Reward available for return of dinosaur

MISSOULA — The folks at Hi-Noon Petroleum in Montana have a new way to turn a dinosaur into gasoline.

They’re offering a $250 gas card for information leading to the safe return of Dino, a 12-foot-long Fiberglas Sinclair dinosaur that disappeared June 21 from the Crossroads Travel Center west of Missoula.

“We just wonder what happened to him,” Hi-Noon marketing manager Earl Allen said Friday. “It’s a little odd for him to just walk away.”

The 6-foot-tall green dinosaur sat on a hill overlooking Interstate 90 for at least five years, Allen said, with occasional appearances in University of Montana homecoming parades.

“That was his home for a number of years,” Allen said.

Allen said taking the prehistoric icon would have been a bit of a project.

“It’s not like you can just throw him in the back of a pickup,” he said.