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For basketball teams and fans, the past week was busy with 2C Divisional basketball action in Glasgow. Unfortunately the Circle Wildcat men were eliminated when they lost to Froid/Medicine Lake 38-50 Friday morning. The Cats defeated the Culbertson Cowboys 66-44 in their first game of the tourney, later falling to a talented Lustre team 43-68. Lustre went on to win the tournament, defeating the Plentywood Wildcats 56-47. Plentywood and Lustre will advance to the State Tournament. In girls action, the Lady Cats lost to the Plentywood Wildcats 26-45 in their first game of the tournament and then went on to defeat Richey/Lambert 59-49 in Friday's matchup. At the time of this column deadline, the Cats will meet Bainville Saturday morning in loser out action. Plentywood and North Country met each other in the championship match and no results at this time.

The Circle Pep Band, under the direction of Mike Bartelson, traveled the road to Glasgow for tournament games. During several of the games, pep bands from other schools combined to rock the gym with their combined band of musicians. Good job, Circle!

Gus Kamp is on the road to recovery from his recent knee replacement, but occasionally needs to be reminded to follow doctor's orders and take care of himself! The Brockway Supper Club was closed for a couple of days due to recovery time and lack of staff, but hopefully things will be back to normal in the very near future.

Clay and Sherry Berger, Mary Kountz, and Tim and Deanna Rittal flew to Chandler, AZ where they joined Mark and Patti Soares for a few days of sunshine, relaxation, good food, and fun times. Bergers and Patti flew down earlier and did a few projects around the Soares house. It was off to the horse races at Turf Paradise. One day was spent in Jerome, Arizona touring the town and enjoying lunch at The Asylum Restaurant situated in the five story Jerome Grand Hotel, a hospital in its earlier history. It is now known as being one of the most haunted hotels in America. Jerome is the largest ghost town in America, but in the late 1800's was a thriving copper mining camp full of miners, gamblers, prostitutes and bootleggers. Lots of history and interesting places to stop and shop.

After flying back from Arizona, Mary Kountz spent a couple days in Billings with daughter Carey Schneider. She watched granddaughters Greeley and Izzy Kleinsasser play basketball in a tournament held in Shepherd. Both of the girls' teams won their championship games. Pam Curtiss was in Shepherd to watch the Kleinsasser girls and Kolt Erickson, son of Mike and Janet, play games and visit. Bill and Wendy Kleinsasser of Big Sandy were also in Billings for the weekend to watch their granddaughters hit the court and visit Matt and Kaylee.

Whist report as reported by Pat Breitbach for 2/25/24. Capping off an unusually pleasant Sunday weather wise, ten of the usual suspects gathered at the infamous BS Club for another round of whist. We soon recruited a couple of innocent bystanders to round out the dozen players it takes to fill a three table extravaganza. Shortly after the scheduled 6 pm start time, the tables were filled and the shuffling and dealing began in earnest. In the meanwhile local events of particular interest were discussed. To the uninformed this might resemble gossip, but I can assure you this is on a whole nuther level than ordinary street level gossip… this is grassroots news on a personal level! Headlining the week's happenings was the accidental discharge of a weapon in downtown Circle wherein the errant projectile passed through several apartment walls and a metal panel on some new construction but missed any contact with the unsuspecting populace. But back to the car play. When things aren't going your way with the luck of the deal and you and your partner just don't seem to be matching up well, sometimes you have to hang your joy on an individual victory instead of the overall score. Sometimes a double digit thrashing of a long time opponent can produce a smile that you can hang your hat on for the evening and keep you coming back for the next week, from both sides of the brawl! But back to the contest of the hour. It was Bernis Taylor in a repeat of last week's success filling out his score card with six wins to take a first place in a most convincing fashion. Filling in the second place slot was that demure maven of anonymity, The Brockway Mystery Lady, with five wins to her credit. We split the pot three ways when we have three tables in play and the third spot fell to Kay Rene Whiteside with four games circled on her score card,. Looking forward to next week where we will continue the discussion of safe gun handling being the real meaning of gun control along with other topics of vital local interest and we would be delighted to entertain your input over a friendly game of cards. Hope to see everyone there!

Got news? Please call me at 406-485-2191, text 406-939-9972 or email [email protected]. Thanks!