and William Elliot, contacted the UU Association in Boston about forming a fellowship in our area. In answer to this appeal the Boston headquarters sent the Reverend Todd Taylor in June for an advertised organizational meeting at a local motel. (Rev. Taylor later became the minister of the Albuquerque Unitarian Church, and now is retired.)

A dozen people showed up at that meeting May 20th, 1964, in the community room of the First National Bank of Kalispell. Rod Bozarth was designated chairman of the formation group. Robert Keller, an attorney, drafted the bylaws, and the Glacier Fellowship was formally organized following subsequent recognition by Boston. Rod Bozarth was elected as the first chairperson, William Elliot as vice-chair, Mrs. Curt Maxey as secretary and Robert Keller as Treasurer. Over the next year or so, meetings were held at various places such as the Pacific Power and Light, Temple Tea Room, and the Elks' dining room.

Robert Keller was eventually elected district judge in Libby and has recently retired. Owen Sowerwine, who more than anyone in this valley was responsible for the formation of the Flathead Valley Community College, passed away some time ago. William Elliot is now in Helena, and is a member of the Helena UU Fellowship. At the time, he was the principal of the Whitefish Elementary School. As a school principal, it took considerable courage to be a founding member of a liberal religious organization more than thirty years ago. Mrs. Maxey passed on several years ago, leaving seed money for our building fund in her will.

The first invited guest speaker of GUUF was an African-American, who had traveled to Mississippi that summer of 1964 to participate in civil rights issues.

In addition to guest speakers, tape recordings of various ministers and speakers were often used in the programs of our early fellowship. -Rod Bozarth-

Looking Back

By Rod Bozarth

On Sunday, September 10, 1972, Glacier UU Fellowship held a public meeting at Theater 51 of FVCC (the old Elks building at First and Main - since demolished). The speaker was Palmer A. Hilty, Ph. D., just retired professor of English and Humanities at Washington State University, Pullman.

Dr. Hilty spoke on "Religious Humanism", having then recently been appointed as administrative secretary of the Fellowship of Religious Humanists. He was then en route to Yellow Springs, Ohio, headquarters of that organization. About 50 people, including students, heard his lecture.

Dr. Hilty was a long-time member of the Moscow-Pullman Unitarian Fellowship.

Looking Back

By Rod Bozarth

"Individualism: Romantic, Rugged, Ranting and Real" was the subject of Rev. R. W. Gilbert, the minister of the Spokane Unitarian Church, at a public meeting in Kalispell March 24, 1965 sponsored by the Glacier UU Fellowship.

The meeting was held in the basement community room of the First National Bank, later renamed Norwest Bank. The Fellowship paid the minister's expenses to visit Kalispell.

Reverend Gilbert returned to Kalispell about a year later to again address the fellowship and our guests at a meeting in the Elk's dining room at First and Main Streets. Later, he retired from the ministry.

Nearly 29 years ago, in 1967, Glacier UU Fellowship sponsored a public meeting at the Anaconda Aluminum Company Employees' Club in Columbia Falls at which Larry Blake, first president of Flathead Valley Community College, discussed objectives and curriculum of the new school. Dr. Blake also answered questions from the audience. The late Barton Pettit of Columbia Falls was then chairman of the Fellowship.

Looking Back

By Rod Bozarth

In 1890, when the "Rocky Mountain Conference of Unitarian and Other Liberal Christian Churches" organized in Denver, there were 10 member churches, three in Montana: Butte, Great Falls, and Helena. Later, these three churches affiliated with the American Unitarian Association.

By the church year of 1901-02, the Rev. Leslie W. Sprague was preaching Sunday mornings in Helena, Sunday evenings in Great Falls, second and fourth Friday nights in Butte, and once a month on a week night in Missoula.

In this same year, the Helena congregation, numbering 200 members and 75 Sunday School students, erected a fine stone church, which later became the Grand Street theatre,

The minister of the Butte church from 1902 to 1908, Reverend Duncan, was fired for being a Socialist. In 1910 he became secretary of the Montana Socialist party, and in 1911 was elected mayor of Butte.

