Newscaster, radio station part ways

The Daily Inter Lake

Longtime Flathead Valley newscaster George Ostrom left KOFI radio Monday after a disagreement with management.

His abrupt departure from the job apparently followed Ostrom's decision to broadcast a story about former KOFI office manager Kent Etchison's innocent plea to federal mail-fraud charges.

The story appeared in the Inter Lake on Saturday and was subsequently distributed by the Associated Press.

KOFI general manager Dave Rae had no comment on Ostrom's departure.

Etchison, 33, of Kalispell was indicted for fraudulently purchasing office supplies at the station's expense to obtain incentives from vendors.

According to court documents, Etchison - whose duties as office manager included ordering office supplies and managing the radio station's accounts payable and receivable - would purchase large quantities of office supplies in exchange for incentives offered by supply companies.

Between March 2003 and June 2006, Etchison allegedly ordered about $925,000 in office supplies, far more than the radio station could use. The orders were placed primarily to vendors that offered Etchison incentives, which over the years reportedly landed him a 19-inch TV, laptop computer, traveler's checks, gift certificates, gift cards and money.

Ostrom, who has been associated with the Kalispell radio station for 53 years, bought KOFI in the 1980s with a group of investors, expanded it to include an FM band, and then sold his share.

He stayed on after the sale as news director.

Known as "The Voice of the Flathead Valley," Ostrom received the University of Montana's Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2006.

In 2004 he was inducted into the Montana Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame.

In 1996, Ostrom's "Trailwatcher" column received first-place honors from the National Newspaper Association.

Ostrom purchased the now-defunct Kalispell Weekly News in 1974 and built it into the largest-circulation weekly newspaper in Montana at the time. He sold the weekly in 1982.

The author of three books on Glacier National Park, Ostrom also helped write groundbreaking wilderness legislation in the early 1960s when he was a staffer for Montana Sen. Lee Metcalf.

Ostrom has been a writer, broadcaster and photographer for decades. He also served in the U.S. Army and was a U.S. Forest Service smoke jumper.