Fern has proven himself as leader

Dave Fern, during more than 20 years we’ve known one another, has proved to be a staunch and principled friend and colleague.

Throughout the 10 years we served together on the Whitefish School Board, Dave led us through deep and thoughtful research designed to improve our school system.

When engaged in collaboration, Dave always crafted the most insightful questions and listened carefully to others’ points of view. He often “assigned” us reading homework in advance of critical decision-making.

His leadership resulted in many productive discussions surrounding the progress and future of education.

Then when Dave was first elected to HD 5, he took his skills to Helena, and simply expanded the scope of his research and analysis to include statewide concerns.

I know this because he has kept his home-base contacts, checking in with many of us with respect to our current hopes and concerns.

He does not limit his conversations to his party’s viewpoints, but instead reaches out to the “loyal opposition” to understand their line of thinking. The result is a deeper, richer conversation and outcome in Helena.

Years ago, Dave also took an interest in serving the disenfranchised, joining CASA as a court appointed advocate for kids. He pays particular attention to our veteran’s needs. And he stays attuned to our state’s environmental health through research and discussion.

Commitments such as this allow Dave to consider a wider cross section of our population during legislative deliberation. The political field is difficult to navigate successfully, and now we seem to be faced with mending what is broken.

To that end, I’m confident that Dave Fern, as your representative to House District 5, will continue to model exemplary leadership and inclusive collaboration with honesty and fidelity. He needs your vote in November to do so!

Ruth Harrison, Whitefish