I am now a fan of the people that publish the Flathead Valley Beacon. I hope that someday, they will consider me a friend. I want to hang at the Roadhouse with Tom and Kellyn and Stephen, Lido, Dan, Myers, Keriann, Bob and Kristi.

I hope they are having as much fun as it appears.

So why the Flathead Valley Beacon?

Serendipity.

I wrote about Dimpled Chad Day, somehow Dan found my post and linked to it. I wrote and asked how this happened but have yet to hear back. Weekly newspaper staff don’t have time to fool around with emails from Kentucky.

Serendipity – more likely Google(tm) Search Engine.

So I put the Flathead Beacon in my RSS. I am now a big huge fan.

Here’s why newspapers are not dead or dying:

Police Blotter: Blind Snake, More Bombed Porta-Potties
The Kalispell Police and Flathead County Sheriff’s reports for Tuesday included the following:

• 8:08 a.m A Kalispell man was heard yelling.
• 8:12 a.m. A woman found a board with nails sticking out of it hidden under the snow in her driveway.
• 9:25 a.m. A man who owns a porta-potty business called in to report that numerous porta-potties have been damaged by sparkler bombs. He wants to know how he can make the bombing stop.
• 9:56 a.m. Someone called in because they saw an old man driving all over the road.
• 11:56 a.m. A man called the Sheriff’s Department after he bought a blind snake from a woman. He claimed that the woman was housing 200 cats, birds that were losing their feathers and the snake, which was not only blind but had been scratched by cats. An animal warden checked out the residence and saw what looked like 20 cats and nine dogs.
• 12:29 p.m. Copper was stolen from the Bonneville substation in Columbia Falls.
• 12:55 p.m. A 2-year-old called 911. There was no emergency.
• 3:56 p.m. An Angel Point man drove his excavator into a tree.
• 7:08 p.m. A Whitefish man called in because his friend beat him up. His friend had invited him over for dinner, but while there the man brushed up against his friend in the kitchen and apparently angered him.
• 10:22 p.m. A woman called 911 because she and her boyfriend were arguing. However, she hung up before the call went through – most likely because she remembered she had an outstanding warrant. She was advised to take care of that.
• 2:46 a.m. An extremely drunken girl called in to say that her puppy was dying.

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On the Beacon this morning, a look at Flathead’s blue-collar homeless and the role the Samaritan House plays in housing those down on their luck. Warren Miller writes about skiing after passing the 80-year-old mark. A profile of local shoe repairman Joe Lynch, who fixes everything from cowboy boots to Teva sandals. And Whitefish High School mulls a $21.5 million renovation.

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FERNDALE – On New Year’s Day, bleary-eyed locals filed into the Rocky Mountain Roadhouse on state Highway 83. They ordered chili fries, smoked and nursed hangovers, reflecting on the previous night’s escapades. But in some corners of the bar, discussion turned to one of their neighbors, Clyde Wilson, 24, found dead in his small cabin on Meadow Creek Road early on the morning of Dec. 31.

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Everyday, some equivalent to the above stories shows up in my RSS.

The Flathead Beacon is funded by television personality and 10-year Flathead Valley resident Maury Povich.

But I won’t hold that against them.

I’m a huge fan. I want to go to Kalispell, Montana and hang with the cool kids.