Thursday

The Whitefish High School drama department will present the comedy “Rumors” at the Whitefish Middle School auditorium on Thursday through Saturday, Nov. 12-14, beginning at 7 p.m. Written by nationally known playwright Neil Simon and directed by locals Kelliann Blackburn and Wendy McFadden, “Rumors” is a farce in two acts centered on four couples at the home of a deputy New York City mayor and his wife to celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary. After the host shoots himself in the earlobe and his wife goes missing, his lawyer, played by Eric Weaver, along with his wife, played by Kelsey McFeely, begin a cover up that gets progressively more difficult to sustain as other guests arrive, played by Joseph Harris, Anna Wendt, Ian Sterchi, Kayleen Stone, Sean Ringer and Brooke O’Briant. Tickets are $5 students and $8 adults pre-sold by cast members and available at the door.

The Mountain View Mennonite Church in Creston will hold its annual annual holiday International Gift Festival on Thursday and Friday, Nov. 12-13, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturday, Nov. 14, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The fair trade Ten Thousand Villages sale benefits Third World artistans in more than 30 countries. Handcrafted items for sale include Christmas ornaments and decorations, baskets, jewelry, linens, purses, paper goods, instruments, toys, decorative items, pots and kitchen goods. For more information, call 755-8772 or visit online at www.mountainviewmc.org.

A meeting to discuss transportation options in light of Whitefish having no taxi service will take place at the Great Northern Bar on Thursday, Nov. 12, at 10 a.m. Bar owners, city officials, police and any interested persons are invited to attend.

The Glacier Twins will hold a parent/player meeting at Rocky Mountain Lodge in Whitefish on Thursday, Nov. 12, at 7 p.m. All interested players and parents are urged to attend. The Glacier Twins program is for players 16-19 years of age from Whitefish, Columbia Falls and Bigfork. The new coaching staff will be introduced, including Lindsay Fansler, the AA head coach, and Travis Krause, the A coach.

The local Institute of Noetic Sciences Community Group will present a talk by Delores Krieger, Ph.D. and RN, at the Bohemian Grange, behind Montana Coffee Traders on U.S. 93 South, on Thursday, Nov. 12, beginning at 7 p.m. Krieger, with eight books and more than 400 professional papers and articles to her credit, will talk about “Therapeutic Touch: Healing as an Inner Journey.” A donation requested to help defray expenses. For more information, call 862-9591 or 862-7711.

Friday

Citizens for a Better Flathead will hold its 18th annual meeting at the Kalispell Men’s Club Ballroom at 118 Main Street in Kalispell on Friday, Nov. 13, from 5:30-8:30 p.m. with a complimentary buffet and a no-host cash bar. Presenters will include Tom Heatherington, of MontanaSky.Net and president and founder of Buy Local Montana, Barb Brant, of Montana Coffee Traders and Montana Farm Hands, and Citizens for a Better Flathead executive director Mayre Flowers. For more information, call 756-8993 or visit online at www.flatheadcitizens.org.

Glacier Country Pachyderm will meet in the Fireside Room in the Kalispell Red Lion from noon to 1 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 13. Joy Struble will talk about Facebook, Twitter and personal Internet sites. For more information, call Tom McElwain at 270-5764.

Saturday

Stumptown Art Studio will present wildlife rehabilitator Lynn Vaught from “Wildlife Returns” with one of her ambassador owls for a unique and exciting workshop. Artist Souheir Rawlings will join Vaught and her owl on Saturday, Nov. 14, for kids 8-and-older. Fee for the workshop is $25 for members, $30 for non-members. For more information, call 862-5929 or visit online at www.stumptownartstudio.org.

The Bird Woman Falls Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution will meet on Saturday, Nov. 14, at noon at the First Best Place in Columbia Falls. The program will be on health care reform. For more information, contact Carol Nicholson at 892-2952 or Marge Fisher at 862-1233.

The Glacier Chorale and Chamber singers will present “The Last Best Place: Montana,” a multi-media tribute featuring the premiere of new compositions by chorale director James Stanard using poetry by Montana poet Gwen Petersen, of Big Timber, and Sally Murdock, of Whitefish. The performance will also include photographs of Montana by locals David Reese and Greg Naïve. Performances will take place at the Whitefish Baptist Church on Saturday, Nov. 14, at 7:30 p.m. and at Glacier High School on Sunday, Nov. 15, at 3 p.m. Tickets run from $10 to $20. For more information, call 257-3241 or visit online at www.gscmusic.org.

The Flathead Democratic Women’s Club and the Flathead County Democratic Party will hold a food drive on Saturday, Nov. 14, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at five locations across the valley including Super 1 Foods in Whitefish. Volunteers will be available in the parking lot of each store to receive food donations of any kind. Collected food will be distributed equally among the valley’s food banks including North Valley Food Bank, in Whitefish.

