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Dear Family, bless you for looking for the best place there is for your kids!!! You could do a lot worse than the place of my birth, Kalispell, Montana. However, my husband and I have moved away, we say, for the benefit of our kids. If you live in a nice suburb, in one of the newer homes in the 150-250,000 range, and not right in Kalispell itself or the neighboring smaller, even rougher towns like Hungry Horse and such, you will do well for a while yet maybe. But there is quite a volatile mixture of types of families and income ranges that your kids will meet in especially the public schools and you won't know how bad it is until its too late and that's what happened ot us, us even being locals!!! Even a lot of the locals don't realize how much has come into the area just recently. If I were you, I'd make a BEELINE for Kalispell Cowboy Church on Sunday eve at I think its 7pm service and listen to the talk there for news if you can. Even if you don't do church, you do cowboy ! Then make sure your kids are not in public school at all. Home school them if you don't choose private school, until you can get them somewhere more remote and with worse winters where the drugs and satanists and illegal immigrants can't stand it. We have chosen Nebraska or Wyoming. We really enjoyed Lusk, Wyoming. Like going back in time all the right ways. The Flathead Valley is too pretty and too mild of winters for it to stay very good much longer. We do miss our Montana mountains, but their price is too high. My son is still on medication to deal with what happened to him. I am so extremely sorry to tell you this. I didn't want to believe it either. Many people still in denial and will fight you tooth and nail over whether it is as bad as it is already. Many sex offenders in the Valley. Crash capital of the state for traffic accidents, too. There are poeple we met there before we left that never even heard of the Bible. Those are the people coming in. My older boy was attacked on his Columbia Falls school bus twice, beat up off the bus with brass knuckles and knives drawn on him, and watched pot dealt in the back of the bus. All his first three days. I know on the one hand it is good to stay and fight for what is good, but I couldn't do it with 4 kids and facing this in the neighborhood and at school so many days - so many meetings I had to attend, parents and principal and law enforcement I had to talk to, and I have a baby. I just can't right now. It was awful. One lady I know kept her son out of it by, for example, simply getting him a summer pass to the water slide where her husband or relative worked - completely out of the neighborhoods for the entire summer. Does private school, makes sure she lives in a new development, does not go to the local grocery at all - goes one town over where there is even higher income and no cross-infiltration from the racier places. Bless you again and use this information to bless your kids and go ahead and enjoy your finalizing-where-exactly-to-live-in-Montana process. It really is beautiful and I know the process will be a pleasure to fine tune there. If my family had been more understanding of what I went through and helped me shelter my boys from it more as we discovered more, I would still be there-abouts.
Welcome! Many, many people have found themselves in Kalispell after praying, and when in need of healing. So many, over so much history, that it really is legend. Kalispell means something like place of many waters. I found healing there myself, in finding the love of a truly faithful and steadfast man, who helped me overcome my fears and encouraged me to grow in what I am good at and to go where I can keep growing in that. Kalispell is where we were meant to be for 5 years. It is also known as a "sending-out" place - where you come for what you need and then can leave in strength when it is meant to be when you are ready and happy about it. It is the perfect vacation spot, and I hope I always get to hang on to my little house there which we have rented out to others for the time being. It was indeed an incredible place of refreshing for me all my years of growing up after i was born and my family moved to Washington State; I got to return to Montana every year for my heart's desire, and then unlike the locals, I got to leave the poverty behind, and all the ills that go with it, during the school year. Once I was grown, and divorced, I came back and lived there, and it was hard, very hard. I worked three jobs and so did many many others I knew, and I did have technical training behind me as a Surgical Technician and 72 college credits. I,ve seen people with degrees working at McDonalds more than once, too. Montana is the best for some things, just not all. If you know what its best for, and what its not, you can make whatever adjustments and be blessed during your time there for sure. So I hope this helps and makes your stay really happy!!!
