By Alan Sorensen
The Fossil Festival, though weeks old, is still drawing comment from many who came and some who didn't.
In a letter that came after the political season started grabbing all of the ink, Ardyce (Miller) Endresen of Billings wrote to thank everyone involved with making the Labor Day weekend successful:
"Hats off" to Sandy (Saunders) Anderson and those who collaborated with her to produce a GREAT AND WONDERFUL FOSSIL FESTIVAL. It was great to see everyone and to talk about the years which have passed since seeing each other.
I was hoping that more alumni who live in the Havre area would have been able to also come and share their memories with us.
I had a terrific time as I know did most of the other attendees. We are looking forward to getting together again for Fossil Festival II!
Thanks again to all who helped Sandy make the Fossil Festival a reality and a GREAT MEMORY for all who attended.
Ardyce (Miller) Endresen
HHS Class of 62
4115 Rimrock Road
Billings, MT 59106
For those of you who don't remember Ardyce, she was among the many beautiful "older Havre women" all of us kids in the Class of '67 had junior high crushes on.
Now back to business.
I had hoped to put together a nostalgic look at the old neighborhood grocers, bakers, meat markets, gas stations, taverns, etc., but I'm still getting input. I've received a few e-mails and a few calls. I need time to collate the information and put together a list that I hope will bring complaints from dozens of others for places I failed to include. But first, does anyone remember the name of the drive-in restaurant that was located on the S-curve near Northern?
Now that I'm only doing one a column a month or so, it's hard for me to remember what I complained about in earlier columns. Part of it's old age, the other part is a cluttered mind.
I hope I haven't disgusted too many locals with my early evening jaunts. Dragging my walrus body around Havre's hills and valleys on reluctant flipper feet probably looks worse than it feels. But hey, I've put in 90 miles or so in three and a half weeks and have lost nearly five pounds already. I'm starting to feel like a real jogger again.
I'm already burned out by this political season. I didn't care for either of the presidential candidates in their first debate. Hope they're more likable tomorrow night.
As for the VP contestants, I don't know why anyone should vote for a man who failed to vote in the last 16 elections for which he was eligible. Was he even registered when his running mate's name made it on the ballot in Texas, Cheney's erstwhile home before the big move back to Wyoming?
a newspaper guy, I'm concerned with getting the newspaper out each day. I think it's a fairly important thing to do. Now, though, I spending more and more time sorting out and answering e-mails. E-mails, like telephones, are way overrated. And so are websites.
You may or may not be surprised to learn that most of the personal e-mails I get (those which are not just junk e-mails or unsolicited "news" items or "opinion" pieces) are inquiries about our website. They're from people who apparently were not alive before e-mails and websites.
I've had dozens of e-mailers get downright nasty with me because I don't keep our website up to the minute with local stories. I don't how to tell them politely that I don't work for The Havre Daily Website, I work for The Havre Daily News.
We only have so many people on staff and almost all of our energies go into putting out a paper five days a week. If we don't go out and get the news to put in the paper and then publish the paper, we don't have anything to put on the website.
Our computer system crashed a week or so ago and we lost all of our records. One person asked me, "Well, you still have your hardcopy, don't you?" Well, yes, we have hard copies they're called newspapers. But I don't think we have anyone on staff with the time to go back and retype all the local stories that that reader wants in our website archive. As for the research and stories that hadn't made it into the paper yet, it was all lost.
We did get good news late last week, though. Jess Green came in and said he'd like to be our sports editor. The guy turns out a lot of work and is anxious to learn more so he can do more. For those who don't know or don't care, we've been without a sports writer and sports editor for several weeks.
Now, if no one does anything to scare him off, maybe we've got both. Local sports coverage can only get better.
