Fundraiser gets folks out of their seats

Inter Lake editorial

Boosters of a $3.5 million revamp of Whitefish Central School auditorium found a clever way to raise a little cash and turn the spotlight on the latest community-improvement project in the resort town.

For $10 a pop, memorabilia hounds were able to buy the 1938-vintage wooden folding seats in the historic auditorium before the renovation begins. Publicity from the practical but unusual fundraiser is perhaps worth even more than the $4,000 gained from the sale of about 400 of the 540 seats.

Organizers are in the final throes of fundraising, with $2.1 million already nailed down.

The volunteer-led, privately funded effort will create a state-of-the-art facility that will belong to School District 44 when it's completed. It's the latest in a long line of successful public-private partnerships for which Whitefish is well-known.

Finally, the diligent efforts of Glacier National Park's road crews are about to pay off.

The task of clearing Going-to-the-Sun Road for the summer season is never easy, but this year, nature threw several curve balls that made things even harder.

Just as an opening at Logan Pass appeared imminent, heavy rains delivered mud and rock slides and flooding problems that kept workers hopping not only on Sun Road, but on other roads, trails and campgrounds.

With this afternoon's scheduled opening of the full length of Sun Road over Logan Pass, let summer begin.

Recent Flathead High School graduate Vanessa Maycumber has some new wheels thanks to the generosity of her classmates.

At the class graduation party, Maycumber was one of the 10 finalists picked for the drawing for the grand prize - a used car.

Her name was drawn first, and that would have eliminated her from the drawing. However, other finalists (who already had cars) swapped places with Maycumber (who had no car), allowing her to stay in the competition and eventually win the 2000 Hyundai Accent.

Now Maycumber will head off to college with her own car and warm memories of the benevolence of her fellow FHS graduates.