Dear Family, bless you for looking for the best place there is for your kids!!! You could do a lot worse than the place of my birth, Kalispell, Montana. However, my husband and I have moved away, we say, for the benefit of our kids. If you live in a nice suburb, in one of the newer homes in the 150-250,000 range, and not right in Kalispell itself or the neighboring smaller, even rougher towns like Hungry Horse and such, you will do well for a while yet maybe. But there is quite a volatile mixture of types of families and income ranges that your kids will meet in especially the public schools and you won't know how bad it is until its too late and that's what happened ot us, us even being locals!!! Even a lot of the locals don't realize how much has come into the area just recently. If I were you, I'd make a BEELINE for Kalispell Cowboy Church on Sunday eve at I think its 7pm service and listen to the talk there for news if you can. Even if you don't do church, you do cowboy ! Then make sure your kids are not in public school at all. Home school them if you don't choose private school, until you can get them somewhere more remote and with worse winters where the drugs and satanists and illegal immigrants can't stand it. We have chosen Nebraska or Wyoming. We really enjoyed Lusk, Wyoming. Like going back in time all the right ways. The Flathead Valley is too pretty and too mild of winters for it to stay very good much longer. We do miss our Montana mountains, but their price is too high. My son is still on medication to deal with what happened to him. I am so extremely sorry to tell you this. I didn't want to believe it either. Many people still in denial and will fight you tooth and nail over whether it is as bad as it is already. Many sex offenders in the Valley. Crash capital of the state for traffic accidents, too. There are poeple we met there before we left that never even heard of the Bible. Those are the people coming in. My older boy was attacked on his Columbia Falls school bus twice, beat up off the bus with brass knuckles and knives drawn on him, and watched pot dealt in the back of the bus. All his first three days. I know on the one hand it is good to stay and fight for what is good, but I couldn't do it with 4 kids and facing this in the neighborhood and at school so many days - so many meetings I had to attend, parents and principal and law enforcement I had to talk to, and I have a baby. I just can't right now. It was awful. One lady I know kept her son out of it by, for example, simply getting him a summer pass to the water slide where her husband or relative worked - completely out of the neighborhoods for the entire summer. Does private school, makes sure she lives in a new development, does not go to the local grocery at all - goes one town over where there is even higher income and no cross-infiltration from the racier places. Bless you again and use this information to bless your kids and go ahead and enjoy your finalizing-where-exactly-to-live-in-Montana process. It really is beautiful and I know the process will be a pleasure to fine tune there. If my family had been more understanding of what I went through and helped me shelter my boys from it more as we discovered more, I would still be there-abouts.
It is indeed a sad state of affairs when this happens. I'm guessing you must have been up in the canyon where things like you relate doesn't surprise me at all.
When exactly were you here? Was it recent? I know my son pretty much stays away from anyone up there since it's a real,real rough group of people who's children are pretty much unsupervised unless the kid goes to the bar to seek out his parent.
Pity you and yours had to experience the seedier side of MT, hope y'all are doing better now.
I went into a store in Hungry Horse once for something a few years back and there was this guy in the line in front of me. OMG the guy was the filthiest stinking most disgusting person I have ever seen in my life. I had to stand 5 feet away from him to keep from puking. I'm not kidding, he was a burned out old biker who stank worse than any rotten stinking thing I've ever seen. I was shocked, I don't think this guy has ever showered or ever changed clothes, EVER !
It is indeed a sad state of affairs when this happens. I'm guessing you must have been up in the canyon where things like you relate doesn't surprise me at all.
When exactly were you here? Was it recent? I know my son pretty much stays away from anyone up there since it's a real,real rough group of people who's children are pretty much unsupervised unless the kid goes to the bar to seek out his parent.
Pity you and yours had to experience the seedier side of MT, hope y'all are doing better now.
Yes, we are dong better now, thank you, and just are a lot more savvy, not so naive.
Yes, it was the canyon where we thought it would be a great idea to buy a little vacation property and live in it and fix it up, which we did (but the renter in it now has definitely downgraded it pretty significantly) over the course of 3 years from October of 2004-December of 2007.
We loved the idea of living 7 minutes from the West entrance of Glacier National Park and walking distance from our house to Blue Ribbon trout fishing for our boys...but all the local boys do is hide beer in the river and no youngster fishing goes on that I ever saw and I looked often.
There is a small crowd of kids who are definitely not supervised and the Columbia Falls High School principal said so and said we might be wary of taking the bus at all from Hungry Horse - he was right, we tried it and it was a no go. We did not press charges - just talked to the parents involved (they hid in the house and wouldn't come out, and then later one of their boys stole my 9 year old's bike and damaged it, threw it in a vacant lot where we found it later) and were done with it.
