Flathead residents make good neighbors

The residents of the Flathead has been unfettered in their generosity over this past year. Time after time, a spirit of creative and steadfast giving has permeated every fund-raiser and food drive, every neighbor in need and each worthy cause across the valley.

And it's been a tough year. Stunned by the tsunami Dec. 26, 2004, in Southeast Asia, local residents reached out on a global level well into the new year. Businesses, schools, churches and civic groups rallied and hands dug deep with a compassionate outpouring of financial support for those left devastated.

As overwhelming as the tsunami was, the Montana Red Cross reported that in the first two weeks after Hurricane Katrina, donations doubled. At the Inter Lake and all through town, phones rang with news about how people were putting their hearts into helping the victims in the best way they knew how - fund-raisers, of every size, shape and sort.

Concerts were staged, bake sales and car washes arranged, goods were gathered for garage sales, coins were collected, and volunteers were trained for possibly the largest single emergency response in U.S. history.

As the year careened from one catastrophe to the next, in this column quiet acts of kindness continued to be reported. In Minnesota, Jim and Lori Sturgeon despaired as they waited for word of their 22-year-old son, Jeff, who had come out to Big Mountain with friends on a skiing vacation, only to become lost and reported missing Jan. 3. Nearly 40 rescuers searched the mountain for the skier, finding him at midnight, very cold and wet, shivering in his homemade igloo but otherwise unharmed.

In February, Bill Ashe found himself and his Boy Scout training in the right place at the right time, and made a heroic rescue of a golden retriever that had fallen through the thin ice on the Stillwater River.

Throughout the holidays and into the new year, letter after letter came to the paper, expressing thanks for returned wallets, money and other acts of honesty that helped bolster the Flathead's reputation as one of the best places to live.

And on a spectacularly sunny day in March, residents across the valley gathered and rallied with a display of flag waving, horn blowing and raucous cheering as the homeward-bound soldiers of the 639th Quartermaster Company rolled through town.

There have been courageous stories of residents young and old battling brain tumors, Lou Gehrig's disease, leukemia and cancer; and those who unite the community with spaghetti dinners, barbecues, auctions, raffles and countless ways to raise money for their neighbors in need.

Then there are those here who, out of the sincerest sense of community spirit, raise lush flower beds, organize Good Neighbors Day, and throw spectacular summer fireworks shows, all for the rest of us to enjoy. Hats off to Linda Spangle and her terraced gardens on U.S. 93, Becky Mattson of Lakeside's dogged pursuit of Good Neighbor Day, and to all the pyrotechnicians who light our skies every Fourth of July.

If every year in the Flathead reaps the abundance of blessings that 2005 did, our valley, no matter the size, will still be home, sweet home.