Longtime Whitefish civic leader Norm Kurtz, a tireless promoter of Big Mountain and the Whitefish community for decades, died Friday in Missoula at age 86.

Kurtz, a Seattle city boy who kicked off his career as a newspaper marketing manager for the Seattle dailies, got hooked on Big Mountain during his first trip to the Whitefish resort in the early 1950s. He spent most of the next 40 years giving the place his all.

He went to work as resort ski boss Ed Schenck’s assistant when the resort opened in 1955 and did what it took to run the place, from fixing broken toilets to flipping burgers in the bar.

In a 2002 Inter Lake story, Kurtz recalled working 16- to 20-hour days, especially during those first few lean years on the mountain.

In the late 1950s, he coaxed Great Northern Railway to give the resort a $30,000 advertising grant to open up markets in the Midwest and Canada. But there was no money to pay Kurtz in the summer of 1956, so he and wife Carolee packed their bags and headed back to Seattle. Eight days later, they were back in Whitefish.

“We had hick blood in our veins by then,” the affable Kurtz told the Inter Lake.

The Kurtzes bought a motel in Whitefish, which Carolee ran while raising the couple’s young children.

Norm worked at the Columbia Falls aluminum plant and other odd jobs, such as playing piano at Frenchy’s Chinese Gardens on the weekends, to make ends meet. He managed the Whitefish Chamber of Commerce for a year and worked at a local radio station before the Winter Sports Inc. board hired him back as assistant manager in 1960, the year Chair 1 was built. The first year the chairlift operated, business increased by 141 percent under Kurtz’s hands-on management style.

The year 1960 was pivotal for Whitefish in another way. It was the year the resort town launched one of four pageants that Kurtz had conceived — the Whitefish Winter Carnival. Over the years, he served as its chairman, prime minister and king.

Always the promoter, he encouraged others to get involved in the carnival just as he had touted community involvement with the ski resort.

The Kurtzes returned to Seattle for a few years, but by the mid-1960s, he was back at The Big Mountain as resort manager. He supervised the construction of Alpenglow Inn, the first recreational condominiums in the state, and sold most of its 54 units.

His stint as resort manager lasted until 1981, when Kurtz quit. He didn’t always see eye-to-eye with the Winter Sports board, but resumed his manager’s job in 1984. He stayed the course until amicably parting company with the resort several years later.

After that Kurtz kept busy promoting businesses and events through his home-based Community of Interest.

Kurtz, known around town as “Mr. Whitefish,” had varied interests through the years. He loved to fly airplanes and owned several planes through the years. In addition to playing piano, Kurtz played the clarinet and saxophone with a local band.

“I wouldn’t trade a minute of it,” he said about his life in Whitefish.