Looking Back: Big Mountain drug policy reviewed; Voisin makes Olympic team

A look back at past Pilot articles by Julie Engler.

50 Years Ago

January 31, 1974

Montana would host the 1974 Pacific Northwest Regional Babe Ruth Baseball Tournament, with games in Whitefish in early August. Babe Ruth Baseball is a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to developing better citizenship, providing proper supervised baseball competition for boys aged 13-15.  The Pacific Northwest Regional Tournament was made up of State Champions from Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana Providence of British Columbia and this year’s host team, Whitefish, Montana.

40 Years Ago

February 2, 1984

Kristin Zwisler, a fifth grader at Central School, found the WInter Carnival $200 treasure on the footbridge. Zwisler was out searching for the treasure with her mother, KC, her father, Steve, and Leo Keane when she discovered it. The key word in the clue that led them to the footbridge, her dad said, was “retreat” and the phrase “far away from city streets.'' The Zwislers and Keane had planned to split the money evenly, but Kristin got $51 because she was the one who found it, her father said. 

30 Years Ago

February 3, 1994

Winter appeared to have missed the Flathead this year. January was the third warmest January in recorded history in the Flathead valley and the warmest January in more than 40 years, according to the National Weather Service. Temperatures during January, 1994 averaged 32 degrees, 11.5 degrees above the historic norm of 20.5 degrees for the month, according to Butch Roberts, a meteorologist at the NWS at Glacier Park International Airport. Only the Januarys of 1853 and 1934 were warmer.

20 Years Ago

January 29, 2004

Reports of proposed random drug testing for Winter Sports Inc. employees initially alarmed workers, but there was some relief as interim chief executive officer Dennis Green initiated a process that emphasizes company-wide participation in creating a fair policy. The move to enact random drug testing for half of the company's employees was aimed at being a fair and proactive addendum to an existing zero-tolerance drug policy on Big Mountain. 

10 Years Ago

January 29, 2014

Maggie Voisin set a few lofty goals for herself coming into this ski season. Compete in the Winter X Games and maybe, just maybe, secure a spot in the U.S. Freeskiing Olympic Team. Done and done. Voisin was selected to compete in womens slopestyle at the WInter Games in Sochi, Russia. At 15 years old, she would be the youngest athlete on team USA and one of the youngest in the world at the Olympics. She soared to a silver medal in womens slopestyle at the X Games in Aspen, Colorado, stomping a pair of 1080 spins along the way.