Bill Milner has done a lot of out-of-the-ordinary things in the course of a lifetime.

He once spoke fluent Russian and worked in top-secret communications with the U.S. Air Force. His most interesting job was as a entertainer at Disney World. He was a gymnast in high school.

It's not any random accomplishments or "fun facts" that define Milner, though. It's the thousands of hours he has spent volunteering and promoting various events that present a clearer picture of this community leader who has called Whitefish home since 1997.

And when he's stationed by the Salvation Army red kettles outside of local stores this holiday season, you'll hear him loud and clear.

"I try to ring the bell a little louder," Milner said, explaining his philosophy on life. "Everything is a one-time opportunity, and if you don't go into it with everything you've got, someone will be there" to grab that opportunity.

Milner owned the West Side of the Moon Montana gift shop in downtown Whitefish for six years before selling the business and getting into real estate sales in 2003. These days he operates Whitefish Real Estate and is affiliated with Trails West.

He's also the "unofficial" photographer for the Whitefish Chamber of Commerce, and calling him a zealot with the organization isn't a stretch.

The high-energy Milner is devoted to the Chamber's mission. For years when his real estate office was next door to the Chamber office on Second Street, Milner kept the Chamber office open after hours and on weekends, averaging close to 1,000 hours a year just for that volunteer endeavor.

"That may seem like a lot," he said, "but we have other volunteers that can double that and more. There are so many incredible givers in the town, I could never go back to the [big] city and get lost in the crowds."

GETTING LOST in the crowd has never been a problem for Milner. He jumped into high-school extracurricular activities with gusto, joining band, drama, baseball, gymnastics and cross-country.

Because his father had a job in advertising with a national corporation, Milner's family moved 13 times before he finished high school, bouncing from Michigan to Georgia to Pennsylvania to Michigan and back to Georgia. He was enrolled at three different schools during the fifth grade.

Milner was outgoing from the get-go and overcame his short stature - he's 5'6" - with quick wit.

"Being short, I figured I could either fight and get beat up or I could make people laugh," he said.

A conversation with Milner doesn't go far without him throwing in a few one-liners. Even his Chamber Ambassador vest is peppered with buttons that proclaim things such as "Damn I got poor quick," and "If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong."

After high school Milner intended to become a weather photographer with the Air Force. He could picture himself lying in the belly of a military aircraft as it flew into a hurricane.

The Air Force had other ideas after Milner scored exceptionally high in electronics and mechanics and showed an aptitude for languages. The military wanted him to learn Russian - so he did.

"That's the first time I volunteered," he said with a laugh.

During the mid- to late-1960s he worked as a Russian linguist/specialist with the Air Force Security Service and was a communication specialist for secured land line and microwave top-secret communications systems.

MILNER USED the G.I. Bill to get his degree in instructional media and television from the University of South Florida. Then he was off to Australia to build the country's first educational television distribution system.

He spent three years as the supervisor of instructional media and television for 47 high schools in New South Wales.

He came back to the North Tampa area of Florida to do the same kind of work and once again was breaking new ground. The school district where he was employed was the first district in the country to have every classroom wired and operating with in-house educational TV programming. Milner wrote grants that paid for three-quarters of the project he completed.

Milner eventually made the transition into private industry. He was vice president of ACT in Tampa, responsible for the design and sales of television, large sound systems, security and telephone systems for hospitals, airports, prisons, hotels, sporting stadiums and other large venues.

Later, at Philips/Magnavox, Milner was one of five regional managers who ran the commercial division for the entire U.S.

He and his wife, Paula, moved to Whitefish after a calculated search for the perfect place - a search that spanned three years and involved seven states and 13 ski areas. Whitefish won out because the Milners deemed the resort town the most affordable of the ski towns they tried out.

Milner doesn't ski any more - "my knees are gone," he said. But stiff knees don't slow him down as the town promoter. He joined the Chamber of Commerce a year before he moved to Whitefish and has been active ever since.

"I saw many opportunities for the business community to increase their revenues," he recalled. "Those opportunities just needed someone to say, ‘I'll do it.'"

Milner took it upon himself to put together "an ad hoc committee of one" and began scouring the town to pool money for advertising Whitefish's special events.

"I went door to door and did face time," he said. "The next thing you know we've got thousands of dollars to promote events."

During his first years in Whitefish, Milner worked with then-Chamber of Commerce director Jim Trout with the proverbial "if you build it, they will come" attitude, advertising Whitefish in Canada and across the Pacific Northwest and Montana to lure visitors to the ski slopes and quaint downtown.

Earlier this year, Milner was awarded the Chamber's Volunteer of the year Award.

BEYOND THE chamber, Milner helps "Clean the Fish" in the spring and puts up Christmas lights in the winter. He's lost count of how many times he's been on the serving line at the Kalispell armory for the "Christmas at Our House" dinner.

His latest project is helping a local artist, Peggy Glass, sell her handmade scarves to benefit North Valley Food Bank. The scarves are available at Northwind Shirt Company in Whitefish, and, wearing his promoter hat, Milner says "make sure you put that in the article."

One of Milner's most unusual volunteer experiences was rewriting a business plan several years ago for the Blackfeet Tribe when tribal members were creating a health-care business for the tribe. As a thank-you, tribal members conducted a "smudging" ceremony in his gift shop to create harmony and peace.

"I was presented with my own medicine feather," he said, pulling the prized feather out of its original envelope. "That blew me away."

None of Milner's volunteering is for personal gain, but like many who give unselfishly of their time, he said he gets far more back than he gives.

As he sees it, "there's a lot of gettin' in the givin.'"

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.