People are always on the search for certain things when they come to the Big Sky State.

Huckleberries, secret hiking trails, and…flathead cherries.

This year, we celebrate the 25th annual Flathead Cherry Festival. So if anyone starts asking you about the delicacy, just tell them they can go to this annual event. It will help get them off your back.

The festival is full of so many “Montana things”! Vendors from all over the state will have some of the best baked good you will ever taste, for sale.

Art work from talented local artists will be displayed for you look at and purchase. Imagine how great it will look in your family room.

Shopping, food, local Montana made products, what else could you possibly want?

The festival is July 27th and 28th and goes from 9 AM to 5 PM both days. The main street of Polson is going to be jam packed with Montana loving folks just like you and I.

There are certain events/festivals that you will forget about or miss during the summer, especially since there are so many great ones to attend, but the Flathead Cherry Festival is one you want to mark on your calendars early so you don’t have any regrets.

WHAT: Flathead Cherry Festival

WHEN: July 27th and July 28th (starts at 9 AM)

WHERE: Polson, MT (4 hours from Bozeman)

Make it a weekend getaway. Here are some places to stay if you are like me a love a good girls weekend.

HOTELS IN POLSON

AIRBNB IN POLSON

cc: Flathead Cherry Festival

Montana Disaster and Emergency Services said it has seen 60% staff turnover in the two years since the Yellowstone River flood and asked lawmakers Tuesday for 14 more full-time employees.

Administrator for the Disaster and Emergency Services Division Delila Bruno told legislators the staff losses are in part due to burnout, and most often they lose employees to the private sector after training them.

Legislators are looking into disaster and emergency service recovery response in Montana as part of a study bill passed in the last legislative session. Lawmakers in a subcommittee of the State Administration and Veterans’ Affairs Interim Committee will eventually have to draft recommendations for how to improve emergency response in the state.

Department suggestions beyond staff increases included enhancing recovery coordination between agencies pre-disaster, training state experts to provide damage assessments to reduce reliance on federal partners, developing a statewide debris management plan and increasing staffing to assist individual assistance post-disaster.

In June of 2022, the Yellowstone River flooded in a 500-year event with nearly 10 inches of rain and snowmelt in 24 hours, destroying homes and structures along the river and sections of northern roads leading into Yellowstone National Park from gateway towns. The event required a massive recovery effort.

In the past 12 years, Montana has made 50 statewide disaster declarations and 15 federal declarations, including the 2022 flood, Bruno said. The recovery team, which works to restore a community to pre-disaster conditions, has six open disasters it is working on – half of which are floods.

She said federal resources for recovery efforts significantly outweigh what’s available at the state and local level. It would be better to reduce the reliance on the federal government to get communities back on their feet, she said, and may allow for a faster response.

Rep. Kelly Kortum, D-Bozeman, proposed writing a bill to provide emergency services with the additional 14 staff members, but other lawmakers shot the idea down as premature and wanted to hear from other stakeholders first.

Bruno said in an example of how the department loses staff, if they trained someone up to be a floodplain manager, then they suddenly became incredibly marketable for disaster firms for nationwide projects.

“They pay way more than we do,” Bruno said. “That’s very, very common to see people get gobbled up in the private sector and work nationally.”

The legislature gave staff raises during the last legislative session, which Bruno said has been a huge help in retention. She said getting more employees to share in the workload could also help with burnout.

Bruno said there also needs to be an emphasis on hiring for different skill sets in the division, and said they need more grant writers and people who understand local policies.

“What is appealing to a lot of emergency managers that we have apply for these positions is that they still associate the work with kind of a first-responder type work,” she said.

She said the division is looking to develop a certification program to train people on the recovery aspect of the job and the more administrative side of the division, which she said is the bulk of their work, though there are opportunities for first responders as well.

“We want to make sure that whether you’re at the local level or you’re at the state level, when you take a job with disaster emergency services, it’s clear what your what your job really is,” she said.

