Remembrance set for Dec. 2

Frontier Hospice will hold its second annual “Holiday Remembrance,” an occasion to remember loved ones, the memories of whom remain after they have passed away.

The remembrance will be from 4:40 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 2, at Plymouth Congregational Church, 400 South Oakes.

Participants are invited to bring a picture of their loved ones to display at the celebration.

Hope for Haiti event set for Dec. 5

On Saturday, Dec. 5, the second annual Hope for Haiti fundraiser will be held at the Staggering Ox in the Lundy Center from 6:30 to 9 p.m.

The free event, which will include live music, will raise funds to allow a group of six Carroll students to travel over their Christmas break to Haiti, where they will serve as medical assistants to a team of professional dentists and oral surgeons volunteering with Montana Dental Outreach.

Last spring, four Carroll juniors served on the first such Montana Dental Outreach mission to Haiti, which ended with professional dental care and lifesaving procedures provided to over 300 of the Western Hemisphere’s poorest people.

Hope for Haiti will include a free concert featuring Carroll math professor Jack Oberweiser from the Triple Cross band, accompanied by several Carroll student musicians.

A silent auction will include paintings and pottery from local Montana artists and works produced by Carroll fine arts students.

Theater coming back to life with donations

Several grants from foundations and continued income from memorials and donations have helped to keep construction moving forward on the Rialto Theatre Restoration Project in Deer Lodge.

Recent gifts include a $5,000 grant from Goody Two Shoes, Inc., a foundation in Boca Raton, Fla., that gives primarily in Florida, and a second $5,000 grant came from the Gilhousen Foundation in Bozeman, which gives mostly in Gallatin County, and gave $5,000 to the Rialto project in January 2008.

The PPL Montana Community Fund, which helps nonprofits state-wide, gave the Rialto $6,400 in 2008, and gave another $10,000. The Jane S. Heman Foundation in Missoula, which gives primarily in the Bitterroot valley, gave $10,000 to help bring the project to a successful conclusion. Work on the reconstruction is over half finished, but over $1 million is still needed for all the interior work that remains.

The Web site www.deerlodgerialto.

com has current construction photos and more information. Donations can be sent to P.O. Box 874, Deer Lodge, MT 59722.

DAR essay contest deadline Jan. 21

Members of the Oro Fino Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution are sponsoring two American history essay contests open to area students in public, private and home schools.

The deadline to submit the essay is Jan. 21, 2010.

Students in grades 5-8 will describe how they felt on May 10, 1869, when the golden spike was driven at Promontory Summit, Utah, to celebrate the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad, pretending to be a settler planning to use the train to travel to a new home in the West, an Irish or Chinese worker who helped build the line, or a Native American whose way of life was greatly affected by the railroad, in essays of 300-1,000 words, depending on grade level.

The contest asks students in grades 9-12 to discuss and analyze Christopher Columbus’ early influences and experiences and how these contributed to successes and failures in his voyages of exploration, in essays of 800-1,200 words.

DAR has provided guidelines to all schools for writing and submitting the essays, with lists of suggested books and online resources.

Information also is available from chapter historian Jane Hamman, P.O. Box 164, Clancy, MT 59634-0164, to whom essays should be submitted.

All participating students will be recognized and prizes will be awarded at the local, state and national level.

The high school essay contest is co-sponsored by the National Italian American Foundation, which will judge national-level winners and provide $1,200 for first place, $500 for second place, and $300 for third-place essays.

NIAF will pay lodging and transportation to Washington, D.C., in 2010 for the winner and one parent or guardian, so that the winner may read the prize-winning essay at the Columbus Memorial on Oct. 11.