The holiday shopping season is upon us in a big way, and while there are bargains to be snatched up at the many door-buster sales offered by the big retailers, there’s another option to consider — shopping at locally owned stores.

Small Business Saturday, a national movement to encourage shoppers to patronize local businesses and “shop small,” is gaining momentum in the Flathead Valley. When we consider that for every $100 spent at local businesses, $68 returns to the community, it should behoove all of us to support these smaller stores.

These locally owned businesses invest heavily in their communities. They’re the first ones to donate goods and money for any number of worthy charitable causes or fundraisers to help those in need. They’re also providing jobs. Over the last decade, 60 to 80 percent of the new jobs created were generated by small businesses.

This Saturday, please consider shopping small.

Great news for Evergreen

Speaking of small businesses, we were happy to learn about MontanaSky Networks’ plans to build a $1.8 million regional data center at the former Vann’s appliance building in Evergreen.

MontanaSky is one of the Flathead’s home-grown success stories. The information technology business started in Eureka in the mid-1990s and moved to Kalispell in 2002.

The proposed regional data center would employ 16 full-time technicians, installers and customer specialists and would give new life to a sizable vacant building.

Flathead County plans to apply for an economic development block grant to help cover a portion of the cost. This is a worthy project for the county to support.

Congratulations, Wolfpack!

Big congratulations are in order for the Glacier Wolfpack football team, despite a heartbreaking loss to the Bozeman Hawks last week.

The Pack put up a courageous effort in freezing weather and on a field that had players slipping and sliding all night. The 24-14 loss was the closest margin the Hawks encountered during their undefeated season, and the Glacier defense came up big in the second half, holding the powerful Bozeman offense to just 3 points.

For its part, Glacier ended the season with an 11-2 mark, the top number of wins ever for a Kalispell team after a century of football. And the future looks bright — Glacier will return a talented pool of players next year. Look for the Pack to be contenders in the 2014 campaign. (And, of course, don’t count out the Flathead Braves either!)

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