed into law but to me the most important one was the Constitu- further discussed the by the governor. These include a bill that will change tion/Pledge of Allegiance, because I didn’t realize, how operating fees for the county sewer system are even when I decided I was gonna run that bill, from feasibility of adding a charged to county residents, a goal that the Dawson sixth grade to 12 grade, they only say the Pledge of small cow herd to graze County Commissioners were hoping to accomplish. Allegiance once a week, and here on the house floor, The bills passed into law included HB268 and we say the Pledge of Allegiance every day, so I don’t land adjacent to the HB543. think it’s too much to ask to have that done every day campus, HB268 deals with how maintenance district fees in the schools,” Phalen said. are assessed and will allow the county to place the The bill also received support from the state super- Page 2 operating fees for the county sewer district back intendant of schools, who congratulated Phalen after onto county residents’ taxes rather than billing them the bill’s passing. separately. A third bill of Phalen’s didn’t make it out of the The way operating fees are assessed in Dawson House of Representatives. HB288, which would have County had to be changed when the switch was provided temporary property tax exempt status to NEWS TIPS: made to a Rural Special Improvement District back businesses that have to temporarily close should the in 2019. The district interconnects with the City of governor declare a state of emergency, was tabled in Have an event coming Glendive’s wastewater system and uses its treat- the House’s Taxation Committee and never got off. It up? Know of someone ment facility. Since the county doesn’t own the facil- missed the transmittal deadline on April 8 and is still ity, they couldn’t place the maintenance fees for the on the table. who accomplished facility on county residents’ taxes. Phalen explained that he planned for the bill to be a Now that the bill has become law, the commission- deterrent to the governor enacting emergencies that something notable? ers are feeling some relief. could close Montana businesses, as it would mean a Have an interesting “We’re excited about it, it’ll sure make it a lot more decrease in tax revenue collected. However, he said convenient for not only the residents, but the county that it was tabled primarily because the committee hobby or pastime? Let itself. It will be a lot less administrative costs and members were unsure of some aspects of it, primar- that will get passed on to the users,” said County ily how county treasurers would account for these the Ranger-Review Commission Chairman Dennis Zander. changes. Phalen said he did work with the bill drafter The law will go into effect on October 1, meaning it on an amendement that he believed would have got- know so that we can will be uncertain if there will be time to put the fees ten it off the table, however the committee did not share! Email: rrnews@ on this year’s taxes, according to Zander, so there address it in time. may be one last bill for residents before the change “The only question that was proposed to me in the rangerreview.com is made. committee when I submitted the bill, was how are the Phalen’s other bill, meanwhile, is centered on the county treasurers supposed to do partial payments Constitution, the Pledge of Allegiance and schools.