Chamber meets in Hot Springs

HOT SPRINGS – The Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce assembled for their March meeting last week, beginning their preparations for the busy months of the spring and summer season.

The chamber met in the Cornerstone Café at the junction of Highway 28 and Highway 77 last Thursday to discuss a full agenda of business.

One of the topics discussed at last week’s meeting was the radio advertisement program, which the town’s chamber has been running in cooperation with Anderson Broadcasting out of Polson.

The advertisements have been running on radio stations, including KIBG 100.7, a station based in Bigfork, which has provided the chamber with a reach over a broad swath of northwestern Montana.

The chamber seemed pleased with the advertising campaign, featuring Mayor Randy Woods, among others, in the radio spots, and believed they have helped drive visitors to businesses throughout Hot Springs.

“So far we have seen a huge increase in the traffic coming through town,” chamber member Rachel Hulce said.

In addition to the radio advertisements, the chamber is continuing to look into refurbishing billboards on U.S. Highway 93, including one sign at the junction of 93 and Highway 28, in Elmo.

The business organization has been discussing refurbishing the Elmo sign for around a year and believes an updated sign would be another draw for visitors passing through the region, during the busy summer months.

Chamber President Leslee Smith believes updating the sign would also be a good path for the chamber to take because they would have a one-year contract and if things didn’t work out or changes needed to be made, they wouldn’t be stuck with their first design.

“The contract is only one year,” Smith said.

Another order of business covered at the meeting was a donation the chamber received from Clearwater Montana Properties.

CMP donated over $800 to be split between the Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce, the Hot Springs Artist’s Society and Cowgirls Kickin’ Cancer.

Donations were also made by CMP to the Thompson River Animal Care Center and to Sanders County Community Development.

Before concluding their order of business chamber members were reminded the Missoula Children’s Theatre would be putting on a performance with Hot Springs students on Friday March, 6 for a show at 2:30 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. at the school’s old gymnasium.

Chamber members would be putting on an ice cream social, which would help raise funds, which would go towards next year’s performances.

The ice cream event was slated to take place both before the first show of the night and in the intermediary stage between the first and final performances of the night.

Smith was excited for the next day’s entertainment and was happy local students were getting an opportunity to work with MCT.

“It is really great. It gives them so much self confidence,” Smith said.

The production put on by the Hot Springs students, with the assistance of MCT, was The Princess and the Pea.