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sunDAYJuly 14, 2013105th year, No. 56Sidney, Montanawww.sidneyherald.com75 Cents

Sidney hosts Team Wurttemberg. Page 1B.

serving richland county and the surrounding area for 105 years

Bulletin BoardField Day The MSU Eastern Agricultural Research Center will have its Field Day starting at 8:30 a.m. Thursday.

Car showA car show is being

planned during Fairview’s Old Timers Festival from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday,. For more information, call Gene Trudell, 480-1202.

National anthem contest The Richland County Fair announces something new for this year’s fair – National Anthem tryouts to sing at the flag-raising ceremony, prior to the main concert and before the two rodeos. Deadline for entry is July 22. People can submit their video entries by uploading them at the Richland County Fair’s Facebook page, emailing jlarson@richland.org or mailing it to the fair office at P.O. Box 1026 Sidney, MT 59270.

New studentsStudents new to Sidney

Public Schools for the 2013-2014 school year are asked to register as soon as possible at Central School, 200 Third Ave. S.E., between 7:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m.

Republican Central Committee meeting

The Richland County Re-publican Central Committee will hold a special meeting at 7 p.m. July 22 to nominate three individuals to serve on a nominating commit-tee to replace Rep. David Halvorson. The meeting is at the Eastern Agriculture Research Center conference room.

DeathsThomas “Monty” Merrill, 76

Janae Moore, 20Lana Swenrud, 55

Page A3

Inside

Drilling rig count

source: rocky Mountain oil Journalsponsored by

Montana 3 north Dakota

176 Wyoming 46

Agriculture .........5AAround Town .....2AClassifieds .......3-4B

Deaths ...............3AReligion .............9ASports .............1-2B

ashley harris | sidney herald

Crash claims life of Sidney womanA 20-year-old woman from sidney who was killed after her pickup rolled several times into a field has been identified as Janae Moore. Montana Highway Patrol trooper nyle Obergfell, above, said Moore was traveling west on Highway 200 when her Ford F250 drifted to the right and its tires hit an approach. After overcorrecting,the pickup drove into each side ditch, rolling multiple times into a field where the truck rested on its top. she was pronounced dead at the scene. Obergfell said Moore was wearing a seat belt but was unable to survive due to the severity of the accident. He did not say what caused the accident as it remains under investigation. Above, Obergfell inspects the vehicle damage before being towed away. Moore, a sidney native, had just completed her sophomore year at Dickinson state University. she was a 2011 sidney High school graduate and standout basketball player.

trap shoot club wants membersnightmare in midair

By LouiSa BaRBeRsidney herald

Imagine the worst pos-sible plane ride. Some gusty winds, lightning, maybe throw in some hail. It’s a cocktail for disaster.

Sidney’s Courtney Mc-Intyre, 22, doesn’t have to imagine. She went through a terrifying plane ride and lived to tell about it.

Monday afternoon was like any other. McIntyre, with her 2-year-old daugh-ter, took their seats aboard the 3:25 p.m. Silver Airways flight from Sidney to Bill-ings, so she could return to cosmetology school. The plane took off like any other.

After a while, she tried to sleep, she tells the Herald. When she opened her eyes it was 5:10 p.m., a half-hour after they were supposed to land. “I kind of looked around, and there was nothing in sight. It was weird and cloudy out.” She couldn’t explain, but some-

thing just didn’t feel right. “I felt like I was in a hor-

ror movie, and something bad was going to happen,” she said.

Not 10 minutes later, the plane began to blow from side to side, sometimes be-ing blown more sideways than straight. It felt like the

plane was going in circles, she said. Then it came. The microburst of air. “It felt like we hit a brick wall,” Mc-Intyre said.

“I flew up, hit the ceiling, came down, smacked the seat in front of me, breaking it, and then landed on the opposite side of the plane on the floor, still holding onto my daughter who came out of her seat belt.”

