Candidate says he has the needed background

Columbia Falls businessman Kirk Gentry says he was reading the newspaper two weeks ago and saw the filing deadline posted for candidates interested in running for the late Jim Dupont’s county commissioner seat.

“It was the next day,” he said. “I had thought about running for commissioner in the past but never saw the need.”

Gentry, who operated the Spotted Bear Ranch wilderness resort at the south end of the Hungry Horse Reservoir from 1993 to 2005 and now owns a vacation resort along the Flathead River south of Columbia Falls, said he’d met Dupont on several occasions, but most of what he knew about him came from the newspapers.

“He was a fair-minded, common sense-thinking person,” Gentry said. “It will be tough to follow a legend, but someone needs to be up to the task.”

Raised on a cattle ranch in Colorado, where he learned to fish, hunt and ride, Gentry is the co-founder of Triple Crown Sports, which organizes softball, basketball and soccer tournaments across the U.S. He later purchased the Spotted Bear Ranch and moved to Montana.

The resort won the Orvis Expedition of the Year award in 2003 and 2005 and again after Gentry sold it. He served two terms as president of the Professional Wilderness Outfitters Association while at Spotted Bear, and he still sits on the board for Triple Crown Sports. His business experience, he says, would prove invaluable in understanding the complicated budget and administrative decisions a commissioner faces daily.

“I’m good at asking the right questions,” he said. “Eventually the right answer will come out. I’ve been called the ‘Barbara Walters’ asking machine.”

Gentry is a member of the Columbia Falls Chamber of Commerce, the Gateway to Glacier business organization, the Flathead Convention and Visitor Bureau, Back Country Horsemen of the Flathead and the Kalispell Daybreak Rotary club.

Gentry says he supports property rights and is concerned about taxes. He owns about 50 acres in the valley and thinks it’s a great place to live.

“I started the Gentry River Ranch and the Cowboy Bed and Breakfast at the start of the recession, and it’s grown every year,” he said.

He says he’d like to see the beauty and outdoor recreation assets of the Flathead used to entice more businesses to come here and set up shop.

“I’d like to see Columbia Falls become more of a player for stop-and-stay visitors, with more lodging,” he said.

On the issue of rural roads needing maintenance, Gentry said he pays to oil his own private road and gets together with neighbors and the county to pay for grading and dust control on the connecting county road.

“Whoever uses it the most should pay into it,” he said.

Gentry says he’s been promoting the Flathead Valley for 19 years.

“We have one of the best counties in the U.S.,” he said. “Who wouldn’t want to serve this community?”