Sometimes I miss writing here. Every so often I think about writing again. Usually this happens when I see something crazy around town. Have you noticed that all the shamrocks haven’t been taken down from St. Patrick’s Day. There is even a Christmas tree still up on a light pole over near Cobban & Harrison. Do you think they’ll take them down ever?

I am suffering from information overload. Maybe this will be the last entry for a while or maybe I will write more. Who knows?

The Butte High School Drama Club will take the stage this Friday and Saturday performing The Odd Couple, Female Version by Neil Simon.

This outrageously funny comedy is based on the original Odd Couple with a few changes.

Friday and Saturday showtimes are at 7 p.m. with a matinee performance Saturday at 2 p.m.

All performances will take place in the Butte High School Auditorium, 401 S. Wyoming St. in Butte.

For more information, call 498-3483.

The Butte Central High School and Junior High choirs and soloists will present their annual Choral Concert on Monday, Dec. 18th at the Immaculate Conception Church. The concert begins at 7 p.m. and is free to the public. Traditional and non-traditional songs will be performed by grades 6-12.

Halliburton Energy Services, Inc. has pledged to give Montana Tech $350,000 as a leadership gift to the new Natural Resources Building. With this significant pledge, Halliburton is setting an example to other potential donors to follow in supporting the Montana Tech Foundation on behalf of Montana Tech’s Comprehensive Campaign.

The Montana Tech Natural Resources Building is a large capital project that is part of the Montana Tech Comprehensive Campaign. The campaign is raising funds not only for capital projects but for scholarships, professorships, and programs. With a successful campaign, Tech will strengthen its position as a top math science and engineering school.

“With this leadership gift by Halliburton, Montana Tech is on its way to raising its share of the cost of the new building,” said Mike Johnson, Vice Chancellor of Institutional Advancement and Development.

For this $350,000 Montana Tech will name a laboratory and student lounge “The Halliburton Fracturing Lab” and “The Halliburton Student Lounge.”

“Halliburton is proud to support Montana Tech in this project,” said Jim Brown, senior vice president, Western Hemisphere, Halliburton Energy Services Group. “We believe that this collaboration is a winning strategy for both Montana Tech and Halliburton. As this generation of employees begins retiring over the next several years, it’s crucial to invest in the training and development of future workers in the energy and energy services industries.”

Halliburton (NYSE: HAL), founded in 1919, is one of the world’s largest providers of products and services to the petroleum and energy industries. The company serves its customers with a broad range of products and services through its Energy Services Group and KBR. Visit the company’s Web site at www.halliburton.com

The holiday layout is complete. Tell us what you think by leaving us a comment.

The BT crew wishing everyone a safe Labor Day weekend.

Sorry for any delays (however expected they may have been), but it’s an honor to be invited to take part in Butte Talk.  With my ongoing schedule I can’t promise anything too regular, but I’ll chime in whenever I have the time or feel the tickling need to rant.

These days, Butte is becoming an exciting place to be, with all the talk of economic revitality and the bustling restoration work underway on some of our awesome Uptown homes and buildings. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg…for once it seems that some of our people are actually moving BACK to Butte instead of away. That’s a good thing.

I would just give the bit of wisdom that we should all be more apprehensive than anxious at this point, so we don’t make any mistakes that sell our town’s image and soul down the river. Maybe that’s why it’s such a good thing the Butte folks are coming back to town: they don’t want to miss out and they want to be a part of it to make sure it happens right. I think Butte Talk can be an effective and informative venue for people to get the word from the street and hopefully in many cases, right from the respective horse’s mouth. At least that’s the best we can hope for, right?

So with that, I’ll cut my introductory post short and look forward to some engaging and hopefully enlightening discussions soon. If our wives will ever again allow it, heck, maybe Foles and I can even team up for an occasional tour of duty as well.

Until next time, “don’t leave ‘em grind ya down,” as an old codge from the old M&M used to say to me (add that one to your list of Butteisms!) in parting.

MV

 

Aw, geez. I not sure if I can live up to such a high billing. But I’ll give it a shot.

