Volunteers design, craft new Frostys for 2009-10 season

Despite the lack of snow, locals have been carefully crafting snowmen to greet visitors to the West Shore.

These wooden Frostys will line up on U.S. Highway 93 later in November, but for now, volunteers are busy painting new additions to the snowman crowd. These winter friends will also be for sale at the Frosty Parade and Spaghetti Feed on Sunday, Nov. 15, at the Lakeside Elementary School gym.

Twenty-five new Frostys will be out this year, including a Flathead County Sheriff's deputy and a Montana Highway Patrol officer with speed limit signs. These will be positioned at either end of Lakeside.

"These will honor the guys who come down and take care of speed and watch out for us," volunteer Deb Newell said.

The Frosty Committee also received 10 special orders for Frostys tailored for local businesses or interests.

Locals have been adorning the Lakeside-Somers area with flowerpots in the summer for years, but in 1998 a few local women decided there was a need to beautify the area in the winter as well, said Kay Hopkins, co-chair of the Frosty Committee. And from that idea came the Frosty project.

"Lakeside is such a little blurb in road. It's nice to do anything to get attention that there's a town here," Newell said.

At first, the Frostys were similar in shape and design, but the cold-weather friends have since gotten more creative and personalized, she said.

There are pirate Frostys, Montana State University Bobcat Frostys, and Frosty couples.

Locals as well as friends from Kalispell and the surrounding areas have come to help design, cut and paint the Frostys at the Lakeside Mercantile Building.

The building is open to volunteers from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily through Nov. 9 or until all the Frostys are completed.

"It's a fun project for the community," Hopkins said. "Adults get to color in a big coloring book. The creativity to me is just amazing."

The group has been contacted by people from other Western states and other parts of Montana about how to get similar projects started in their communities, Hopkins said.

The money raised by selling the Frostys and the special orders all goes back to beautification projects, she said.

The spaghetti feed Nov. 15 will take place from 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. The cost of the meal is $40 per family or $5 per person, with those ages 5 and under eating free.

The meal will include spaghetti with marinara, vegetarian or clam sauce, salad, bread, beverages and dessert.

For more information, contact Hopkins at 844-3425 or co-chair Ken Tintinger at 857-2421.