NEWS BRIEFS

Congratulations to Kootenai Valley Christian School’s honor roll
Last week Kootenai Valley Christian School recognized the following students for their dedica-tion and hard work in making honor roll.
First grade A honor roll students are Caelan Gray, Lilyana Harcourt and Ryan Rank. First grade A-B honor roll stu-dents are Alex Durbin, Caitlyn Chamberlain and Rhett Shelton.
Second grade A honor roll students are Angelica Bailey, Koehler Holmes, Thorin Nixon and Morgan Sanderson. Second grade A-B honor roll student is Cadence Rebo.
Third grade A honor roll student is Zoe Warn-er. Third grade A-B honor roll student is Christopher Crandell. Fourth grade A-B honor roll students are Henry Rank, Matthew Chase and Augustine Bai-ley.
Fifth grade honor roll student is Dylan Warner. Fifth grade A-B honor roll students are Nicolas Sil-bermann, Mandy Schmitt, Olivia Sanderson. Warren Paulsen and Aaron Thom-as.
Seventh grade A-B honor roll students are John )’Connell and Katelyn Schmitt.
Congratulations!

Lincoln County Port Authority re-structured
On Jan. 24 County Commissioners voted to approve a resolution that will restructure the Port Authority by dissolving their current board and starting fresh.
According to their website lincolncounty-portauthroity.com, the Port Authority owns and operates 400 acres of commercial and industrial property zoned for rede-velopment at the Kootenai Business Park.
The site is located where the Stimson Lum-ber Company operated and it was acquired by the county in 2002.
The intent of the Port Authority is stated as de-veloping business invest-ment for the purpose of increasing private invest-ment, job creation, and allowing for further diver-sification of the regional economy and tax base.
The Port Authority was formerly governed by a board of nine volunteers who were appointed by the Lincoln County Com-missioners for five year terms.
The county announced two Port Authority Board vacancies, this week. One is for a two year term and one for a three year term. Interested, qualified residents are requested to submit an application or letter of interest by Fri-day, Feb. 16 at 5 p.m. to the Lincoln County Clerk and Recorder.

REAL ID extension good until Oct. 2018
For those of you who have seen the Facebook posts about how you will no longer be able to travel on airplanes using a Mon-tana driver’s license after Jan. 22, the date has been extended.
According to the de-partment of homeland security’s website Mon-tana has been issued an extension which will be good until October 10, 2018.
According to the site, if Montana doesn’t comply or receive another exten-sion a state issued driver’s license will no longer be accepted at Federal facili-ties, nuclear power plants and federally regulated commercial aircrafts.
According to the web-site, “REAL ID is a coordi-nated effort by states and the Federal Government to improve the reliability and accuracy of state-issued identification docu-ments, which should in-hibit terrorists’ ability to evade detection by using fraudulent identification.”

MSU program seeks local par-ticipants
A STEM outreach pro-ject from Montana State University Academic Technology and Out-reach and the Montana Girls STEM Collabora-tive offers free resources and training to educators who work with middle school students in after-school programs. STEM stands for science, tech-nology, engineering and mathematics. The pro-gram is open to sites that serve both boys and girls and especially seeks par-ticipants from Montana’s smallest towns.
The program, called Science Action Club: BirdScouts, offers a hands-on citizen science curric-ulum from the California Academy of Sciences.
Participating educa-tors will receive a Science Action Club: BirdScouts kit featuring high-quality science equipment and classroom supplies for 20 youth, plus digital re-sources to provide oppor-tunities to extend learn-ing. Educators selected for the program will attend a training at MSU in Bo-zeman on Friday, March 2, as well as complete a two-hour online module. Some travel scholarships are available, as are Office of Public Instruction renewal units.
Educators with after-school programs serving grades 5 through 8 can learn more and find the application link at http://eu.montana.edu/sac/.
The deadline to apply is Thursday, Feb. 8.
The Montana Girls STEM Collaborative has co-leaders at MSU and the University of Montana and was launched by the Na-tional Science Founda-tion’s EPSCoR program.
For more information, email outreach@montana.edu.

Shape up Mon-tana Registra-tion opens
Interested partici-pants are encouraged to sign up now for Shape Up Montana, the three-month team wellness program that begins February 1 and runs through May 1.
The cost for the three-month program is $16; $11 for sponsors of Big Sky State Games (BSSG) programs. The first 500 team captains to enter their team will receive a $10 Scheels gift card. Eve-ryone who enters receives a Shape Up Montana T-shirt, free entry into the Shape Up Montana Virtual 5k Walk/Run, and access to a Shape Up Montana app for easy logging on the go.
The program features health and wellness re-sources, weekly challeng-es for bonus miles, and exercise videos. Awards will be presented for weekly challenge comple-tion, monthly reporting and for the top three teams in each division.
Online registration, entry forms and more information are available www.shapeupmontana.org or call (406) 254-7426.
The deadline is Janu-ary 31 for early registra-tion (late entries accept-ed).

Local students makes Dean’s list
Libby native Annie Wilkinson was named to Harding University’s dean’s list for the fall se-mester of 2107.
Annie is a junior thea-tre design and production major.
Wyatt Postlehwaite, also a Libby native was named to the Dean’s list at Montana Tech for the fall 2017 semester.