Great Falls Tribune from Great Falls, Montana • Page 62

MARKETPLACE) Sunday, December 18, 1994 In brief Great Falls area business tion of Realtors and the National Association of Realtors. Joins local firm Mark Steger Smith has joined years with First Bank System in Great Falls and Billings before joining Farm Credit Services in Conrad as a senior loan officer. Scheer heads distributors Mike Scheer, manager of Pen board of the Montana Telecommunications Advisory Council. Currier, formerly chairman of the natural sciences department at Olivet College in Michigan, joined the CGF faculty this fall. Joins First Bank Mandi Strelow Burch has joined Promoted at KRTV Bill Preston has been named president and general manager of KRTV Communications Inc.

in Great Falls. He replaces Don Bradley, who is retiring. A Great Falls native, Preston joined KRTV in 1986 as a salesper-son. In 1993, he was promoted to sales manager and was named station managergeneral sales manager last spring. Preston will oversee the station's operations as well as national and local sales.

Bradley will remain with the company as a part-time consultant. Opens daycare center Russ Williams has opened A New Hartehus, Ferguson, Baker Kazda, a Great Falls law firm, as an attorney. He will focus on civil litigation. Smith holds a bachelor of fine arts degree from New York Uni- 1 nington Great Falls operations, has been elected president of the Montana Wholesale Distributors Association. Scheer has been a director of the statewide organization and was a previous -i mi Jim im.n iii ii i.

iiuii ii.i, limy- hi I 3L i jij 'j hi First Bank Great Falls as a student loan marketing officer. She will be responsible for student loan program marketing and development in Montana, Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Smith versity and grad- Scheer Strelow Burch Washington and recipient of its Salesman of the Year award. Elected by Russell Country Robert Dompier, general manager uated with honors from California Western School of Law. He won an international moot court competition and numerous honors while in law school. He was admitted to the California bar in 1992 and the Montana bar in 1994.

Sanders joins TrustCorp Anne W. Sanders has joined Generation Daycare at 3006 8th Ave. N. The center accepts infants and preschoolers and emphasizes a full range of activities. It has a staff of two.

Williams is a Montana- JL Wyoming. Most recently, Burch was director of student financial aid at the College of Great Falls. Burch holds a master's degree in business administration from the University of Montana and a degree in sociology from the College of Great Falls. Promoted at First Bank Dan Sullivan has been named district operations manager for First or the Hentage Inn in Great Falls, has been elected vice pres- Williams ident of the Russell Country board of direc-tors. Russell Country is a 13-county tourism nrnmntinn nrfa.

TrustCorp as a vice president and trust officer. Her primary responsibilities will be serving clients on the Hi-Line and in the Billings and Bozeman areas. Prior to joining TrustCorp, certified therapeutic foster parent with training in first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The center is licensed, insured and USDA approved. Joins Herbergers team Dave Worstell has joined Herb- Banks Montana banking group.

Sullivan will act as a liaison between retail branches, processing centers and product groups. He will also be responsible for service Sanders Tribunt photo by Wayne Arntt HANGING ON THE LINE: Linemen brothers Donnie, in the bucket, and Rob Leitheiser with XL Construction Inc. of Utah hang strands on which to attach coaxial cable and fiber optic cables in Black Eagle. XL Cable is subcontracting services to TCI cable television In Great Falls. TCI is rebuilding its local cable system.

The project is expected to take several years. ergers in Oreat Falls as merchandise and sales promotions Sullivan Sullivan was most recently was manager. The Havre native holds a degree in marketing and business from Montana State University. He started his nization in Dompier. northcentral Montana.

Dompier has served on the Russell Country board for 1 Vi years. He is also active in a number of other tourism promotion and lodging industry groups. Jeweler gets training Joann Joers of Jensen Jewelers in Holiday Village Mall has completed a credit collection analyst program. The programs includes a 12-week course in granting credit, collecting and office procedures. Gets sales award Doris Seim was the annuity sales leader among all the Western Farm Bureau Life Insurance Co.

agents in Montana in October. Seim works from the Farm Bureau Insurance agency at 1201 Central Ave. Sanders was vice president of account administration and business development for Norwest Capital Management and Trust Co. She also was a trust officer and assistant vice president with First Interstate Bank in California. She holds a paralegal degree from St.

Mary's College. New at Conrad bank Rock Perkins has been named a vice president at Farmers State Bank in Conrad. He has 10 years of experience in agricultural and commercial lending. A Bynum native and a University of Montana graduate, Perkins began his banking career in 1983 as a credit trainee at Norwest Bank in Great Falls. He worked for eight Worstell Fannie Mae primping for Congress' benefit service manager in Great Falls.

He has held numerous managerial positions in his 19-year career with First Bank. He holds an economics degree from Carroll College and an accounting degree from the College of Great Falls. New at Cogswell Karen Everhart has joined the staff of Coldwell Banker Cogswell Real Estate as a sales associate specializing in residential sales. She is a member of the Great Falls Associa- career with Herbergers in Havre and worked in the Kalispell store before coming to Great Falls. Appointed to council Colby Currier, dean of outreach studies at the College of Great Falls, has been appointed to the executive By ROBERT BRUSS Tribune Media Services Signing off at KRTV Real estate which has mandated it make more loans to low income borrowers.