Bruno said Montana needs to increase support for local communities to be able to respond and recover from disasters.

“We know we need more training at both the state and local levels,” she said. “We do know that Montana communities do a better job when they have the resources at their fingertips.”

The SAVA sub-committee did not take action Tuesday, but will meet with the full interim committee on May 23.

Nicole Girten is a reporter for the Daily Montanan, a nonprofit newsroom. 

More than 100 people at the University of Montana demonstrated Wednesday to protest Israel’s bombing of Gaza and to show solidarity with protesters arrested this week on other campuses.

“Israel, Israel. Stop the slaughter. Gaza must have food and water,” they chanted.

The UM demonstrators asked spectators to keep their focus on children who are dying, a count the Washington Post put at 13,000 this week.

“While you are here watching us, children are being murdered with your tax dollars,” said one demonstrator with a bull horn.

Nearly 1,000 arrests had taken place on campuses across the country as of Monday including in violent clashes between police and pro-Palestian protestors from New York to California, according to a count from the Associated Press.

The demonstration at UM in Missoula was peaceful. A law enforcement SUV was parked near the Oval but rolled away after the group started marching.

The death toll in Gaza has surpassed 34,000, according to a report this week from the Wall Street Journal citing health authorities. However, the story said it’s becoming difficult to keep up with the number of fatalities because many hospitals aren’t functioning, and people are buried under rubble.

Students from UM and also high schools were among those demonstrating with chants, chalk art after the rain subsided, and signs.

Some signs called on the UM Foundation to divest, joining calls at more than 80 other campuses across the country to redirect higher education investments from funding war, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The UM Foundation is the university’s fundraising nonprofit, and in a statement, it said its board “is committed to responsible investment stewardship” to generate the “highest levels of returns” to support UM for generations.

“The Foundation’s endowment portfolio has no direct investments with weapons manufacturers,” said the UM Foundation board in a statement.

Journey Lynn, a UM graduate student in social work, said they joined the demonstration because the crisis in Gaza is deplorable: “I think that calling attention to the genocide is imperative.”

Lynn also said as a student pursuing a master’s in social work, they believe the protest aligns with the code of ethics from the National Association of Social Workers.

“The essence of a lot of those values are to honor and value all life,” Lynn said.

At least one legislator, Rep. Zooey Zephyr, a Missoula Democrat, joined the protest. Demonstrators started the action in front of Main Hall and then marched around the Oval carrying signs raised with their messages.

“Free Palestine.” “Israel Bombs Hospitals.” “Food Is Not A Weapon.” “Ceasefire NOW.” “Fund Schools Not Genocide.”

As the demonstration began, one man carrying a flag of Israel walked in front of the group and yelled at them. Jon Murphy stayed with the demonstrators in their march around the Oval.

He told the Daily Montanan he wanted to stand up for Israel’s right to exist as a state. Murphy said he is not a student at UM but lives in the community.

“I don’t agree with everything that Israel does, but it has a right to exist, and the people have a right to live there without getting the rockets and missiles sent at them,” Murphy said.

The recent war started in October 2023 after Hamas, a Palestinian militant group, attacked Israel and killed at least 1,200 people. Israel then launched military strikes in Gaza, a small strip of land 25 miles long between Israel and the Mediterranean Sea.

A recent food insecurity analysis said famine is imminent in at least the north of Gaza, and it projects more people will die. The report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Famine Review Committee (FRC) said the entire population of 2.23 million faces acute food insecurity.

“The FRC concludes that famine is imminent unless there is an immediate cessation of hostilities and full access is granted to provide food, water, medicines, and protection of civilians as well as to restore and provide health, water, and sanitation services, and energy (electricity, diesel, and other fuel) to the population in the northern governorates,” the report said.

The IPC describes itself as an initiative to improve food security and analysis based on science and one led by a global partnership of 15 organizations.