From year to year, it may have been easy to overlook, but after 15 years of funding 835 community safety projects, Flathead Electric Cooperative’s Roundup for Safety Program has made an irrefutable difference and its contributing members should be proud.

By rounding up electric bills to the nearest dollar and putting the difference toward the program, the co-op manages to collect an impressive average of about $18,000 a month. And rather than sitting on the money, it is distributed to applying organizations on a monthly basis.

Over the years, it has been used to buy gear for police, fire and rescue. It has been used to purchase 50 defibrillators, water safety equipment, fencing, bike paths, playground equipment. The widely varying list of projects goes on and on.

Co-op customers pay no more than $11.88 per year, but their combined contributions have added up to help the Flathead Valley in many big ways!

FVCC’s economic engineer!

Great news for the local business community that Flathead Valley Community College has brought back Professor Gregg Davis to head up the new Center for Business and Economic Research.

Davis had spent several years at FVCC, developing a thorough understanding of our local economy, before being lured away to the University of Montana’s own economic think tank in 2009.

Students will be lucky to have such an engaging professor, but all of us are lucky to have someone with a ready grasp of complicated issues and the ability to share his knowledge in an easy-to-understand way.

It’s an added plus that over the past four years Davis has increased his expertise in how health care affects local economies. That is especially important here in the Flathead, where health care is the No. 1 sector of our private economy.

A speedy show of kindness

Quick generosity helped a local man get some new wheels recently.

Charlie Rickard’s bike that he rides to work at Flathead Industries — and uses to compete in the Special Olympics — was stolen on Aug. 22.

But it wasn’t long before he already had a replacement bike.

With the help of Kalispell Police Sgt. Tony McDonnell, the Kalispell Police Association and Target, Rickard had new wheels by the end of the day.

That’s a happy ending indeed.

Editorials represent the majority opinion of the Daily Inter Lake’s editorial board.