Commissioners from across US visit Phillips County

Nearly 30 County Commissioners from 14 different states – from as close as Wyoming and as far away as Hawaii – converged on Phillips County last week in order to attend the Western Interstate Region meeting to discuss issues that pertain to the western states.

The kickoff to the event took place at the Phillips County Museum on Thursday evening as the visitors took a tour of the museum, got to take an old fashioned wagon ride and heard Dr. Jim Curtis and Great Plains Dinosaur Curator Sue Frary talk about some of this county's history.

Dr. Curtis gave some of the history of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and talked about a particular journal entry of their time in Phillips County.

"They mentioned how they were tormented by the mosquitoes," Dr. Curtis said.

"So we appreciate the new blood," he thanked the visitors.

Frary told the visitors that Phillips County is home to 50,000 head of cattle and 50,000 fossils.

"A lot of museums say that it takes 90-days of walking around to find one dinosaur," she said. "We find one dinosaur everyday."

While many of the visiting commissioners traveled to Montana via airplane, Jim Josi of Tillamook County, Oregon, chose a different route to Phillips County.

"I rode my motorcycle," said Josi. "It was a fun three days. The longest trip I have ever taken on my motorcycle was to Santa Fe (New Mexico) so this was pretty comparable."

Josi said the highlight of the drive was when he spied a group of longhorn sheep outside of Missoula and said that in the brief amount of time he had spent in Malta, he was very impressed.

"It's a nice little town with a bunch of great people," he said.

Josi, a past President of the Western Interstate Region, said during the conference that he and the other commissioners would lay out what their goals for the next year will be. He said that besides the work ahead of him, he was most looking forward to seeing Phillips County Commissioner Leslie Robinson's ranch.

"I have known her and her husband for a number of years," he said. "I come from a dairy farming community and was raised on a dairy farm so I have always wanted to get over here and see their ranch."

Dennis "Fresh" Onishi, a County Commissioner from Hilo, Hawaii, quite possibly made the longest trip from his home state in order to attend the conference in Phillips County last week.

"It took us half an hour from Hilo to Honolulu and then Honolulu to Denver took us six and a half hours," Onishi said. "And then from Billings to Denver was an hour and a half and then from Billings to here took three and a half hours."

Onishi said that the first thing he did when he arrived in Malta, after the hours and hours of traveling, was to have a couple adult beverages.

"And then we slept in all morning today," he joked. He said that he enjoyed the cooler weather of Montana versus the humid temperatures of his home state and said that he was looking forward to visiting he commissioners and learning about Phillips County.

"This seems like a wonderful place to live," he added.

Greg Smith from Feigel Photo took pictures of the commissioners and their families in front of the old Malta to Zortman mud coach and on Monday morning, Commissioner Robinson came by the PCN Office and said that the event was a huge success.