Media personality Mike Stocklin dies at 74

Mike Stocklin, a longtime presence in Flathead Valley media and business, died Saturday in Twin Falls, Idaho, where he had lived for a number of years. He was 74.

Stocklin had been active in business, politics and civic organizations in Kalispell for more than three decades. At various times, he served as president of the Flathead Festival, the Northwest Montana Museum and the Flathead Arts Council. He was also executive director of the Flathead Valley Community College Foundation, the Flathead Business and Industry Association and the Flathead Economic Development Corp.

In addition, he ran for mayor of Kalispell in 1989.

Stocklin, who was a 1962 graduate of Whitefish High School, had a lifelong interest in early recordings of jazz and Dixieland. He studied radio after graduation at a school in San Francisco and then earned a degree in English and history from Rocky Mountain College in Billings, where he also worked on the school newspaper and at a local radio station.

Stocklin spent a short time in the U.S. Army and then returned to Rocky Mountain College to work toward a master’s degree in special education before returning to the Flathead in 1970 for a job at KCFW-TV.

In the 1970s and ’80s, he was the operations director and manager for KCFW and an on-air personality for a noontime program called “Hi-Neighbor” as well as doing stints as a news anchor. Later he operated his own public-relations firm called Media & Marketing.

He was involved in many civic organizations, including United Way, and he was manager of Friends of FVCC, which lobbied for the new college campus in the late 1980s. He also coached Pee Wee baseball for several years.

In the 1990s he got to share his love of music again when he was general manager and co-owner of KGEZ at the time when it was branded as “Classic 600.”

Frank Miele is managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake. He can be reached at fmiele@dailyinterlake.com