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A 10-year-old Labrador retriever shed 14 pounds in 10 weeks to win Dee-o-Gee and 360 Pet Medical’s inaugural Weight Loss Challenge.

Charlie — the oldest dog in the contest — dropped 13 percent of his total body weight, going from 106 pounds to 92 pounds. He narrowly defeated a golden retriever and a Lab-sheepdog mix.

A dozen Gallatin Valley canines and one cat competed in the challenge. The animals participated in weekly weigh-ins and periodic nutrition and exercise classes.

Dee-o-Gee and 360 Pet Medical held the contest to raise awareness for pet obesity.

>> Read more at Bozeman Daily Chronicle >>

Dennis Teske

During election season here in Montana, we open up the microphone for the major statewide candidates to give their pitch directly to Montana voters.  For those of you who missed it, we recently featured Dennis Teske, the man who is challenging the presumptive nominee,Congressman Denny Rehberg, in the Republican primary for the US Senate.  Teske said this was his first-ever radio interview.

Mark Daniels with KSEN radio in Shelby had this recap:

Since he hasn’t had the exposure that Denny Rehberg or Jon Tester have had, you may not know much about the other republican US Senate candidate in Montana. Once you do hear from him it is pretty clear where he stands on the issues. Teske appeared on the Northern Ag Net’s “Voices of Montana this morning.    When asked about touch issues such as same-sex marriage, Teske was not shy about saying “homosexuality doesn’t  find favor with our creator.” He referred to genesis where it says man will leave his home and marry a woman.  Teske said, “It’s the way god intended it.” He referred to the New Testament in explaining his pro-life position saying, god knew us before we were in the womb and when a country determines they have the right to take life young or old, there’s no turning back.

Click here to read Daniels’ full recap.

Listen to Aaron Flint’s Interview below.

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BUTTE — A judge has cleared the way to auction off a failed recreational development near Melrose, about 35 miles south of Butte.

District Judge Brad Newman issued the order to sell the empty lodge, a communal guest house and 585 acres including 17 undeveloped lots at the Meriwether Ranch. The order is the latest move in the high-end development gone wrong that led to several personal bankruptcies and lawsuits among its investors.

>> Read more at MT Standard >>

University of Montana Western head men’s basketball Coach Steve Keller announced the signing of Bryson Smith, Colin Hollow and Zane Tams to Frontier Conference/NAIA Letters of Intent.

“All three players come from successful, well-coached Montana high school teams and will get the opportunity to develop their skills further while adding depth to the Bulldog basketball program,” Keller said.

Durham became the athletic director in 2007. He is a Montana Western alumnus and played basketball and served as the assistant basketball coach from 1985 to 1990. He returned to Montana Western in 1996 when he became the head coach of the men’s team after Casey Keltz. He served as head coach until 2007.

Mark Durham

“It was pretty special to be able to be the third coach after Bill Straugh and Casey Keltz,” Durham said.

A Three Forks, Mont. native, Durham will be taking a position at Western States Insurance in Bozeman. He will also be closer to his two daughters, Kelsey and Kalli. Kalli Durham is finishing her freshman year as a business/accounting major at Montana State University and is a guard for the MSU Bobcats. Kelsey Durham will graduate from Custer County High School on May 17, 2012 and will be attending MSU-Bozeman in fall 2012.

 (*Note: this post has been updated.  First, it has been updated to make it clear that the woman mentioned in the KXLH piece is not necessarily the person referenced in the Watchdog piece.  It has also been updated to recognize the fact that she was let go after a “reduction in force” rather than being fired.)

by Aaron Flint of Northern Broadcasting

The man who just weeks ago served as Acting Adjutant General of the Montana National Guard was fired following a tiff with the Governor’s staff, as Phil Drake with The Montana Watchdog reports.

(Note: for full disclosure, I am a member of the Montana National Guard, and therefore will refrain from commenting on this news story at this time.)

The Montana Watchdog has this, following an interview with former Acting Adjutant General Joel Cusker:

He (Cusker) said during his five weeks in that position, he rehired a person who had been laid off from the Department of Emergency Services because of a reorganization in force. She then filed a wrongful discharge lawsuit. He said he met with the governor’s counsel and they expressed concerns and strongly suggested she not be hired because of the lawsuit. He said he told them the person was a good performer and was not laid off because of performance issues.

“I made it quite simple,” Cusker said. “I am an officer and I have an oath to the Constitution and it is an individual’s right to file litigation, and we cannot not hire her because of the lawsuit.”

>> Read full article at Northern Broadcasting >>

For many years, North Dakota has been the least visited state in the Union. There are no real tourist attractions here; Mount Rushmore is in South Dakota. The late newsman Eric Sevareid, who was born in North Dakota, called his native state “a large, rectangular blank spot in the nation’s mind.” But reporters from all over the world have been coming here lately, because North Dakota boasts one of the most interesting and exciting stories in the country: an honest-to-goodness boom.

The state has the lowest unemployment rate in the country, at 3.1 percent. Some wonder who could be out of work, given all the “Help Wanted” signs. North Dakota is No. 1 in job growth and No. 1 in income growth. At the heart of this prosperity is the Bakken formation, located in the northwestern part of the state. It’s a vast pot of oil. “Bakken,” incidentally, rhymes with “rockin’.” They have a bumper sticker here: “Rockin’ the Bakken.”

Oil was discovered in this area in 1951, but the trick was extracting it. Then, not long ago, came a marriage of two techniques — one older, one newer. The older one was “hydraulic fracturing,” or “fracking,” for short. This is the method by which oil or natural gas is forced from rock. The newer technique was horizontal drilling. A combination of the two proved a bonanza. Earlier this year, North Dakota passed California as the third-greatest oil-producing state. Before the year is out, they should pass Alaska, trailing only Texas.

>> Read more at National Review >>