Meet Kathy
Over 45 years ago I moved to my dreamland ... Whitefish, Montana.
I first came to Whitefish in the early 1970's as a traveling professional singer/guitarist to perform with my husband at a resort here called the Viking Lodge, where the Whitefish Lake Lodge now stands. We had a lounge show act called Keel & Sullivan. Then, as things sometimes happen, our marriage and singing act split up in the fall of 1977. That is when I made the decision to move here permanently. I've been here ever since.
To survive alone in Whitefish I spent my first 3 winters teaching skiing at our local ski resort, Big Mountain Ski Resort (recently renamed Whitefish Mountain Resort) in the daytime and at night, performed as a solo act singing and playing guitar in one of resort nightclubs.
In 1981 I turned a life-long hobby, photography, into a second profession and thus began MOUNTAIN PHOTOGRAPHY, an 'on the slopes' photography service at the ski resort. I never thought anything could equal my passion for music, but happily photography did just that! I continued to sing in nightclubs on the Mountain and around our valley for many years to follow, but gradually MOUNTAIN PHOTOGRAPHY consumed more and more of my time and my music had to take a back seat. In the summers, beginning in 1983, my photography business became the whitewater photography service for all of the rafting companies in the West Glacier area of Glacier National Park.
From 1981 to 2007, I owned and operated the ski resort entity of my business and added to it a resort wear/gift shop that I called 'Crazy Bear & Company'. In the fall of 2007, I sold the ski resort portion of MOUNTAIN PHOTOGRAPHY and closed the doors on my store. However, 43 years later, my crew and I are still at it out there on the southern edge of Glacier National Park, at Bone Crusher Rapid on the Middle Fork of the Flathead River, shooting every commercial and private boat that floats by.
I continue to shoot family photos, pet portraits, and cultivating my skills in photo restoration, photo editing projects, teaching digital camera workshops, and video/movie editing.
Happily, music and singing professionally has also found it's way back into my life. I travel a month or two each winter to perform around the western states, and spend my summers singing for private parties, and weekly at a Whitefish dude/guest ranch called the Bar W.
I can truly say ... 'Now, I have the best of ALL MY WORLDS!!!'