Family wants justice

Editor,

We are reaching out to the community on a healing journey. Our beautiful Tasheena Christina Tish Craft ("Sheena") was strangled and beaten to death by a brutal killer while she slept in her room around 3 a.m. at a home in the Arlee Homesites last summer. This killer tried to hide my dear Sheena's body and drug her with a rope. She still had bits of gravel on her body that I removed myself.

We want justice to prevail and for this murderer to pay for his crimes. We feel he is being coddled by the system and it isn't right. He needs to answer to all the charges but it has been six months and he still hasn't been convicted. It is all too cruel and each continuance hurts us, we are a large extended family.

We have to relive the entire event whenever there is a continuance. One continuance was because the killer's lawyer's wife was having complications in her pregnancy, I was told. We fear that the County Attorney will offer a plea bargain and the killer, if he accepts this, will not get the prison term he deserves. That would be a slap in the face for us who are suffering so by what we view as brutal, barbaric, premeditated, heinous uncalled for killing.

We need to heal but we can't while the killer is still being housed and fed in Lake County. Please help us move this along by writing letters of support to County Attorney Mitch Young, as he has a hard job to do. We will also accept words of encouragement, sympathy and monetary contributions to Justice for Sheena, P.O. Box 74, Arlee, MT 59821.

Every little bit helps, even if it's just a simple prayer. We want to buy our darling Sheena a beautiful headstone as she has been laid to rest in the Jocko Cemetery, southeast of Arlee, her hometown. Headstones cost around $4,000 or more for the real nice ones.

Sheena was a kind-hearted girl who never had anything bad to say about anyone. She was attending the Medicine Wheel Academy in Spokane and was just about to graduate with honors there. She was a member of the Sunrise drummers and singers, a Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal member, a descendant of the late Chief Victor Charlo, and Beartracks, and Mary Kltimi (aka Sack Woman), all who spoke their Salish language.

She also descended from Carl and Inga Christopher, who spoke their language, Norwegian, fluently and came to America straight from Norway.

She was going to be in the entertainment business and was learning to play guitar. She became a good role model to her peers and to her various nephews. She was planning to have a family of her own someday.

Shay Hoy, or that's all for now.

Diana Scnpaqci Cote

Arlee

Let's have best golf course, not cheapest

Editor,

The City of Polson should be commended for the wonderful golf course that they manage. I am very proud of the management and the condition of the course, and I get day after day of enjoyment from it at bargain rates. A few people have complained about the rates and I would like to explain a couple of things.

The Polson Bay Golf Club is a business. It is not a charity. It is also not meant to be a tax burden on the citizens of Polson. It is a self-sustaining entity paid for by the people who use it. Any business has to increase its prices as costs go up, and over the past few years the rates for daily fees, the rates for adult season passes and the rate for out-of-city season passes have gone up.

At the present time, the out-of-city rates are $73 more than in-city ones. If you golf 50 times a year it is $1.46 per time. I just checked my property tax statement and I paid 23.45 percent of the tax to the city. That is a lot more than $73, so count your blessings rather than complain about the city asking you to pay a little extra for the use of our facility.

If that doesn't work for you, perhaps you could talk to your neighbors about joining you in asking the city to annex your area. We in the city would love the larger tax base and you could enjoy the in-city season pass rate.

The golf course is the second most important asset the city has to attract visitors to this area. It is vital that we keep the course in first class condition so we can compete with the many other golf courses for tourist dollars. It is not just the golf course that benefits from the summer business — all the businesses in town do much better in the summer than winter because Polson is an attractive place to visit.

The current Golf Commission has plans for a new practice area near the 17th fairway, along with a cart path on the 18th fairway, so folks from all four of the new developments in that area can reach the clubhouse without traveling on city streets. We are fortunate to have two developers in that area who are going to contribute at least two-thirds of the cost if the city council approves the project.

In addition, such things as repairing some of the tees and improving the 150-yard markers and installing a new sign on Highway 93 advertising both the golf and restaurant are in the works.

All of these improvements must come out of golf course revenues.

I, for one, hope the Golf Committee and the City Council choose to work for the best golf course in the area, not the cheapest.

Ron Hone

Polson