Quartermaster looks to increase VFW's community involvement

Not one to mince words, Sheila Coulter says the community’s view of the Lion Mountain Post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars is “cranky veterans at a bar.”

She’s seen it herself, recalling the days when her grandfather would take her along to the very same VFW she now leads. It’s an image she’s hoping to change.

“I grew up in this VFW. My grandpa was a member of this VFW, he’s one of the guys who is out on that mural,” she says. “Yes, we are a bar, but the sole purpose behind our bar is to make money and for us to assist our veterans in our community with. That’s the point of the VFW.”

Coulter has been the Quartermaster at the VFW Post 276 in Whitefish since 2014, after spending 10 years in the Air Force as a young adult.

Originally from Kalispell, Coulter says joining the military was the logical way out for a teenager that wanted to stray from the Flathead.

“I didn’t really have any other options that allowed me to get out of here. Going to Flathead High School, graduating with a class of 500, we didn’t have a lot of guidance, scholarships, that kind of thing. I didn’t have money for college, and I didn’t want college debt,” she says. “The Air Force was an opportunity for me to go out on my own and get an education, and I fell in love with it.”

Over the next decade, Coulter lived in Denver, San Antonio, South Korea and England before returning home.

It was a fork in the road that led her back to the Valley, she says, and the decision was not an easy one.

“I knew I wanted to have a family and raise a family outside the military. I wanted them to have a stable life like I did, being born and raised in one place and staying in one place for your childhood, and I knew that was something the military couldn’t offer my family,” she said.

In that choice, she got what she asked for. Along with her fiancé Jerry, Coulter has a trio of boys, Joseph, Kobe and Joel, to look after.

However, that’s not to say she doesn’t miss the military.

“Almost every day as I was walking to my office I would look down and see my combat boots and say to myself, ‘This is you, forever,’” she says. “I have spent the last 12 years since I got out missing the military every single day. However, the VFW has allowed me to continue my military ties.”

As quartermaster, she’s responsible for a variety of things, including fundraising, outreach, bookkeeping, advising on committees and plenty of other jobs, she says.

“Most of those things you’re not going to actually find under my official job title, but that is the role that I’ve taken with my post. I make sure that we are kicking butt,” Coulter said.

Her mission has been two-parted.

On one hand, she and the rest of the Lion Mountain Post are working hard to not just give to the veterans that come through their doors, but also to the community as a whole. Already this year Coulter has led an outreach push that has seen donations of $15,000 to the Whitefish Middle School band, $13,000 to the police department and $10,000 to the fire department.

Donations come from bar and restaurant sales, which have increased due to the second part of her mission — making the VFW a more inviting and relevant place.

The bar has remained the same for many years, which Coulter remembers herself from her visits growing up, but some changes have increased the bar’s monthly revenue.

These include the addition of a restaurant, more TVs, a better drink selection and other changes, Coulter said.

She puts in a lot of time and energy at the VFW, she says, but it’s all worth it.

To her, everyone inside the Lion Mountain Post, as well as any other VFW across the country, is family.

“None of this would happen without my other members. The veterans in the Whitefish post have been very good to me. They have allowed me to come in and shake things up and make waves in their calm little organization. I love every single one of them,” she said. “I would be lost without the VFW. I have an amazing family, but there is a part of me that they don’t know and the members of this post give me that.”