Dillon Tabish

Staff Writer, Flathead Beacon

Kalispell, Montana

Montana native. Flathead Beacon staff writer, covering the outdoors, sports, commerce & city government.

Dillon Tabish

Staff Writer, Flathead Beacon

Kalispell, Montana

Montana native. Flathead Beacon staff writer, covering the outdoors, sports, commerce & city government.

Fighting his way to the top
It’s gray and raining outside in downtown Kalispell just before Father’s Day and one of the best lightweight amateur boxers in America is in the gym with his father and his son, preparing for the fight that could change his life.
The Daily Inter Lake
The Day a Generation Changed
Last week Sean O’Donnell sat down with his 14-year-old son at lunch and asked him what he remembered about Sept. 11, 2001. O’Donnell, now in his 15th year as a history teacher at Flathead High School, has seen how the images fade a little more with each school year; a new group of students, like his freshman son, have no real memory of 10 years ago.
Flathead Beacon
Mother Nature's Fatal Appeal
Jim Theys, his daughter and son-in-law were the first snowmobilers to unload in the parking lot near the Lost Johnny Creek drainage by Hungry Horse Reservoir. It was Presidents Day and fresh snow blanketed the Swan Range. It was, at first glance, a perfect day to be in the backcountry. By the time Theys’ party headed out, the parking lot was already crowded, even for a holiday.
Flathead Beacon
Slopestyle Stardom
Thirteen-year-old Maggie Voisin dreams of flying through the air at the Winter X Games. She’s not far away. The Whitefish seventh grader is ascending the slopestyle ranks and emerging as one of the most talented girls on skis. This winter Voisin, a member of the Whitefish Mountain Resort Freestyle team, has placed first or second in every competition she’s entered, dominating the top levels of the Canadian and Northwest U.S. circuits despite consistently being one of the youngest skiers out there.
Flathead Beacon
Tanner Hall: The once and future king
Almost a week before Christmas, 27-year-old Tanner Hall is driving south to Mexico. His destination is Ensenada, a port city in Baja tucked along the ocean, called the "Cinderella of the Pacific." This is where Tanner has found the fountain of youth.
The Daily Inter Lake
The Con Crew
The night before leaving to fight a wildfire, Tiffany Crow Shoe lies awake in bed, his heart punching against his chest. It's the end of July, but for Crow Shoe, it feels like Christmas Eve. He closes his eyes and sees wild flames torching up into tree crowns. Chain saws roar, making room for firefighters to hump line around the perimeter.
The Fallout
In the wake of a campus-wide sexual assault investigation, the University of Montana is losing money from upset donors after the recent firing of its head football coach and athletic director, while prominent former players and a member of the board of regents are defending the decision. Just one week after the March 29 firings, the executive director of the Grizzly Scholarship Association, which directs fundraising efforts for UM athletics, said the financial losses were “fairly substantial.”.
Flathead Beacon
New Descents
Brad Ludden still looks like Brad Ludden. His healthy, muscular physique still resembles a professional athlete’s. His arms still look capable of powering through world-class whitewater. Those gentlemanly, poster-boy looks, the ones that helped earn the Kalispell native the title of “Bachelor of the Year” by Cosmopolitan magazine in 2008, appear intact.
Flathead Beacon
Taylor’s Long Road to Senior Night
COLUMBIA FALLS — As families began preparing for the ceremony and gathered in the lobby outside the high school gymnasium, 17-year-old Taylor Peterson removed her long brown wig. Her head was no longer completely bald, and she parted the short blonde hair that had started growing back into a mini mohawk.
Flathead Beacon
Braving the Water
Yadira Gil has been afraid of water ever since she nearly drowned as a young girl. When she was 6 years old and living in California, her parents took her to a swimming pool. She drifted toward the deep end and her small inflatable arm floaties slipped off. Yadira never stepped back into water after that.
Flathead Beacon
Glacier Park’s Great Uncertainty
As a park ranger in Glacier National Park for 23 years, Gary Moses has responded to medical emergencies, delivered a newborn baby and led search and rescue missions throughout the million acres of rugged wilderness. In the summer of 2005, he helped save the lives of a father and daughter after a violent encounter with a sow grizzly and cubs.
Flathead Beacon
Journey of a Lifetime
Last Saturday, Bree Fuqua departed Kalispell with only a small backpack. She flew south to San Diego, where a pair of relative strangers, an older husband and wife known as “angels,” picked her up. From the city they drove more than an hour into the wild interior of the Mountain Empire to a marked section of fence along the Mexican border.
Flathead Beacon
Incident Commanders
Two years ago in early June, Greg Poncin and his elite team of firefighters arrived in the Arizona desert from Northwest Montana. The Wallow Fire on the eastern border near New Mexico had roared to life, growing from a campfire ember to an 840-square-mile “incident of national significance,” which required the best resources available in the U.S.
Flathead Beacon
Young and Homeless
On any given day over the last year, between 100 and 300 youths were without a permanent, safe place to sleep in the greater Kalispell area, according to a tally estimated by the school district. Many of the homeless teenagers were couch surfing at friends’ or extended family’s houses. Some slept in vehicles or camped in the woods on the outskirts of their communities.
Flathead Beacon
Lakers Coach Delivers Meeting’s Keynote Address
The gray-haired, 6-foot-8 coaching legend, after another long journey from the bright lights and big city of Los Angeles, has made his way back to the place he calls home.
The Daily Inter Lake
Walking Among Giants
Near the lowest point in Montana, some of the largest and oldest trees in the state stretch toward the clouds. South of Troy off Montana Highway 56, a grove of western red cedars lives tucked inside a dense 100-acre site called Ross Creek Cedars. Most of the trees are almost 10 feet in diameter and were born around the time Columbus was discovering the New World.
Flathead Beacon

About

Dillon Tabish

Dillon was born and raised in Missoula, Mont., the oldest son of a printer and librarian. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Montana in 2008. Out of college he was hired as a sportswriter at the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell where he worked for almost three years and won a first-place award for feature writing and second place for event coverage. His work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Montana Magazine, NewWest.net and Missoula Independent.