Hall lived airport history

Ray Hall spent 26 years with a front-row seat to aviation history as the manager of Glacier Park International Airport.

Hall, 84, remains one of a few surviving witnesses to the evolution of three rough-hewn, rural runways into an international jet port.

In the process, he oversaw local security for the arrivals of President Richard Nixon, President Gerald Ford and Vice President Dan Quayle. Hall recalled his encounters with dozens of secret service agents.

"They were real excited because everyone and his dog ran around here with a gun in his pickup," Hall said with a laugh.

Though he served in the glory days of airport expansion, Hall takes none for himself.

"I did what the board told me to do," he said.

With his poodle Sassy snoozing in his lap last week, Hall thumbed through a thick scrapbook of collected memories of his dual career in aviation and meteorology.

Born in North Dakota, Hall arrived with his family in the Flathead Valley on the eve of the Great Depression in 1929. After graduating from Flathead County High School in 1938, he worked for O'Neil Lumber Co.

"I cut glass and puttied windows for a while," he said.

After hours, the employees played hockey under the company's banner in the city league. In those days, the teams played on ice in the area that later became Woodland Park.

"Look at all those people," Hall said, pointing to a crowded skating scene in the 1932 Kalispell Chamber of Commerce brochure.

Economic times were still tough in the '30s, particularly in Montana. But Hall said life was good.

"We never thought we were in a depression," he said. "We hunted and fished and enjoyed the country."

A brewing World War II caught up with Hall when his National Guard unit was mobilized in 1940. He had joined up in 1937 when the guard paid $1 a meeting.

His unit headed off to Fort Lewis for training. Just a month short of the unit's scheduled return, war broke out and Hall ended up in the Army for three years.

He was due to ship overseas on the Queen Elizabeth when a nasty foot infection sent him to the hospital for six months and kept his feet on American soil for the duration of his service.

During leave, he returned to the Flathead to become reacquainted with a brunette that he had admired from afar for years.

"I'd known Yvonne from the eighth grade," he said with a laugh. "She didn't know me."

Hall said he still can't figure out how she came up with enough gas rationing coupons to get to his base in California for their marriage on Nov. 8, 1942.

The couple returned to Kalispell when Hall left the service in 1943. He worked again for O'Neil and then Monarch lumber companies, hoping to learn enough to start his own glass and cabinet business.

Hall was ready to purchase a local glass business when the Veteran's Administration turned down his loan. Once again, his feet problems changed his path.

"The VA didn't think I could do that work with my feet," he said.

Instead, Hall said he took a test that identified his gift for scientific work. In 1945, he joined the National Weather Service in a training position, working 8 p.m. to 5 a.m.

Between taking observations and recording climatological conditions every three hours, Hall spent his time studying for a meteorological rating.

"I read the whole 'Compendium of Meteorology,'" Hall said.

After four years of preparation, including correspondence courses, he passed the weather bureau's exam. Hall became the meteorologic technician-in-charge in Kalispell in 1948 after a six-month stint in Spokane.

In the days before satellites and Doppler radar, Hall said he relied on drawing maps and tracking the weather by teletype and telephone calls.

Unlike today's computer-driven system, he would change the forecast if unpredicted conditions developed.

"We were trying to do it right," Hall said.

The weather service office moved from the federal building, now the county library, out to the airport in 1949. In the same year, Hall took lessons for his private pilot's license.

"I was taking lessons so I could do a better job briefing pilots," he explained.

Hall went on to qualify for his commercial pilot's license. Along with briefing pilots, he put his licenses to use flying for the fixed-wing operator at the airport.

"I flew to Spokane quite a bit, bringing people who were sick," Hall said. "I didn't get paid but I got to use the planes."

In 1957, the financially strapped airport board approached Hall to take on the manager duties when he got off work from the weather bureau at 3:30 p.m.

Luckily for the airport board, Hall said he was never motivated by money. He took on the manager job for the good of the community and because it sounded interesting.

"It wasn't supposed to be much work," he said with a laugh.

Hired for $75 a month, he paid the bills, typed and filed, plowed snow and waged war on gophers that regularly chomped through runway-light wiring.

Yvonne Hall recalled that the airport duties were often a family affair. Once in a while, she made after-hours trips to the airport to turn on the runway lights for a night flight.

"I even scrubbed the floors from time to time," she said with a laugh.

Ray Hall recalled how he received notice that he had to run to the airport to turn on the runway lights.

The FAA would call the sheriff in Missoula, who called the Flathead sheriff, who then called Hall. He would hurry down and switch he lights to full power to guide in the plane.

"When they were ready to land, you would dim the lights so you didn't blind the pilot," he said.

Hall then waited around with the arriving crew and passengers for transportation to arrive. Sometimes, he became the transportation.

"One time I took three fellas to Canada," he said with a laugh.

Hall lamented that things were different in those days. People pitched in to help each other out when needed.

The same was true of the small crew of people who helped Hall keep the airport functioning. He said a father/son team, Mel and George Colby, played a major role.

"George could fix anything," he said. "If it wasn't for them, we wouldn't have made it."

Through the Montana Airport Managers Association, Hall improved the airport's financial predicament. The network helped him squeeze more support out of the county.

When he first took the manager job, the county only allocated one-fourth mill for the budget.

"I found out the county was supposed to provide the airport with two mills," he said.

He also learned that he didn't have to return unspent money each year. Hall said the airport's reserve funds hovered at zero when he came on board.

By the time he left in 1983, the bank account showed a balance of nearly $1.8 million.

Hall witnessed many landmark changes at the airport. On Friday, Sept. 25, 1970, a banner headline in the Daily Inter Lake announced, "Airport Okayed for Customs Service."

Sen. Mike Mansfield, then Senate majority leader, pushed for that approval.

"Those kinds of people can really help you," Hall said.

Local veterinarian Herman "Chet" Ross headed the airport board's customs committee.

"Chet was a real goer," he said. "He was real instrumental in building the new building."

By the early 1980s, the tiny terminal was serving two airlines, four rental car agencies, the airport's fixed-base operator and dozens of vending machines for food service.

Arriving baggage was relegated to an outdoor fruit stand.

A new terminal was designed and $3 million in bonds were sold to build it.

Hall recalled sitting down in Denver to sign 600 $5,000 bonds. While waiting to start building, he invested the $3 million in some local banks, including one in Columbia Falls at 17 percent interest.

None of the investments defaulted.

"I wasn't smart enough to be scared," he said with a laugh.

Hall retired in 1983 to devote himself to hunting, fishing, golfing, playing pool and riding his 250 Suzuki street bike and his 125 Yamaha mountain bike.

As he closed his overflowing scrapbook on his dual careers, Hall contemplated the blessing of that miserable foot infection back in the '40s.

"I'd probably been in a glass shop somewhere if it hadn't been for my bad feet," he said with a laugh.

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.