Unfortunately, the advertising people who dream up those creative ads are not the same people who lend the mortgage money. Frankly, you can often get better loans from lenders who do not have to sell their mortgages to Fannie and Freddie. QUESTION: I sold my home in February, 1993 and, due to serious illness, have not yet been able buy a replacement home to defer my profit tax. When I phoned the IRS for a waiver of the 24-month replacement period they said there is no way to do so. Is this true? ANSWER: Yes.

Internal Revenue Code 1034 has no provision allowing the IRS to approve a time QUESTION: I keep seeing ads on TV about how eager Fannie Mae, "the nation's largest lender," is to make home loans. I called the 800 number advertised and all I got was a little booklet about home mortgages. When 1 called back to try to get one of their mortgages, I was told to apply with a local lender. But they refused to give me any names of nearby lenders. Why does Fannie Mae advertise if they aren't making loans? Are those ads a sham? ANSWER: Fannie Mae (and the much lower-profile Freddie Mac) are not direct home loan lenders.

They only buy mortgages in the secondary mortgage market which are originated by local lenders. Fannie Mae, a government-chartered corporation, is trying to look good to its regulator, Congress, for upward mobility. But Bradley frequently gets credit for hanging on to talented news people and helping guide their careers. "I think he will be remembered for his encouragement of young people in the field," said Ashby. "He has a lot of young friends." KRTV news anchor Shannon Everts says she has passed up chances to move to bigger markets, largely because of Bradley.

She's been at the station for eight years. "He gave me the chance to anchor when nobody else would," she said. "He really is a mentor. He makes you feel very comfortable with what you are doing." Former news employees still keep in touch. Bradley remembers birthdays and special occasions, even for those long departed.

And the station spends money on news. It has a staff of 16 full and part-timers. Bradley and the station's owners agreed to shell out $80,000 a couple of years ago for a truck that allows live broadcasts from remote sites. It's one of two such trucks in the state. "We felt it was important that we be able to cover something live," Bradley explained.

The KRTV czar considers the news improvements among his greatest accomplishments. And news coverage is directly linked to financial success in small-market TV. "It's your local image," Bradley said. "It's how you serve your viewers. So you want to do the best job you can." FROM IG Bradley admits the stab at a statewide newscast was a mistake.

"It didn't work very well," he said. "People wanted a more local emphasis." Most of the MTN stations have common ownership. But now they do local newscasts and share news and public affairs programming. "It's something nobody else can do," said Bradley pretty much cover the state." The key to the news turnaround lies in personnel, observers say. In small markets, TV news staffers often work long hours for paltry pay.

Moving to a larger market is often a top priority with some staffers. With Great Falls in the 180th slot among the nation's 210 TV markets, there is plenty of room He shuns credit for the improved news ratings, instead talking up Everts, news director Joel Lundstad and others. "The staff we have right now is probably the best we've ever had," Bradley said. The photos of staff members past and present that dot his office walls will go into the moving boxes, along with his World War II aircraft art and the plastic rat. Great Falls native Bill Preston, the station manager, will become president and general manager at KRTV.

When his TV work is done, Bradley isn't sure what he will do. He has no real hobbies. "I haven't been fishing for a lot of years," he said. "Maybe I can try that again." English hissing not kissing under French mistletoe By KARIN DAVIES Associated Press Writer Whitehorn Financial Services from this 19th-century spa town, 125 miles northwest of London, were roasted alive at roadside by French farmers who don't like competition. "The French mistletoe is not much good," said farmer David Spilsbury.

"It doesn't have as many berries as the English, and those it does have have gone brown this year." In Tenbury Wells, about 5 tons of mistletoe was snapped up at the auction this year by wholesalers and self-styled druids who use mistletoe in fertility rites. A surprising number of buyers were named Smith. "A nice innocent name to confuse the tax man," said a wholesaler who didn't want to be identified. Gino Beaumont, who bought a dozen huge clumps of mistletoe, said druids who still follow some of the rites from the ancient Celtic religious order still revere the plant and use it in potions. "We must not lose our traditions," Beaumont said, although he added he would sell most of the mistletoe to hotels and pubs for decoration.

The practice of kissing beneath the mistletoe stems from a time when it was hung above English doors as a sign of peace and any visitor was greeted with a kiss. Mistletoe is a parasitical evergreen which grows best in the bark of old apple trees. Seeds are spread by birds that eat the berries. Mistletoe grows in the United States and in northern Europe to Sweden, sweeping east to Russia. It still thrives around Tenbury Wells.

The crisp air and craggy bark of the apple trees at least 30 years old provide the ideal conditions. But apple trees are disappearing in England. In 30 years, commercial orchards have declined by two-thirds, a loss of about 150,000 acres. Plantlife, a conservation charity, and the Botanical Society of the British Isles, have asked people to hunt for mistletoe this winter to find out where it is growing. TENBURY WELLS, England -Quelle horreur! English kisses beneath French mistletoe? "It's getting harder to find English mistletoe," said Nick Champion, an auctioneer in the country's biggest market for the white-berried foliage.

"The French are sending so much mistletoe in that it's ruining the market, they're driving the price down." This year, mistletoe is selling for the equivalent of $1.17 a pound, down from $1.56 last year. English farmers grumble about unfair play within the European Union's common market. "They don't want to buy our beef and lamb, but they're happy to sell us their mistletoe," farmer Brian Smith said. Three years ago, lambs exported Httttuetl fruuU ttaeUct tfinaufi CAanle ScAuxxi fa. hc.

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