Flathead District Court is losing an 18-year veteran and its first female judge at the end of the year when Judge Kitty Curtis steps away from the bench.

Curtis made history in November 1994 when she defeated two-term District Judge Michael Keedy to become the first woman judge in Flathead District Court. Curtis defeated Keedy by just 1,687 votes out of 26,909 total votes cast, a margin of 6 percent.

“When I took office, I was one of four female district judges in the state,” Curtis recalled, “and that actually was a 100 percent increase because the year before I was elected there were only two. Now there’s 11, with the ones that will be starting in January.”

Although Curtis’ seat will be taken over by Robert Allison in January, retiring District Judge Stewart Stadler is being replaced by Kalispell Municipal Judge Heidi Ulbricht, maintaining one female judge in the court. Ulbricht is being replaced by Deputy County Attorney Lori Adams, thus maintaining a female judge at the city level as well.

“Obviously we want the best people for the job, regardless of what their gender is, but women have different life experiences, and every judge brings their own life experience to the job,” Curtis said. “I guess I can just say I’m proud to have been the first female district judge in Flathead County and I’m also really glad and heartened that the number across the state has continued to increase.”

She added that in January there also will be three female Montana Supreme Court justices.

After her initial victory in 1994, Curtis won re-election for two more terms, running unopposed in both 2000 and 2006 before choosing not to run in 2012.

THE MAKEUP of District Court has changed quite a bit since Curtis began serving as district judge.

She said the court consisted only of herself, District Judge Ted Lympus, two secretaries, two law clerks and two court reporters when she began. Since then, the number of judges has doubled and the number of court staff has increased by more than that.

“It’s sort of interesting because when Judge Lympus and I decided to ask the Legislature in 1999 for a third district judge, I recall at that time that we each had 1,500 new cases filed in our departments each year,” Curtis said. “Each of the now four judges has about that same number of new cases filed each year, so the per-judge workload hasn’t really changed that much.”

One of the most important changes, she said, was hiring Court Administrator Bonnie Olson in 2000.

“That enabled us to focus more on actually handling the cases and not so much on administrative stuff — personnel, that sort of management thing that comes with running an organization,” she said.

The other big changes Curtis remembers are the state taking over all the district courts in the early 2000s and taking over the public defender’s office shortly thereafter. Prior to that there were wide disparities in how district courts were handled across the state, and while district court judges were state employees, public defenders were county employees.

As for the actual cases that come before the court, Curtis said that while there have always been a lot of alcohol-related cases in the county, when she first started motorists could accrue large numbers of drunk-driving convictions — 15 or more — without ever being charged at the felony level. Changes in the law now stipulate that DUIs are charged as felonies after three misdemeanor DUI convictions.

Curtis moved around quite a bit during her life, which began in Blytheville, Ark. She grew up and graduated from high school in Leland, Miss., then went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Mississippi. Curtis graduated from law school at what is now the University of Memphis in 1981.

One summer while attending law school, Curtis had a clerkship with the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. After she graduated, that clerkship turned into a job as a trial attorney with the department’s antitrust division that would last for four years.

After getting married, Curtis followed her husband to Columbia Falls in 1985. She and her then-husband Eric Kaplan took over an existing law practice that handled “everything that walked through the door.” She took over as Columbia Falls city attorney in 1985, a job that would last 10 years. Curtis and Kaplan later divorced.

CURTIS SAID she’ll miss the courtroom staff more than anything else, but that she is more than ready to let her career on the bench end.

“It’s not the kind of cases, even though some cases are difficult, it’s the quantity of work,” Curtis said. “I probably would be staying longer if you could ever get a sense that you were on top of things. I’ve gotten to the point that that’s too stressful for me and I don’t handle it as well as I used to.”

Despite those challenges, Curtis had only fond words for the career she is leaving behind.

“It’s been a pleasure to have the opportunity to serve in this position,” Curtis said. “I hope that the people of Flathead County are proud of our district court. I think they should be.”

Curtis isn’t looking to change her life drastically in retirement, saying she plans to spend her time doing all the things she does now but doesn’t have more time to do, like skiing. A longtime skier, Curtis has just bought her first-ever season pass. She never bought one before because she couldn’t make it to the mountain enough to make it worth the cost.

She also said she will continue to make appearances in the court building from time to time.

“I’m not planning to be a stranger,” Curtis said.

Reporter Jesse Davis may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at jdavis@dailyinterlake.com.