MARK: Welcome to 'Happening in Pocatello' for Monday, February 9th, 2026. I'm Mark, and I'm currently wondering which member of the Milken Institute's board we collectively bribed to get this city ranked fifth in the nation for best-performing cities. It's absolute horse shit, isn't it? I mean, I love this place, but fifth? Above cities that actually have, you know, paved roads and functional underpasses?

JOLEEN: Don't be such a dick, Mark. It's a miracle! We're apparently a beacon of economic resilience and 'overall vitality.' I'm Joleen, and I think we should just enjoy the lie while it lasts. If the rest of the country thinks we're a thriving metropolis instead of a collection of wind-blasted hills and high-quality taco trucks, who are we to correct them? It's the 2026 Best-Performing Cities Index, and we're officially elite. Suck it, Boise.

MARK: Boise didn't even make the top ten, which is the only part of the report I actually believe. But look, they're looking at job growth and housing affordability. I guess compared to living in a literal dumpster in Seattle, Pocatello looks like a goddamn paradise. If you ignore the smell of the phosphorus plant and the fact that you can't drive through downtown without falling into a trench, we're doing great.

JOLEEN: Speaking of things that aren't doing great, did you see the absolute bloodbath over at Idaho State University? President Wagner basically walked in and hit the 'delete' key on forty-five positions. They're trying to fill an eight-million-dollar hole in the budget, and apparently, the College of Education was just too much of a luxury for this town. They're merging it with Arts and Letters into something called the 'College of Humanities, Education and Social Science.'

MARK: Ah, yes, the acronym would be 'CHESS.' How intellectual. They're playing chess with people's goddamn careers while the state government keeps cutting the budget by three percent every time a Republican lawmaker sneezes. It's depressing. They're cutting twelve faculty spots and eleven administrators. I'm sure the remaining professors will love teaching six classes a semester while also doing their own janitorial work.

JOLEEN: It's efficient, Mark! That's the corporate speak. They're calling it a 'structural redesign.' Nothing says 'we're broke' like firing the person who's been filing your paperwork for twenty years. They even told the biology department assistants their jobs are gone by June. It's cold-blooded. But hey, we're the fifth best-performing city! Maybe those forty-five people can go get jobs at the new Chick-fil-A that might not even exist.

MARK: Don't even start with the Chick-fil-A rumors. The entire town is losing its collective mind over a patch of dirt on Quinn Road. The Idaho State Journal says it's happening, but the Chick-fil-A corporate office is being a total tease, saying they 'can't confirm.' It's like a middle-school romance. 'Do you like us? Circle yes or no.' If they don't build it, people are going to riot at the Titan Center.

JOLEEN: The obsession with mediocre chicken in this town is a fucking sickness. We've got Raising Cane's which just opened, and now everyone's acting like a freestanding Chick-fil-A is the second coming of Christ. It's just a chicken biscuit, people. Calm your tits. I'm more interested in the fact that we've actually got some good news for once. Did you see Breezy Johnson yesterday? Absolute legend.

MARK: I did. She's from Victor, but we're claiming her because she's East Idaho through and through. She won the gold in the downhill at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Cortina. First gold for Team USA this year. And she did it after sitting out 2022 with a shredded knee and dealing with that fourteen-month ban for the 'whereabouts' bullshit. That's the most Idaho thing ever--going through hell, getting suspended by some bureaucrat, and then coming back to beat the entire world.

JOLEEN: She went eighty miles per hour on skis. If I tried that, I'd turn into a pink mist against a pine tree. And she was knitting a headband the night before the race! That's some 'grandma-level' chill while preparing to hurtle down a mountain. She won by four-hundredths of a second. That's less time than it takes you to complain about the wind, Mark. It's incredible. I hope she gets a parade when she comes home.

MARK: If we can afford a parade. ISU certainly can't. But hey, maybe the city can use some of that 'Best-Performing City' money. Though, looking at the crime reports from today, maybe we should spend it on better security for storage units. Did you hear about the two geniuses who got arrested this morning? They tried to steal a car and an entire apartment's worth of furniture from a storage facility.

JOLEEN: Who steals furniture in February? It's freezing! You're going to haul a couch across an icy parking lot while the cops are watching? That takes a special kind of stupid. I love that they tried to take the car too. 'Yeah, let's just pack the stolen Honda with this used recliner and see if we can make a clean getaway.' These people are the reason our 'vitality' index is so high--they provide endless entertainment.

MARK: It's the variety of crime here that keeps things fresh. If it's not someone threatening a victim with scissors like we saw last week, it's a furniture heist. At least they didn't set anything on fire. Unlike that three-story apartment building on North Hayes that's still displaced a bunch of people. The fire department said that place was a nightmare to fight because of all the shitty renovations over the years. Roof lines on top of roof lines. It's like a Winchester Mystery House of fire hazards.