The co-pilot, speaking over the intercom, told pas-sengers the plane couldn’t land in Billings and needed to make an emergency land-ing in Miles City. They were about 20 miles from Billings. Needless to say, the land-ing was smooth at about 6 p.m. But after the ride had settled, she looked herself over and saw blood on her shoulder. The skin had been ripped from the shoulder to the middle of her back. The back of her leg has a quarter-size abrasion with bruising, along with other cuts and bruises.

“I’m pretty banged up.” On the ground, trained

weather spotters were relay-ing weather to the National Weather Service in Bill-ings. “There was a lot of severe weather impacting the surface,” Marc Singer, the science and operations officer, said. There were widespread reports of sig-nificant straight-line winds of 75-80 mph that damages buildings, tress and crops. A brief tornado touched down

near Forsyth. There were multiple reports of quarter-inch to golf-ball size hail. “These are all things that impact air service,” he said, though he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what happened dur-ing the flight. “I’m sure they would’ve gotten knocked around pretty good.”

Thunderstorms and show-ers covered eastern Mon-tana that evening, “a very active weather day,” as Rich Maliawco, the general fore-caster at the weather service office in Glasgow, called it. Hail as large as three inches fell in Garfield County. There was also widespread damage in southeast Mon-tana.

Requests for comment from Silver Airways were not immediately returned.

As for McIntyre, she was taken to a hospital in Miles City for treatment and was released later in the eve-ning, though she remains “super sore and just kind of scatter-brained.” She’ll have to miss school for at least two weeks while she recovers in Sidney. Though a seasoned air traveler, she’s now afraid to fly and has anxiety just thinking about what happened.

“I’ve never been so terri-fied in my life,” McIntyre said.

reporter@sidneyherald.com

Passenger on plane recounts Monday flight through storm

Mcintyre

‘it felt like we hit

a brick wall.’

Courtney McintyrePassenger

Body iD’d as missing woman

Local authorities who discovered a female body 15 miles southeast of Sidney on Tuesday confirmed Fri-day morning as that of Lana Swenrud, 55, Sidney, who had been missing since July 8 when family members reported her to local au-thorities. She was last seen on July 6. Richland County Sheriff Brad Baisch recruit-ed the Montana Depart-ment of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation to assist in the investigation.

Swensrud’s body was dis-covered 15 miles southeast of Sidney, east of Highway 261.

Authorities say further investigation is necessary before determining the cause of death. The initial autopsy results have been inconclusive regarding the cause of death, and addi-tional pathology examina-tion is required.

The Montana Department of Justice is handling the investigation.

suBMitted

Courney McIntyre sustained abrasions and bruising after the plane she was in hit what’s believed to be a microburst during a flight through Monday’s severe weather.

See TRap, Page 10a

By LouiSa BaRBeR sidney herald

Tuesday: An idyllic sum-mer evening to shoot on the range. Clear sky, cool tem-peratures, a light breeze.

Just north of Sidney on Highway 16, in the middle of a grass field, sits a shot gun shooting site home to the Sidney Trap Club.

At the helm are Jim and Leann Pelvit, lifetime mem-bers who take care of the property leased from the city of Sidney and organize their weekly shootings. Just one person stood on the range when this Herald reporter drove up. They aimed the shot gun, and, sounding the ready, fired at the orange oval object that shot up from the ground. Clay pigeons, they’re called.

“We never know how many we’ll have,” Leann said, who was keeping track of the hits and misses.

On this evening, the lone gunman is 17-year-old Tate Getchell, a Sidney native, who started trap shooting after his grandfather, Russell Trudell, encouraged him. “Got me a gun and told me to go,” he said. After a hunter’s safety course, the teen joined Pheasants Forever and started hunting. Then he took up trap shooting. “It’s a fast-paced hobby,” he said. “I’m always trying to get better, get as little misses as possible.”

It’s a slow evening for the sport. The club has been struggling for members for several years, which wasn’t the case when it first started in the mid-1970s, to the best of anyone’s knowledge, mak-ing use of the old landfill. “It was just a bunch of guys that started it,” Leann said.

A little while later, two