Voices from the Past

January 13, 1922

Local Briefs

Powder River on Tuesday commenced overflowing its ice and made its travel out of the question for automobiles and even a dubious proposition for horseback riders and wagons.

The annual ice harvest in Broadus got under good headway the first of the week. The ice is being taken from Powder River and is of exceptional good quality this year, clear as crystals, and in thickness from 10 to 12 inches. Chas. B. Lewis, S.A. Holt and Willias Martin are all putting up ice to limit of their storage space.

At the annual shareholders’ meeting of the First National Bank of Broadus held last Tuesday, the following officers were elected for the ensuing year: P.C. Jensen, president; Ray F. Tarbell and Fred W. Rue, vice presidents; W.T. Waite, cashier. On the board of directors are J. Link Wilson, P.S. Richardson, Paul Wedge and the officers.

M.R. Moore, truck freighter, has discarded his big tank that reduced the weight about 1,000 pounds. On his last trip from Miles City he was a week on the road, but delivered to Broadus in barrels 3320 gallons of gasoline and 220 gallons of kerosene.

Al Edwards this week carried the mail from Broadus to Boyes on horseback. He reported wagons going through but the snow was drifted too deep in places to use his touring car.

January 10, 1947

Broadus Called Marital Utopia

More and more Powder River County is being called the place where marriage is a hallowed institution, H.R. Straiton, Clerk of District Court, said this week. In the year 1946, Mr. Straiton issued 281 marriage licenses and there were only 2 divorce actions filed.

June and August were the top months of the year in the number of marriage licenses issued. There were 29 marriage licenses issued in each of those months. The number of licenses in the other months were as follows: January 27, February 16, March 18, April 23, May 15, July 23, September 26, October 25, November 23, December 27.

For many years Broadus has been known as the Gretna Green of the west. In the year 1945 there were 124 marriage licenses issued and only 1 divorce action was filed in that year. A year ago after the story was published in the Examiner concerning the ratio of marriages to divorces, Mr. Straiton had letters from all parts of the United States and several foreign countries commenting upon the marital utopia that is Power River County.

January 13, 1972

Ground School for Pilots in Ashland, Broadus

Keith Stevens of Ashland plans to start another ground school for private and commercial pilots to be held in Ashland and Broadus. The school will consist of 10 lessons to be held for three hours once a week, for a total of 30 hours of instruction. At the completion of the school, the FAA will come down to give the written examination. On the national average, 50% of the students fail to pass the test, but last year 12 of the 16 students taking instruction from Stevens passed the examination, quite an improvement on that average.

Stevens is a certified instructor, who, among other things, flies passengers and flies for the REA, BLM, and the Forest Service.

He owns a FBO (fixed based operation) at Broadus which provides pilots with hangars, a shop with a qualified aircraft mechanic and fuel.

January 9, 1997

Five Place at Forsyth Speech

By Paula Nisley

Winning second place in Original Oratory, sophomore DarAnne Dunning led the Powder River Hawks’ Speech Team at last Saturday’s speech meet in Forsyth. Dunning’s talk outlined the lessons that Colleen Samuelson taught her while coping with cancer.

In competition with 18 other teams, the Hawks placed four additional students in the finals.

Junior Kim Urick won fifth in Original Oratory with her speech on eating disorders. Sophomore Erika Barnhart won seventh in Expository with her illustrations and speech on cowbirds. Freshman Jennifer Isaacs also placed seventh in Original Oratory with her presentations on suicide. Sophomore Sheena Olson placed eighth in Expository with her talk and illustrations on resolving conflict.

Other Hawk competitors at this meet were the following: Marnie Andrews, Greg Edwards, Megan Mobley, Tonya Preston, Stephanie Sonsalla and Tony Wiltse.