We could have spent a year trying to press charges and sue people but life is short and that would mean we would have to stay and become part of the picture too much. Maybe even suffer more. Actually, we did - we did talk to the police about a theft our older boy heard about from the older youth crowd and not too long after, witnesses reported our big purebred Lab was let out of our gate and lured with a piece of meat onto the freeway and a red truck sped up to hit him, and he did die.
My husband went to "BJ", said goodbye, borrowed a pistol from the gathering crowd and shot him.
"BJ" died on Veteran's Day in 2007, and we know he did protect us even that day...if he had not been there to take the retaliation, would one of my boys been hurt instead? My husband?
You can live there but you have to be very tough, assertive, and be willing to duke it out with people over whatever they throw at you if they do and they might. Or totally mind your own business and stay out of sight, don't go to the Canyon Foods store or anything. That's nearly impossible to do if you have kids. I didn't want my kids to see any more of it. It was making us cynical and nerveous. Our renters there, however, love it. They fit right in. They are from West Virginia....the rough part.
We're OK. BJ is in his great reward, hunting in the sky. We had great times with him, and he even chased a mountain lion away from us when we went huckleberrying. He was brave. He posted guard. He was a HUGE pale yellow lab people would slow down to take a better look at. He made us proud and we buried him in his master's coat. I know he saw. If we keep that property, I am sure as all get out going to have a statue of him made and pasted on that corner of ours facing the freeway beside the Hungry Horse Chapel. That is exactly right. I don't care how much it costs. I think it would be fitting for him and let him know we know what he did for us, and also it would be a fitting statement for the neighborhood - a symbol of defiance and yet hope and appreciation, something those rough boys might be better for seeing, too. They loved BJ. Those boys must be so tired of seeing the good things short-lived and so they start becoming part of the problems there.
We got BJ a friend for a while - a Aussie-Heeler mix - who wasn't as tolerant as BJ of the littler, random-prankier neighbor boys...does my heart good to remember watching "Bo" chomp on a kid's leg that had been teasing Bo when he was behind the fence and couldn't get him the previous day. The kid came by on a cycle, coming close to our fence to do some more hazing, and ....CHOMP! Bo was not fenced in. Bo remembered this boy and was still mad. Kid wrecked and got bit. Kid never reported it. Then we really enjoyed the memory and still laugh some when it comes to mind.
I went into a store in Hungry Horse once for something a few years back and there was this guy in the line in front of me. OMG the guy was the filthiest stinking most disgusting person I have ever seen in my life. I had to stand 5 feet away from him to keep from puking. I'm not kidding, he was a burned out old biker who stank worse than any rotten stinking thing I've ever seen. I was shocked, I don't think this guy has ever showered or ever changed clothes, EVER !
That is exactly what you will see when you go there, especially in the off-tourist season. Yep. We think we figured out part of why bad people or miscreants go there more than other places in the Flathead Valley: a) the train passes by there and hoboes jump off some times; b) The Hungry Horse reservoire is an escape route and great hiding place that leads into the endless and remote Bob Marshall wilderness (we know a young couple that told us they lived up in the Reservoire for a whole year in a tent living off fish and huckleberries!); c) Hungry Horse does not street deliver so you get a free PO box and that means nobody can just regular mail you a certified document or anything like that.
Yep. Hungry Horse is still a "2-man call" for any law enforcement presence. If you call an officer, always 2 of them come. Always. My oldest boy saw somebody deliberately shoot a rocket on the 4th of July in 2007, right into an officer's open car window! Some really are that bold there and all very wiley, too, knowing all about what they might try and how to work it, having had many confrontations before leading to such knowledge.
At risk of sounding like a racist turd for suggesting that the percentage of total hispanics in an area is proportional to the number of illegals, I'm just going to point out that Alabama is 2.3% Hispanic, while Montana is 2.4% (census data).
The illegal populations are about the same in both states, I'd wager.
Oh, precisely. I've seen it since I worked for a feed mill back in the '80s. The only thing different from Montana and states that are actually closer to the Mexican border is that we tolerate the illegals. I remember a large ranch that we used to deliver tons of feed to every month. The feed barn was entirely crewed by illegal immigrants that didn't speak a lick of english. Hand gestures were the only way we could communicate with them. Southern Idaho has even more illegals in the potato fields than some areas of Montana. Everyone just looks the other way, it's no big deal really, their cheap labor leads to cheaper prices at the supermarket.