Bill Foley here. Many of you might recognize me from the Montana Standard sports page where I had a weekly column on Tuesdays from November until last month. Before that, of course, I rode the coattails of Matt Vincent into fame and fortune (well, small-time fame, anyway) in Rat Chat.

I’m pleased to announce that next Tuesday will mark the return of my weekly column, which I call “Tap ’er Light” because it was the first real mining saying that I learned. I will also chime in as much as possible on ButteTalk.com and ButteRats.com, the Standard’s chat site.

When I learned of Marx’s true identity, I knew ButteTalk.com was a place for me. Marx and Delaney have done a great job on this site, and I’m flattered that they asked me to be a part of it.

I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to so many people who called or wrote the Standard in support of me and the column. Not only did you guys help bring my column back, you made me feel really good. The wife thinks my already oversized head will become as big figuratively as it is literally. When you write a column it seems like most of the letters, e-mails and posts you receive are negative — like the guy on this site who called me an incompetent after reading exactly one column. So if it took something like getting my column cancelled to see such overwhelming support, then maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing after all (sniff, sniff).

I’ve been asked quite a bit about what happened to “Tap ’er Light.” So here’s my version:

I wrote a column for July 18 that never ran. (I happened to think it was a really funny column and was planning on heading down to see my buddy Paul Thomas to pick out a suit for my Pulitzer Price acceptance speech. But I guess now we’ll never know.) I usually try to submit my columns to the editors by Friday, and after I submitted the one on Friday, July 14 I was told that the column was being cancelled. Coincidentally, I started a two-week vacation after covering a Muckers doubleheader on July 15. It was perfect timing for the vacation because I got to sit back and just see how the reaction was, and I didn’t have to make any knee-jerk reactions. The timing of the vacation also looked suspect, and many people thought I was suspended or fired. Honestly, it was a vacation.

On the 18th, I was called in from my renovation of my front porch to meet with the editor and new publisher. By 10 a.m., they had already heard tons of complaints, and I came away from that meeting thinking the column would most likely be back. This past Tuesday, I had a meeting to confirm my suspicion. So on the 15th I’ll be back on a weekly basis.

I should note that I have not been given any parameters or limitations for the column. I won’t be “watered down” so to speak. I plan on writing the column the way I have been … with a little humor and a whole lot of incompetence. Hopefully I’ll get better each week and make a few people laugh. After all, laughter probably is my No. 1 reason for writing the column in the first place. My buddy Joe McClafferty, the new AD at Tech, once said that people have just got to realize that my Tuesday column is a stand-up routine. There’s a lot of truth in that. That Joe is a smart guy.

Hopefully one day I’ll be able to announce that Rat Chat will be brought back to the Standard. We had so much fun writing that column and putting Geno Riordan’s kids through college. Unfortunately, I think that day is still a ways down the road. We will, however, continue the Elsie Awards. The Elsies moved exclusively to the Archman’s show on KMBR last January. We’ve also discussed other events with the Archman’s show before the Elsies are due out again. I’ll keep you posted. We have a lot of fun on the radio because Arch has a way of getting us going, and we don’t have any editors telling us “No! You can’t say that!” Plus, what do we care if we get fired from a job we do for free?

Anyway, I look forward to having some fun here on Butte.Talk. I love to hear comments after my columns run, so please chime in as much as possible. That includes the person(s) who thinks I’m incompetent. Actually, especially the person(s) who thinks I’m incompetent.

Thanks again for the invite and such a generous billing.

The Butte High School class of 2006 will graduate tonight at 8pm at the Butte Civic Center. Congratulations to all Butte High Seniors and good luck in everything you do!

The first art walk for 2006 kicks off here in just a few minutes. The venue for this June event is the Metals Banque Building (8 W. Park) in Uptown Butte. To learn more information go to the Butte Art Walk website.

Robin Jordan from Julian’s Piano Bar writes:

June 2, we are proud to be a part of the Phantom Gallery Art Walk. We will feature the work of Christiane Buell. There will be a reception for Ms. Buell, live music, and free hors d’oeuvres from Butte Hill Catering.