JOLEEN: That's Pocatello real estate for you. 'This house has character!' Yeah, the character is a fire-trap. Speaking of real estate, did you see the prices? The median list price in January hit three-hundred forty-seven thousand. In what world is a house in Pocatello worth that much? We're a seller's market right now, but homes are sitting for eighty-four days. That's a long time to wait for someone to realize they're overpaying for a bungalow built in 1942.

MARK: It's because nobody can afford the interest rates, and the inventory is tighter than your skin on a cold morning. We've only got about a hundred and sixty active listings. It's a joke. If you want a house here, you've basically got to wait for someone to move to a nursing home or get arrested in a furniture heist. But hey, Raymond Knoff is the new chair of the School Board, so maybe he'll fix everything with his plan for 'fiscal responsibility' and 'AI in the classroom.'

JOLEEN: Oh, right. Because what our kids really need is a ChatGPT bot teaching them math while the state cuts another three percent of the budget. Knoff was the guy who opposed the bond for Highland High, and now he's the chair. It's like putting the fox in charge of the hen house, but the fox is really worried about 'unfunded mandates.' I'm sure it'll be a very peaceful year for District 25. No drama at all. Zero.

MARK: You're so cynical, Joleen. AI is the future! We can replace the teachers we're losing at ISU with holographic versions that don't need health insurance. It's the perfect solution. But look, if you're depressed about the state of the world, go get a burger. I went to the Buddy Boy Drive-In over the weekend. It's a Pocatello institution for a reason. It's greasy, it's cheap, and the service is fast enough that you don't have time to contemplate your own mortality while waiting.

JOLEEN: Buddy Boy is great if you want your heart to skip a beat from the cholesterol. Their fry sauce is basically a controlled substance. It's one of the few places left that feels like old Pocatello before all the 'Best-Performing City' bullshit. You just pull up, get a burger that's mostly beef and hope, and you're on your way. It beats waiting in a forty-car line for a Chick-fil-A sandwich that tastes like cardboard and polite rejection.

MARK: I'll take a Buddy Boy burger over a corporate chicken nugget any day. But you know what I won't take? This goddamn wind today. It's forty-two degrees out there, which sounds nice, but with thirty-five mile-per-hour gusts, it feels like you're being slapped in the face by a frozen fish. It's the kind of wind that makes you want to move to Arizona until you remember Arizona is a desert hellscape.

JOLEEN: The wind is just Pocatello's way of reminding you that you're alive. Or trying to blow you into Idaho Falls so they can claim your tax revenue. The rest of the week looks okay, though. Highs staying in the low forties, mostly sunny for the weekend. We might get some sprinkles or light snow tonight, but it's not going to be the 'Snowpocalypse' everyone always panics about. Just enough to make the roads shitty for the Tuesday commute.

MARK: As if the roads aren't shitty enough with the Center Street Underpass closed. I drove past there yesterday and it looks like a scene from an apocalypse movie. Just a big, empty hole and a lot of orange cones. They're saying it's going to be like this for six weeks, but we all know that's 'Pocatello time.' In real-world time, that's probably until August. I hope you like detours, because that's your life now.

JOLEEN: It's a metaphor for the city, Mark. A hole in the middle of everything that we're all just trying to drive around. But hey, it's Valentine's weekend coming up! If you're looking to take your sweetheart somewhere special, how about a 'Foam After Party' at the fairgrounds? Nothing says 'I love you' like being covered in soapy bubbles with three hundred other sweaty people in a cold building. It's called 'SRD's Heart Fest.' It's for families too, which sounds like a nightmare, but at least there's a foam pit.

MARK: A foam pit at the fairgrounds. That's the peak of Pocatello culture right there. If that's not your speed, there's the Crafters Market at Station Square on Saturday. You can buy some hand-knitted mittens to protect yourself from the wind while you're standing in line for a burger. Or you can go to the ISU Jazz Fest on Friday night. It's at the Jensen Grand Concert Hall. At least the music will be better than the sound of the wind rattling your windows.

JOLEEN: I'll stick to the jazz. The foam party sounds like a great way to catch a cold and regret every life choice I've ever made. But for real, it's a big week. Between the Olympics and the ISU massacre, there's plenty to talk about. If you want to bitch about the school board or tell us your favorite Buddy Boy order, email us at pocatello@thehappeningnetwork.com. We actually read that shit, believe it or not.

MARK: We do. Especially if you're complaining about me. Joleen loves those. Make sure to like, subscribe, and leave a comment. Tell us if you think Pocatello really is the fifth best-performing city in America, or if the people at the Milken Institute were just high on potato fumes when they wrote that report. I'm leaning toward the fumes myself.

JOLEEN: Maybe they just really like our resilience. We survived the loss of the Washington Elementary and we're surviving the Center Street Pit. That's got to count for something. Anyway, keep your head down and your collar up, Pocatello. It's going to be a windy one. We'll see you next time if the wind hasn't carried us off to Wyoming yet.

MARK: That would be a fate worse than death. Stay safe out there, you assholes. Go Bengals, I guess. And go Breezy. She's the only one of us actually winning at life right now.