Three file for two seats on Whitefish School Board

Two incumbents and one newcomer are running for a pair of open seats on the Whitefish School Board this spring.

Current Trustees Ruth Harrison and Marguerite Kaminski are running for re-election while Betsy Kohnstamm seeks her first term on the board.

Harrison was first elected to the board in 2006. Harrison has a degree in English and has worked as a teacher and a rancher for most of her life. She served eight years on the Pleasant Valley School Board as a trustee and clerk for the school as well.

Kaminski joined the board in 2015 after an unsuccessful bid for trustee the year before. Kaminski went through the U.S. Air Force officer training program in 1973, and became a contracting officer, price analyst and contract negotiator, and later went on to study law. She has worked as a snowboard instructor, swim instructor, lifeguard, referee, served as a soccer and basketball coach, classroom volunteer, reading mentor, and substitute teacher.

Kohnstamm helped found the nonprofit North Valley School of Music, which celebrated 20 years last summer. She’s lived in Whitefish for 31 years and has been involved in various school-related functions, teaching as a reading specialist for 10 years in the Columbia Falls School District and also serving as administrator and vice president of the board for the Montessori School in Whitefish. She attended Middlebury College in Vermont for her undergraduate degree and obtained a masters degree in curriculum and instruction from the Columbia Teacher’s College in New York. She and her husband Dan, who retired last year as the high school librarian in Whitefish, have had two kids go through Whitefish Schools.

The deadline to apply to run for one of the three-year positions on the board was March 29. Election Day is May 8.