The Whitehall Ledger - Serving Southern Jefferson County in the Great State of Montana

This week, I had a conversation with U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to discuss national responses to the COVID-19 outbreak and how the U.S. Department of Education can assist Montana schools. I encouraged flexibility for Montana schools. We...

I spend a lot of time cooking and take pride in the dishes I create. I would like to think they are generally pretty satisfactory but every once in a great while, it can be a real disaster. Unfortunately, this has been the case a few times too many...

A little over five years ago Melissa and I went to go watch a UFC fight card in Las Vegas that featured Conor McGregor as well as many other well-known MMA fighters. It was a glorious time and I still think fondly on it often. Although most of the...

I have so many fond memories of my childhood spent with my Grandpa and Grandma Smith. The two were a huge part of my life and we spent many days attending the University of Wyoming football and basketball games and many fun-filled vacations to...

Say the magic words "pizza party" at a school and chaos will ensue. There will be yelling, screaming, and the happiest group of kids you could possibly find outside of a birthday or Christmas morning. Kids love pizza and they like it even more when...

Over the past several years I've covered a lot of high school basketball games in gyms across the western United States. Easily one of my favorite parts about this has been covering the annual 5B District Tournament in Belgrade and last week was no...

While there are certainly nights I can hop right in bed and fall asleep there are also those nights where I toss and turn for hours. It often times has to do with some stress for work but other times it is for a really mundane or strange reason and...

Each year in my household the “Super Bowl” serves as a wonderful opportunity to have some wonderful “game day” type food. I would like to say it is also a chance to also watch football but that isn’t always the case for everyone in the...

I think it is probably safe to say that nobody in my house is a morning person and the rides to work are usually pretty quiet. Every now and then I will badger Shayla on the way to work with a bunch of random questions that drives her up the wall....

There were probably a lot of people I graduated high school within Wyoming that instantly matured as they took their next steps in life, but this was certainly not the case for myself or my trusted crew The couple of years following high school were...

It’s never fun to get the flu, and it is even worse when it hits you like a Conor McGregor left on your busiest day of the week. This was certainly the case last week when I struggled mightily and am still unsure how I got both of the newspapers se...

It's always an exciting yet scary time when moving to a new community and this certainly was the case when I lived in Washington a few years ago. Normally when I had moved in the past, I had a job at a newspaper lined up, but this time was...

A few weeks ago, I talked about how I would do my best to stay up until midnight to ring in the new year, but I was in bed well before the new decade. I remember my Grandpa once telling me nothing good ever happens after midnight, so I probably...

When I was growing up, I never usually had much say in what television show was being played in the house. In the days before the remote control, I would certainly have to be the one to get up and change the channel but that was my extent of being a...

In a few days, people across the world will stay up until midnight to welcome the new year. I most likely will not be one of them. In fact, it has been several years since I stayed up that late that night. This was not always the case and I can...

I was watching a television show about how stuff is made, and they had an episode about gum. While I still enjoy a piece every now and then, it brought back memories of my childhood. As a little kid, I would always try to get a pack of gum at the...

Anyone that knows me well certainly understands how much I understand a traditional turkey dinner. If I was ever kidnapped for a ransom and told I could only pick one meal this would certainly be it, but I’m sure that after few hours of taking me...

On December 3, 2019 Jane Ann (Yost) Hanson surrounded by her children, became an angel due to her oversized heart. Jane was born November 20, 1942 in Faribault, Minnesota to Ernest and Marjorie (Brock) Yost. She grew up in St. Paul, MN with many...

Since I started studying journalism in college, I've been able to have a lot of very interesting newspaper jobs. While they were not always as much fun as I would have liked, I always learned a lot and from a wide variety of people. I just had a...

I was scrolling through social media a few weeks ago and saw a picture of my buddy's kids with Santa. This really struck me as odd considering it was only a few days after Halloween and a bit too early for kids to be making a visit to Mr. K ringle...

I really enjoy cooking and the weekends are my favorite time to put some time and effort into creating a great meal. It's never as much fun on weekdays because after a long day I really don't want to spend much time in the kitchen. A few weeks ago,...

While I certainly don't mind being outside for a hike or spending a few days camping without any technology or a care in the world, I also very much like to be sitting on the self-created divot on my couch and binge-watching a television show or a...

Every few months I will have a dream of a small little diner in my hometown of Rock Springs, Wyoming. After the dream, I will always wake up hungry and craving a double shamrock and fries with from Grub's Drive-In. While it may make some people...

Southwest Montana is a really wonderful place to both work and live and I'm truly blessed to call the Treasure State home. I've lived and worked all over the western United States and Montana truly is a special place. I wish I could say that about...