Cystic fibrosis walk set for Saturday

The Denver chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation will hold the Last Chance Gulch Great Strides Walk this Saturday at Women's Park.

Registration begins at 9 a.m. The walk follows at 10 a.m.

The walk is a fundraiser for cystic fibrosis research, with 91 percent of funds raised going to research, according to organizers.

To register for the Helena walk, visit greatstrides.cff.org.

For more information on the walk or on forming a team, call Patricia Rogers at 202-0511 or e-mail ScottiesTeam@aol.com.

Downtown chalk art contest is Saturday

Chalk Up Helena! will be July 18 on the downtown Trolley Block.

Participants will create chalk art from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.; awards will be presented at 3 p.m.

The contest is sponsored by City of Helena Public Art Committee. Call 447-8491 or visit www.helena

publicarts.com for an application form.

Meagher Co. Book Festival July 31-Aug. 2

The fifth annual Meagher County Book Festival will be in White Sulphur Springs July 31 to Aug. 2 with a theme of Mystery and Suspense, Murder and Mayhem.

John Fitzpatrick, author of "Sherlock Holmes: The Montana Chronicles" will read and lecture athe opeing reception July 31.

Saturday's events will include suspense writers Neil McMahon, T.L. Heinz, Peter Bowen, Jim Moore and Ellen Baumler reading.

Saturday evening, Richard Baker from the Humanities Montana Speaker's Bureau will give his presentation "An Evening with Pierre Cruzatte's Ghost." The program and following dinner will take place at the Cmas Creek Convention Center.

Sunday from 8:30 a.m. to noon, Sue Hart and Richard Wheeler will work with aspiring writers in the workshop "Writing the Montana Mystery."

Meagher comes alive in performance

Montana historian and author Lenore McKelvey Puhek will present "The River's Edge," a first-person portrayal of Libby Meagher, widow of Montana Territory governor Thomas Francis Meagher, on July 25 at 7 p.m. at Missouri Headwaters State Park.

The program is part of the 2009 Summer Speaker Series, River Stories, held in the park's picnic area.

McKelvey Puhek will bring Libby Meagher back to life, portraying the Meaghers' journey from New York to Montana Territory, and finally to Thomas Meagher's mysterious death in the Missouri River in 1867.

A campfire/marshmallow roast will follow the presentation.

Bring your own chairs. In case of rain, the presentation will be at the Three Forks Methodist Church Annex, 201 E. Cedar St. For more information, call 406-994-6934 or 406-581-5568.

Jaeger to give talk on Montana poetry

Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park presents "Defining Montana: Poems Across the Big Sky" by poet and professor Lowell Jaeger. The program will be at the park's campground amphitheater starting at 8 p.m. on July 24.

In 2007, Jaeger edited and published an anthology of Montana poets, "Poems Across the Big Sky." In collecting this material, he noticed emerging themes. Whether in Montana classrooms or in solitude, the beauty, complexity and struggle of lives in Montana have inspired the remarkable variety of voices which comprise Poems Across the Big Sky.

Jaeger teaches at Flathead Community College.

For more information, please call the park office at 406-287-3541.