Page 6 - Flathead Beacon // 11.20.13

6 | NOVEMBER 20, 2013
FLATHEADBEACON.COM

NEWS

WORDS
••••
of the Week

A New Beginning in Polson
AN INDEX OF
RECENT
NEWSMAKERS

Mayor-elect Heather
GLACIER
The Wolfpack are playing Knutson takes the reins
in the state championship
in Polson as a new city
football game for the irst
time ever, battling Bozeman manager settles in
on Nov. 22.
(STORY, BACK PAGE)
By JUSTIN FRANZ of the Beacon

POLSON – Heather Knutson doesn’t
BRAWL OF THE WILD
remember the exact moment she decided
There’s another big football to run for mayor of Polson. She just knows
game in Bozeman this week, that her late father would have thought
as the Montana Grizzlies
square of against the she was crazy for jumping into the race.
Montana State Bobcats in the Knutson, 38, is a Polson native and the
113th meeting between the general manager of Country Foods, a busi-
rivals. Bragging rights and ness her family started two decades ago.
Knutson was elected earlier this month
playof implications are on with 51 percent of the vote in a tight three-
the line, almost guaranteeing way race. In January, she will replace Pat
that this will be another
classic.
DeVries, who has served as mayor since
2009.
Knutson’s election comes at the same
NEWLYWED TRIAL
time Polson welcomes a new city manag-
er and two new members on its city com-
A federal judge rejected
mission. She said the next few years will
a request by Kalispell’s be critical for the small town on the south
Jordan Graham to dismiss end of Flathead Lake.
her murder indictment for
pushing her new husband, “I feel like Polson is a sleepy little town
Cody Johnson, of a clif that’s just about to wake up,” she said.
during an argument in Glacier Knutson’s parents formed Country
National Park. Another Foods in 1990. Today the company has
motion was dismissed to about two-dozen employees and produces
delay the trial, keeping the 2.5 million pounds of pasta annually that
courtroom date for Dec. 9. is distributed across the country. In high
school, Knutson’s irst job at the family
(STORY, PAGE 14)
business was putting the labels on pasta
packages.
TORNADO
After high school, she headed for Mon-
tana State University and graduated in
Several severe tornadoes 1998 with a business degree. Her irst job
swept through the Midwest out of college was doing advertising and
last week, leveling towns, marketing in Billings for the local visitors
killing at least six people in
Illinois and eliminating power and convention bureau. A few years later,
for hundreds of thousands of she left her job in Billings and was about
people.
to move to Boise, but ended up spending
the summer in Polson. She said she only
Polson mayor-elect Heather Knutson.
GREG LINDSTROM | FLATHEAD BEACON

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