Bob DePratu knew one thing to be true during his hardscrabble childhood: Hard work was the gateway to a better life.

“I knew if you worked you could make money,” DePratu said, reminiscing about how his family eked out a living in “old” Rexford that’s now part of Lake Koocanusa.

And so he worked and worked and worked, through his childhood, his teenage years, his entire life.

The Whitefish Chamber of Commerce recently took note of DePratu’s cumulative accomplishments, awarding him the esteemed Great Whitefish Award that honors one person’s lifetime contributions to the community.

DePratu, 72, is perhaps most well-known for his many years owning and running the Ford dealership in Whitefish. When he bought the franchise from Sterling Rygg in June 1964 he was just 23, but Ford’s regulations forced him to wait until his 24th birthday a month later to take over the business. At the time he was the youngest Ford franchise dealer in America.

In recent years DePratu was in the limelight as a state senator for Whitefish, serving from 1995 to 2004. As vice chairman and then chairman of the Senate Taxation Committee, DePratu shepherded legislation that lowered the state’s income and capital gains taxes. That’s his most noteworthy accomplishment as a legislator, he said.

TO GET A BETTER sense of DePratu’s work ethic, though, one has to start at the very beginning.

His father bought him a Montgomery Ward rototiller when he was 9 so he could work the neighbors’ gardens for $5 a crack.

“It was big money — but they were big gardens,” he said.

During his seventh- and eighth-grade years at the Rexford school, he would line up prospective customers to buy vehicles from Rygg Ford.

“I was car crazy” he admitted. “To see a new car was something really special.”

And since cars were sold door to door in those days, it was a perfect part-time gig. He later sold cars for Rygg after graduating from Lincoln County High School in Eureka in 1957, and during the summer between his two years at Kinman Business University in Spokane, where he earned an associate degree in accounting.

He got his driver’s license at age 12 and delivered groceries after school for several years. By 15 he was foreman of the hay crew for the Sam Leighty farm at Rexford. At 16 he was working with a crew at Valcor Logging, driving tie trucks and operating a skid cat.

“Everybody worked in those days. It was nothing special,” he said. “My folks didn’t have much money.”

DEPRATU SAID his first lesson in figuring profit and loss came during a gopher-hunting stint. The bounty was a mere penny per gopher tail, but since shotgun shells cost 59 cents a box it wasn’t a very good return on his money.

He raised chickens for awhile during his youth, too, butchering them for 25 cents a bird as Collar Grocery in Rexford took orders.

As a small child DePratu saved his pennies all summer one year to buy a toy wooden logging truck he had eyed at the local drug store. When it came time to buy the prized toy, he realized the 99 cents applied only to the single log truck. To get the trailer full of logs he really wanted, it cost $1.29 and he didn’t have the extra coins.

“I bought the 99-cent truck and I hated it,” he said. “It was a good reminder to never settle for second best.”

DePratu used that “never settle” analogy through the years as he and wife, Bea, raised their three children: Bret, Bart and Brenda. The message sank in, apparently. On his 45th birthday his children presented him with a miniature log truck and trailer much like the one he had wanted so long ago.

DePratu’s life story can’t be told without noting how big a part his wife Bea has played.

Bea had moved with her family from Cut Bank to Eureka during her high-school years, and DePratu took one look at her and confided to a buddy, “There’s the girl I’m going to marry.” But Bea’s family moved frequently, so it was an on-again, off-again relationship.

“She dumped me so many times it’s a wonder I have any self-esteem left,” he said with a laugh.

Bea moved back to Eureka at the end of her junior year and the couple became devoted. They married in 1959 and settled in Whitefish. With the few dollars they had remaining after a honeymoon to Seattle — “we borrowed my folks’ car,” he recalled — they bought a month’s worth of groceries and a broom. There wasn’t money enough for a dust pan.

DePratu went right to work at the Ford dealership selling cars for Rygg until he bought the business five years later.

The next few years were a blur of work and duty for the DePratus.

THEY BOUGHT the View Mount Motel (where Rocky Mountain Lodge now is located) and built the first indoor swimming pool in town.

Then they acquired the Husky Service Station and added a wrecker service that involved DePratu getting called out many a night.

In 1972 they added a Budget Rent-a-Car franchise to their mix of businesses, with an office at the Ford dealership and an outlet at the airport. They had a shuttle service, too.

“We worked 24/7,” DePratu acknowledged.

Along the way they added three children to the workload and cared for their elderly parents.

DePratu joined the Whitefish Fire Department in 1968 for a 20-year stint and served two years as fire chief.

They had sold off some of their businesses by the late 1970s, which freed them up to build a new auto dealership on U.S. 93 in 1984 and relocate from downtown Whitefish.

“There were some lean years at times, some in the ’80s,” he said. “I don’t know how we kept it together. We didn’t quit.”

The DePratus instilled their work ethic in their children. All three worked at the dealership during their youth; the boys washed cars and Brenda worked in the office. Brenda now is the parts and service director.

THEIR OLDEST SON, Bart, joined the business as a partner in 1985, the year they added the Volkswagen franchise. Jeff Brown joined on about the same time. Today Bart and Brown are the primary owners, but Bob still has an interest in the business.

They bought the Toyota dealership in Kalispell in 2000 and built a new facility south of Kalispell before selling it in 2008.

Taking a leadership role in the auto industry also has been important to DePratu. He was president of the Montana Auto Dealers Association and was named to the Ford Motor Co. National Dealer Council in 1981, when he served on the new products and political affairs committees. And he served on Ford’s customer resolution board for six years.

DePratu never has been too busy for civic duties, which have ranged from being a yeti in the Winter Carnival to faithful involvement with the Jaycees, Rotary and Chamber of Commerce. Most recently he was co-chairman of the Vote Yes campaign for the Whitefish High School bond proposal.

His efforts paid off — Whitefish voters supported the bond request.

He retired from the auto dealership three years ago and life has slowed down a little, perhaps. DePratu still is plenty involved in the community, as his wife puts it: “He’s still involved on the fringes.”

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