The last of these early Montana Unitarian churches to be foreclosed by the Great Depression was the Finnish Unitarian Church of Red Lodge.

The present Montana congregations were founded as fellowships: Billings in 1958, Bozeman in 1959, Missoula in 1962, Great Falls in 1963, Kalispell in 1964, and Helena in1983.

Glacier Fellowship has never attained much influence in the community; in fact, at times, it struggled to continue an existence. The membership-never more than 30-realized that there was little hope of ever becoming a church or owning a meeting place.

During its early years, the Glacier Fellowship offered programs which ranged from an address by a Catholic priest to a lecture on Hinduism and an explanation of John Birch Society aims by its local coordinator. At various times, the Fellowship gave some financial support locally to the international student exchange program and to establishment of Friendship House.

Glacier Fellowship received a boost in morale and membership when the Rev. Tom Best resigned as rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Kalispell and about a year later was ordained as a UU minister, affiliating with Glacier Fellowship. He was never more than a part-time UU minister, however, as he took a full-time position as family counselor for the district court. For a time, he also served as guest minister for Missoula and Great Falls UU fellowships. He retired from the District Court position five years ago, but still occasionally performs marriages and conducts funerals.

We really didn't want to move to an afternoon rental of a church (as the Bozeman group does) and there weren't any good options that felt right. In the spring of '98 we began tentatively to look at purchasing something and finally found the perfect place in May of '98. The site was less than a mile from where we had been meeting and it was originally built as an evangelical church school - so it had an institutional style layout. We move to Trumble Creek was in February of '99. How we got in is a story.

The unusual purchase method we arrived at was sort of created by us but inspired by others. The Reverend Tom Goldsmith from Salt Lake City did a long- range planning session with us in 1996 and we began to envision ourselves as a more capable group. About the same time we were inspired by the story of the Spokane UU church lending itself the money to build their wonderful new building. Linda Hart, their minister, came twice as a visiting minister, and she encouraged us to consider a move. After looking into what was offered from UUA, we realized we didn't have much chance for a regular mortgage and there wasn't much in the way of help coming from anywhere else (including UUA building loans). So with the capable help of member Linda Larson we developed a joint ownership plan and formed an investment corporation we called the Trumble Creek LLC.

We created a nice handout for folks including photos of the building we proposed to purchase, a rationale for purchasing it, and an explanation of some ways we could gather together to buy it. These proposals, and personal visits by building committee members, generated support for the idea.

In the late fall we made a down payment to the owner and Linda quickly formulated the final paperwork for the Trumble Creek LLC agreement. While this was going out to the people who wanted to join, other folks were just sending in donations to the fellowship. All the money had to be ready by January 31st. Meanwhile, there was a building inspection being done by Gene Graf's son, checks on the wells, and complicated maneuvers by Charlie McCarty to change the septic system over from a single family to the correct permit for a community use. Those of us in the midst of all this: Ross Anderson, Charlie McCarty and Anne Lent, Kathy Neff, Linda Larsen, and Dan and I worked on the whole thing a lot during this time and we somehow kept the fellowship functioning too.

Finally in January all the money rolled in to Linda, building insurance was obtained, and the closing came in early February. The former owner, Tony Quinlan, moved to a home he built himself over the winter directly to the east of us. He remains our neighbor at the present time. It took a lot of time on Ross and Walter Kuhn's (Linda's husband) part to get Tony to move all his stuff out of the yard and house, but gradually over the next month or two it gradually disappeared. So began the hard work of cleaning, painting, buying chairs and kitchen stuff, and getting things ready for our dedication day in March. Jackie Kendall donated a piano, tables were bought and things were donated and somehow we were in and using the building about a month after we had bought it. We had a busy time but a wonderful time providing the first ever home for the Glacier UU Fellowship.

Since then, the Church has purchased the entire interest of the Trumble Creek LLC and now owns the building (and a relatively small mortgage). Our good equity position is due entirely to the generosity of a number of the original investors who donated shares to the church. Along the way we also created a rentable apartment with some of our excess space, but it is beginning to look like we may have to reconsider and create more space for ourselves as our dynamic fellowship continues to grow. Work on the building continues, and it gradually is coming into shape.

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