Lending an ear for 20 years

Everyone’s got a story. And for the past two decades, Laurel Ewing has made listening to them a large part of her job. 

Ewing, a law clerk at the Flathead County Attorney’s Office, is the first person visitors meet when they enter the building in the shadow of the historic county courthouse on South Main Street in Kalispell. When she’s not busy scheduling appointments for the county attorneys, scanning paperwork or printing out documents from the courthouse, she’s lending an ear.

“So many people just need a sounding board. They need someone to speak to, to hear their words,” Ewing said last week. “I let them talk. I don’t interrupt them. They need to know they are cared for.”