Yes, we are dong better now, thank you, and just are a lot more savvy, not so naive.
Yes, it was the canyon where we thought it would be a great idea to buy a little vacation property and live in it and fix it up, which we did (but the renter in it now has definitely downgraded it pretty significantly) over the course of 3 years from October of 2004-December of 2007.
We loved the idea of living 7 minutes from the West entrance of Glacier National Park and walking distance from our house to Blue Ribbon trout fishing for our boys...but all the local boys do is hide beer in the river and no youngster fishing goes on that I ever saw and I looked often.
There is a small crowd of kids who are definitely not supervised and the Columbia Falls High School principal said so and said we might be wary of taking the bus at all from Hungry Horse - he was right, we tried it and it was a no go. We did not press charges - just talked to the parents involved (they hid in the house and wouldn't come out, and then later one of their boys stole my 9 year old's bike and damaged it, threw it in a vacant lot where we found it later) and were done with it.
We could have spent a year trying to press charges and sue people but life is short and that would mean we would have to stay and become part of the picture too much. Maybe even suffer more. Actually, we did - we did talk to the police about a theft our older boy heard about from the older youth crowd and not too long after, witnesses reported our big purebred Lab was let out of our gate and lured with a piece of meat onto the freeway and a red truck sped up to hit him, and he did die.
My husband went to "BJ", said goodbye, borrowed a pistol from the gathering crowd and shot him.
"BJ" died on Veteran's Day in 2007, and we know he did protect us even that day...if he had not been there to take the retaliation, would one of my boys been hurt instead? My husband?
You can live there but you have to be very tough, assertive, and be willing to duke it out with people over whatever they throw at you if they do and they might. Or totally mind your own business and stay out of sight, don't go to the Canyon Foods store or anything. That's nearly impossible to do if you have kids. I didn't want my kids to see any more of it. It was making us cynical and nerveous. Our renters there, however, love it. They fit right in. They are from West Virginia....the rough part.
We're OK. BJ is in his great reward, hunting in the sky. We had great times with him, and he even chased a mountain lion away from us when we went huckleberrying. He was brave. He posted guard. He was a HUGE pale yellow lab people would slow down to take a better look at. He made us proud and we buried him in his master's coat. I know he saw. If we keep that property, I am sure as all get out going to have a statue of him made and pasted on that corner of ours facing the freeway beside the Hungry Horse Chapel. That is exactly right. I don't care how much it costs. I think it would be fitting for him and let him know we know what he did for us, and also it would be a fitting statement for the neighborhood - a symbol of defiance and yet hope and appreciation, something those rough boys might be better for seeing, too. They loved BJ. Those boys must be so tired of seeing the good things short-lived and so they start becoming part of the problems there.
We got BJ a friend for a while - a Aussie-Heeler mix - who wasn't as tolerant as BJ of the littler, random-prankier neighbor boys...does my heart good to remember watching "Bo" chomp on a kid's leg that had been teasing Bo when he was behind the fence and couldn't get him the previous day. The kid came by on a cycle, coming close to our fence to do some more hazing, and ....CHOMP! Bo was not fenced in. Bo remembered this boy and was still mad. Kid wrecked and got bit. Kid never reported it. Then we really enjoyed the memory and still laugh some when it comes to mind.
You're lucky you survived it at all, trust me. We've got friends who are on the lower income side of things but still good people and while the wife was at work some dirtbag thugs came to their door and when the husband answered shoved the door open and proceeded to beat him senseless and steal his pain meds he took for a back injury. Finally one of his daughters grabbed a rifle and forced them to leave at gun point. He ended up in rehab, he was beaten so bad he lost all ability to talk or move, almost like a stroke. They told us many,many times to keep away from up there and especially keep our kid away since the little "muppets" up there will think nothing of beating you and taking anything you have and the "parents" are too busy in the bar,taking drugs or planing the same thing themselves.
Personally I think they need a surge up there like in Iraq, clean out the trash and start bulldozing.
I know this 4th of july they had every sherriff they could up there including the sherriff himself and while he was sitting in his car (with the windows up) he watched several girls shoot fireworks at his car attempting to hit his windows and then hide behind the store. When he caught them to counsel them their first response was "you can't do anything to me, I have rights". He should have arrested them for assault on a peace officer but I think was afraid of a riot.
