Tournament spot on the line this weekend
The University of Montana soccer team will play its final Big Sky Conference matches this weekend against Northern Arizona and Northern Colorado. The Grizzlies will host the Lumberjacks Friday at 3 p.m. at South Campus Stadium, then travel to Greeley, Colo., to face the Bears Sunday at noon at UNC's Jackson Stadium.
What's at stake: For all eight teams in the Big Sky Conference, their postseason hopes. All eight teams have a pair of matches this weekend, and with every team sitting between three and 10 points, no one has clinched a spot in the four-team tournament and no team has been eliminated.
With seven points and residing in the middle of the standings, Montana could win the regular-season championship this weekend and host the Big Sky tournament the first weekend of November, or the Grizzlies could come out of Sunday's match with the same seven points and find themselves in last place (though no one who has watched the team play the last month of the season expects Montana to be holding steady with seven points come Sunday afternoon).
Boise mom finds peace in skydiving after daughter's death
Heidi Barker has a fear of heights. She hates flying — takeoffs and landings terrify her.
It was a surprise when her daughter, Michelle, took up skydiving at age 18.
“She called me up and said, ‘Mom, come watch me fall out of the airplane,’ ” Heidi Barker recalled this week.
Barker said her daughter did her first jump in Caldwell. She was immediately hooked, and it wasn’t long before she was working at Skydive Idaho in Star.
“She loved the sport. She loved the people. So she needed to be there,” said her stepdad, Rich Williams.
The 2003 Centennial High grad moved to the Seattle area in 2007 to be near some of her skydiving friends. In October that year, the 22-year-old and nine of her friends flew to Star for a weekend of skydiving on her home turf.
On the way back to the Seattle area, their Cessna 208 crashed during icy conditions in the Cascade Range near White Pass — and all 10 aboard perished. The loss has been crushing for family members, who each year gather in Snohomish, Wash., and try to hike to the site (this year, a bridge was washed out, so only one intrepid hiker made it).
Cost is $10 per person. Meals will be served at the site all weekend. T-shirts will be on sale for $10 or $18. All of the proceeds will go to a scholarship fund to help a new skydiver defray costs. Skydive Idaho is at 24005 N. Can-Ada Road in Star.
Other students sporting the logo on T-shirts were also asked to cover up. Keep A Breast Canadian Executive Director Michelle Murray said the bracelets are marketed towards a younger demographic who may not respond as well to the traditional pink ribbon
