A ‘Slice of Life’: Wendy Ostrom Price Reflects on Her Adventures and Misadventures as Homegrown Journalist

After Wendy Ostrom Price’s father, George Ostrom, a radio reporter and commentariat known as ‘the Voice of the Flathead Valley,’ died last year at age 96, she spent hours reflecting with friends and family on his boisterous life and how his parenting methods shaped her as she found her own way as a reporter.

After some time passed, her husband interjected.

“He said, ‘you know, you need to stop talking and start writing,” Ostrom Price said.

What started as a journaling exercise quickly snowballed into a collection of stories that, at the encouragement of close family and friends, transformed into a memoir.

“Reporter in a Small Town” recounts anecdotes of both “adventures and misadventures” from Ostrom Price’s years as a radio journalist, born and raised in the small community that she would eventually cover in her professional life.

In an era before the convenience of smart phones and before the Flathead Valley’s population boom, Ostrom Price developed an understanding of the valley through relationships with sheriffs, lawmakers and community members alike. From folding newspapers as a child for her father’s Kalispell Weekly News, to making her way up the ranks at KOFI, the radio station her father co-owned, Ostrom Price eventually served as a news anchor, producer, and host of two daily talk shows.

“News is in my blood,” she said. “When you’re in the radio business, especially on my talk show, especially during open forums when you never knew what people were going to bring up, you had to know at least a little bit about everything.”

Knowing when and where to draw the line between the personal and the professional came through experience. In her memoir, Ostrom Price recounts an interview during which she shared her thoughts on a contentious issue while on air. After receiving critical feedback, she returned to the airwaves to deliver an apology to her listeners. Ostrom Price prefaces the chapter with the hope that by sharing others will learn from her mistake.

“I had to humble myself on a couple of these chapters right? Because I did learn some hard lessons and of course I learned them live on the air. And the only way to rectify mistakes like that is live on the air again. Don’t spout out. Think before you speak.”

Hosting a talk show that covered controversial issues from abortion to grizzly bears, she often brought people together from each side of the argument, moderating the conversation in such a way that “people wouldn’t interrupt each other, but hear each other out.”

In a conversation about grizzly bears, her two guests — an avid proponent of grizzly bear delisting and a wildlife conservationist who supported federal protections — started the conversation out staunchly opposed to the other’s perspective.

“By the end of the show, they shook hands and decided to go have a cup of coffee and talk more about it, to try to find some common ground,” Ostrom Price said.

Despite offers to work for newsrooms in other states, Ostrom Price stayed in northwest Montana to raise her family. Her memoir recounts a mix of experiences ranging from the serious to the lighthearted, which she expresses in short, succinct anecdotes — the same way she would relay it in her radio voice, she said. In one chapter, details of good-humored work pranks alleviate some of the job’s inherent stress. In another, Ostrom Price recounts unsubstantiated allegations that spread against her while attempting to report on an execution at Montana State Prison.  

“I just wanted the truth out,” Ostrom Price said. “I had written down my account, but doing it this way — it’s years later, I no longer have the anger and anxiety. I’m not wanting to hold big grudges. It was a clearer perspective.”

In another, she provides a guide to working with introverts based on her own experience as a self-identified introvert.  

She narrates her experience living and working in a small town in the public eye, including members of the Flathead County Justice Center placing bets on her pregnancy due date, and how she often was responsible for connecting the dots between hometown news and national events like 9/11. Eventually, she took a job as a public relations officer for Flathead Electric Cooperative through a connection she’d made as a reporter.

Still in the Flathead, Ostrom Price says she appreciates keeping up with the news at her own pace now, and while the ink continues to flow from her pen, she noted it’s unlikely she’ll write a second book. She credited her husband and sister for their support in making her 24/7 duties as a reporter possible, and reminisced about the stories that the journaling exercise-turned-memoir had unearthed.

“It’s actually been kind of a life enrichment project,” she said. She beckoned others to the process, just as her father passed down the value of writing.

“Just about everyone I know has a book in them. And I want to read all of their books.”

“Reporter in a Small Town” can be found or ordered from most bookstores, including the Northwest History Museum.

Those interested in connecting with Ostrom Price can reach her at [email protected].

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