Williams honored for community service

In the world of community service, Tamara Williams is a mover and shaker.

She serves on boards — lots of boards — and often takes on the chairwoman or president roles.

When School District 5 embarked on the construction of Glacier High School several years ago, Williams was a member of the building committee, a group that met every week for 2 1/2 years.

Then she served on the building committees for the remodel of Flathead High School and Kalispell Middle School. She continues to be part of a long-range facilities planning committee for the school district.

Williams also has been on the Evergreen School District board for 15 years.

“I generally get involved for the long haul,” she said. “I like to be involved in the community. It’s the right thing to do, to give back. And there are so many opportunities to do so.”

The Kalispell Rotary Club, of which Williams has been an active member for 14 years, recently presented her with a Rotary Club Service Award.

“Sometimes saying thank-you is just not enough,” Rotary President Michael Hayes said as he presented the award to Williams. “Tamara is the epitome of a great Rotarian.”

Darlene Schottle, former superintendent of Kalispell Public Schools, lauded Williams’ contributions during the Rotary presentation.

“Tamara is a meaningful part of so many organizations,” Schottle said. “If you can get a ‘yes’ from Tamara [to serve on a committee or board] you’ll get meaningful vision and participation.”

Williams, 53, grew up on a farm along the Marias River near Shelby that provided the perfect environment for fostering creativity and a work ethic. There was no television and only a party-line telephone shared by neighbors.

“The philosophy was you work before you play,” she recalled. “We were driving cars, trucks, combines from the time our feet would reach the pedal.”

When she and her brother Joe found time to play, it was self-generated entertainment. She recalled how her brother would pretend he was a radio disc jockey, reporting “live from the farm.”

Their mother saved the home recordings and on her brother’s 50th birthday, the local KSEN radio station played some of those creative childhood recordings.

Williams always has had a tendency to over-achieve.

“My brother and I joined everything we could in high school to get out of chores,” she said with a laugh.

After graduating from Shelby High School, she headed to Carroll College in Helena and earned a degree psychology and a minor in computer science. Graduate school was on the horizon, but a trip to the Flathead Valley sidelined that plan. She came here in 1984 and never left.

Williams took a managerial position with Diamond Lil’s restaurant in Kalispell and worked there until being offered a job at Insty Prints because the owners liked her “people skills.”

“I love customer relations,” she said.

After 10 years at Insty Prints, she and business partner Judy Larson bought the franchise business and have owned it ever since. They have 10 employees and a second store in Polson.

The ever-changing nature of the printing and graphic design business has kept the job interesting, she said. The laptop computer revolution — with customers on the go and using their computers anywhere and everywhere — tends to generate business for companies such as Insty Prints. These days customers are apt to email their product requests or bring in information on a thumb drive.

When the recession dug its heels into the Flathead a few years ago, Williams said Insty Prints felt the downturn just as many other small businesses did.

“We’re all so tied together, and generally this still is a small town,” she said. “It ripples down, but the last two years we have seen a corner turned.”

Williams has never let her business and community service interfere with family life.

This time of year, she and her husband, Chuck, a local contractor, are fixtures in the bleachers as they watch their daughter Ali, a junior at Glacier who is having a stellar pitching season for the Wolfpack softball team.

Their son, Jacob, a student at Flathead Valley Community College, is soon headed to the University of Montana to further his studies in animation and illustration. He was a competitive swimmer and tae kwon do participant in high school.

“Both of our kids are very driven,” Williams said.

“We’ve been following someone to whatever sporting event for years,” she added. Their three yellow Labrador retrievers are always along for the road trips, too.

Williams coached Rotary basketball when her children were in elementary school.

While Williams still follows her parents’ advice of so many years ago — “work before you play” — she does set aside quiet time, typically during the summer months. McGregor Lake west of Kalispell is the family’s lounging place of choice.

“We bring our camper out; that’s our go-away place,” she said. “That’s my time to decompress.”

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.