Sunday

Whitefish photographer Chuck Haney will present his annual slideshow to benefit the North Valley Food Bank at the O’Shaughnessy on Sunday, Nov. 15, at 7 p.m. The one-hour multimedia show will feature national parks, birds, Glacier country and a look back at Haney’s travels across the U.S. Haney recently had an image selected as a Highly Honored Photographer in the 2009 Nature’s Best Photography Windland Rice International Awards. Price of admission will be a box of food items to be donated to the North Valley Food Bank in Whitefish. Shown here is a recent photo he took of Murphy Lake.

Christ Lutheran Church will hold a free seminar called “GriefShare: Surviving the Holidays” on Sunday, Nov. 15, from 3-5 p.m. at the church on River Lakes Parkway. The seminar will include practical suggestions and reassurance through video interviews with counselors, grief experts and people who have lost loved ones during the holidays. For more information, call 862-2615.

Monday

The Flathead Family Planning Program will sponsor a “Growing up Female” workshop for mothers and daughters ages 9-13 on Monday, Nov. 16, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Conference Room at the Flathead City-County Health Department, 1035 First Avenue West, in Kalispell. The focus is on the importance of communication between mothers and daughters about the emotional and physical changes of puberty. Cost is $20 per couple and includes dinner. Pre-registration is required. Call 751-8150 for more information.

Christ Lutheran Church will serve as a collection point for Operation Christmas Child on Nov. 16-20 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Nov. 21 from noon to 2 p.m. and Nov. 22 from 9 a.m. to noon. The world’s largest Christmas project provides shoe box gifts for children in more than 100 countries suffering from natural disaster, war, terrorism, disease, famine and poverty. Operation Christmas Child uses tracking technology that allows donors to “follow your box” to its destination country, where it will be hand-delivered to a child in need. For more information, call (253) 572-1155 or visit online at www.samaritanspurse.org.

Tuesday

The Whitefish High School Student Anti-Genocide Coalition, STAND, will host a free showing of the film “Sand and Sorrow” on Tuesday, Nov. 17, at 7 p.m. in the Whitefish Middle School auditorium. The movie about the genocide occurring in Darfur, Sudan, is rated PG-13. Baked goods and drinks will be available for purchase with profits going to sponsor a child in Africa for one year.

North Valley Hospital will sponsor a two-hour, interactive program based on Whitefish resident Ina Albert’s journaling method on Tuesday, Nov. 17, at 7 p.m. in the Cornerstone Room. Albert is a writer and has been a healthcare communications administrator and consultant for acute care, community and psychiatric hospitals, experiential therapists, alternative practices, nursing homes and behavioral health organizations for more than 35 years. For more information, call Naomi Morrison at 863-3632.

The Whitefish Winter Carnival is looking for candidates for Prince Frey and Princess Freya for 2010. All 11th grade boys and girls living within the Whitefish School District who are interested must attend an informational night with a parent orguardian on Tuesday, Nov. 17, at 6:30 p.m. at the Whitefish Library Community Room. New this year is a royalty scholarship of $250.

The Flathead Valley Chapter Trout Unlimited will present a talk by Tracy Stone Manning, of Sen. Jon Tester’s Missoula office, and Bruce Farling, executive director Montana Trout Unlimited, on “The Forest Jobs and Recreation Act — why it’s good for Montana and good for our native fish.” The talk will take place in the Fish Wildlife and Parks building’s public meeting room in Kalispell on Tuesday, Nov. 17, at 7 p.m.

Selections from the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour will be shown at the Flathead High School auditorium on Tuesday and Wednesday, Nov. 17 and 18, beginning at 7 p.m. Films show climbers scaling the 6,000 meter Trango Pulpit in Pakistan, first river descents in Madagascar and paddling the crocodile-infested White Nile of Uganda. Different films will be shown each night. The showing is a fundraiser for Flathead Nordic Ski Patrol, a non-profit group of volunteers trained and prepared to respond to backcountry wintertime emergencies. Tickets are $12 available at Sportsman Ski Haus, Runner Up Sports and The White Room in Whitefish. For more information, visit online at www.flatheadnordic.org and www.banffcentre.ca/MountainCulture/Tour.

A public open house on the U.S. Highway 93 Whitefish West project will take place in the Whitefish City Council chambers on Tuesday, Nov. 17, from 5:30-8 p.m. In addition to general and one-on-one question and answer sessions with the project’s engineers, a brief presentation describing the scope of work will be provided at 6 p.m. For more information, visit online at www.wgmgroup.com/projects/Whitefish/Whitefish.html.

Wednesday

The Dirty Hands Gardening Club will meet in the Whitefish Library’s community room on Wednesday, Nov. 18, at 7 p.m.

The Flathead Valley Community College Reading Group will meet Wednesday, Nov. 18, at 6:30 p.m. to discuss the novel “The Surrounded,” by D’Arcy McNickle. Open to the public, the group meets monthly to discuss selected novels. The only cost involved is the purchase of the books. For more information or to sign up, call Sharon Randolph at 756-3981.