My son was the brunt of alot of the bullying you saw and the principal(s) pretty much told us the same thing he told you, not much they'll do about it.
Montanans in general don't put up with illegals. We have had a few try to come to our town. Key word is try. They don't last long though. They kind of stand out if you know what I mean. I think, for the most part that Montanans stand up to illegals more than other states. We know we live in the greatest place on earth.
I have family in Kalispell. Good Christian people. My nephew did end up getting into drugs and alcohol in high school. Because our family is strong and we stand up for what we believe in, he is now clean. He just got back from Iraq. Kalispell is the worst city in Montana for drugs. It is known as the "drug hub". I personally would not want to live there, but have traveled there so many times I can't count them. You have to be strong, brave and loyal to this state to live a happy and peaceful life here. Hiding and sheltering your children by home-schooling, moving ect... is exactly what the illegals and druggies want. Why give in to them? I know plenty of home schooled kids who have been into drugs or alcohol. They are not immune to the problem. Keeping them locked up in the home trying to keep them safe does not constitute "raising" your children, they are prisoners. Take a stand for this great state that we live in;. As far as the law enforcement and schools not doing anything about delinquent behavior....Make them. Believe me it can be done, been there myself. You would protect YOUR childs bike, right? Then protect YOUR childs school. There are agencies out there that will help with drugs, bullying, criminal acts. But you have to be the one to make the call.
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! Then make sure your kids are not in public school at all. Home school them if you don't choose private school, until you can get them somewhere more remote and with worse winters where the drugs and satanists and illegal immigrants can't stand it. We have chosen Nebraska or Wyoming. We really enjoyed Lusk, Wyoming. Like going back in time all the right ways. The Flathead Valley is too pretty and too mild of winters for it to stay very good much longer. We do miss our Montana mountains, but their price is too high. My son is still on medication to deal with what happened to him. I am so extremely sorry to tell you this. I didn't want to believe it either. Many people still in denial and will fight you tooth and nail over whether it is as bad as it is already. Many sex offenders in the Valley. Crash capital of the state for traffic accidents, too. There are poeple we met there before we left that never even heard of the Bible. Those are the people coming in. My older boy was attacked on his Columbia Falls school bus twice, beat up off the bus with brass knuckles and knives drawn on him, and watched pot dealt in the back of the bus. All his first three days. I know on the one hand it is good to stay and fight for what is good, but I couldn't do it with 4 kids and facing this in the neighborhood and at school so many days - so many meetings I had to attend, parents and principal and law enforcement I had to talk to, and I have a baby. I just can't right now. It was awful. One lady I know kept her son out of it by, for example, simply getting him a summer pass to the water slide where her husband or relative worked - completely out of the neighborhoods for the entire summer. Does private school, makes sure she lives in a new development, does not go to the local grocery at all - goes one town over where there is even higher income and no cross-infiltration from the racier places. Bless you again and use this information to bless your kids and go ahead and enjoy your finalizing-where-exactly-to-live-in-Montana process. It really is beautiful and I know the process will be a pleasure to fine tune there. If my family had been more understanding of what I went through and helped me shelter my boys from it more as we discovered more, I would still be there-abouts.
Bo & BJ's BEST DAY EVER
We could have spent a year trying to press charges and sue people but life is short and that would mean we would have to stay and become part of the picture too much. Maybe even suffer more. Actually, we did - we did talk to the police about a theft our older boy heard about from the older youth crowd and not too long after, witnesses reported our big purebred Lab was let out of our gate and lured with a piece of meat onto the freeway and a red truck sped up to hit him, and he did die. 
We had great times with him, and he even chased a mountain lion away from us when we went huckleberrying. He was brave. He posted guard. He was a HUGE pale yellow lab people would slow down to take a better look at. He made us proud and we buried him in his master's coat. I know he saw. If we keep that property, I am sure as all get out going to have a statue of him made and pasted on that corner of ours facing the freeway beside the Hungry Horse Chapel. That is exactly right. I don't care how much it costs. I think it would be fitting for him and let him know we know what he did for us, and also it would be a fitting statement for the neighborhood - a symbol of defiance and yet hope and appreciation, something those rough boys might be better for seeing, too. They loved BJ. Those boys must be so tired of seeing the good things short-lived and so they start becoming part of the problems there. 
