2 victims recovered from lake

The Daily Inter Lake

A man whose body was found Monday in Flathead Lake has been identified as former University of Montana Fine Arts Dean James D. Kriley.

Kriley, 65, was hired by the university in 1976 as chairman of the Drama/Dance Department and became dean of the School of Fine Arts in 1987, a post he held until 1998.

The former artistic director of the Montana Repertory Theatre, Kriley continued to teach in the university's Media Arts program until his death.

Authorities began searching Flathead Lake on Monday after a Big Arm Bay couple reported that a sailboat drifted up to their dock with no one on it about 4 p.m.

Deputies determined that the sailboat came from a nearby marina, also in Big Arm Bay.

The Lake County Search and Rescue team was dispatched and requested that a plane fly over the bay Monday afternoon. Kriley's body was spotted, underwater, from the air on Monday evening.

Kriley's body has been taken to the state crime lab in Missoula for an autopsy. He was not wearing a life jacket and no foul play is suspected, according to the Lake County Sheriff's Office.

UM President George Dennison issued a statement Tuesday informing the community of Kriley's death.

"He was really a force for the arts," Dennison said. "He was a campus citizen of the first order. … It is a big loss for the university."

Kriley is the second University of Montana professor to die in Big Arm Bay this year.

In January, Lake County authorities recovered the bodies of Hank Harrington and his wife on the south shore of Wild Horse Island. Investigators believe the couple died from hypothermia after their canoe capsized.

Harrington was the former English Department chairman of the University of Montana and his wife, Nancy, was a semi-retired partner at the accounting firm Boyle, Deveny and Meyer in Missoula.

Meanwhile, the search for a 70-year-old swimmer missing in Flathead Lake since Friday ended about 5 p.m. Tuesday when his body was recovered in about 250 feet of water.

Larry "Ty" Beardsley, of the Bigfork area, was riding on a boat with some friends about 2 1/2 miles north of the Narrows when the boat's owner jumped in the water at 8:30 p.m. Friday.

The owner was climbing back into the boat when Beardsley dove over him to go for a swim and disappeared.

Beardsley's body was found by a team from the environmental consulting firm Ralston and Associates, based in Kuna, Idaho, using a sophisticated side-scan sonar to locate the body.

Side-scan sonar bounces sound waves, emitted from a transducer towed behind a boat and positioned only feet above the lake bed, off objects and features on the lake bottom. The rebounding sound waves are translated via computer into an image, not unlike an aerial photograph.

Beardsley's body also has been taken to the state crime lab in Missoula for an autopsy.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.