After fire, donors help family get new home

The Columbia Falls community really stepped up this past month for a father and daughter whose home was completely destroyed in a Sept. 14 fire.

Anthony Walters has worked as a carpenter and played for the house band at the Blue Moon Nite Club for 20 years, but he’s been unemployed the past two years. Much of his clothing and personal belongings were consumed in the blaze.

“I have to order clothes online,” the huge former nose tackle for the Columbia Falls Wildcats said. “Unless they’re sweat pants.”

His 16-year-old daughter Michaela was in the house when a candle ignited a fire in her back bedroom.

Her hair was singed as she escaped the fire, and she suffered minor burns when the blanket she was wrapped in caught fire, but Michaela saw a doctor only for smoke inhalation, Anthony said.

The family’s two dogs escaped from the 26-year-old trailer home parked behind the Blue Moon rodeo grounds. Anthony was painting the exterior of the popular saloon when he heard about the fire and rushed over.

Columbia Falls volunteer firefighters confined the blaze to one end of the trailer, but intense smoke damaged everything inside.

“It was a really old trailer and basically falling apart,” Anthony said about the home they lived in for 12 years. “I was thinking about getting a new one, but I wasn’t ready for this one to burn down.

Inside the living room area, an amplifier and speaker were blackened by fire. Outside on the hood of a pickup sat the burnt remains of Anthony’s bass and Michaela’s electric guitar.

“I bought that bass in 1986, the year I graduated from Columbia Falls High School,” he said.

Anthony said he was lucky he played music the night before the fire and hadn’t unloaded all his primary equipment from his car — microphones, a bass and an amplifier that escaped unscathed.

The local Dysfunctional Cowboys motorcycle club helped lead a fundraising effort for the Walters. A man in Marion wanted $5,000 for a trailer, delivered and installed, but he dropped the price to $3,000 when he heard the Walters’ story.

JR Bentley, Tiny Catterlin and other members of the club went to work finding donations for a big spaghetti feed and raffle. They credited the VFW clubs in Kalispell, Whitefish and Bigfork and numerous friends and family members in the community for helping out.

“People were offering me stuff right after the fire was out,” Anthony said. “Later, I got a $50 check from my former football coach, Jerry Smalley.”

Raffle items included meals from Tien’s Place and the Nite Owl; a guitar and case from Music One Workshop; various items from Back In Time, Rex’s Pawn and Pawn Plus; an 8-by-8 storage shed from Western Building Center; a gift basket from New Attitude Salon; and meat from Perfect Cuts.

Liquor for the spaghetti feed was provided by the Eagles Club, Deerlick Saloon, Columbia Bar, Bandit Bar and Los Caporales. Midway Rental loaned Anthony an excavator to remove his damaged trailer home.

Anthony planned to start salvaging parts of the trailer on Nov. 20 before demolishing it. He hoped to be in his new trailer by Nov. 29 — something to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day.

Bentley and Catterlin said the Dysfunctional Cowboys motorcycle club plans to continue its community work with future fundraisers for the Samaritan House, local food banks and the Veterans Pantry in Evergreen.

“We want to change the image of biker clubs,” Catterlin said.