Columbia Falls graduate Kati Knutson returned to her hometown this year and is teaching in West Glacier.

“Just in the last three years it seems that Columbia Falls has grown a lot. Especially in the summer, the traffic is crazy,” Knutson said. “It feels a lot bigger coming back.”

Knutson moved to Columbia Falls while in first grade and graduated from the high school in 1999. She is in the high school hall of fame for playing basketball, volleyball and track. She was also on student council and in band, but track was her specialty, she said.

“I got to vote for the name of Glacier Gateway when I was little,” she said.

She studied at North Idaho College on a track scholarship and spent a semester at Brigham Young University in Hawaii. Then, she took a break from schooling to raise her children sixth grader Brock, fourth grader Evan and one-year-old Lucy. Knutson graduated from Salish Kootenai College in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in elementary education. She started by teaching first grade in Polson for three years.

She moved back to Columbia Falls this summer to teach at West Glacier Elementary. Now that they’re back in her hometown, Evan is going to the same school she did as a child. Her sons are involved in football and wrestling.

At West Glacier, Knutson teaches music and library to students in kindergarten through sixth grade and reading and math to first graders. She has eight kids in first grade and 20 kids in her other classes. It’s her “dream come true” to have small class sizes.

Her dad, Wes Knutson, is a retired Columbia Falls High School teacher and coach. She was a substitute teacher over the past decade before getting her bachelor’s degree, and she got to teach her dad’s class many times.

“I liked to sub for him,” she said.

Knutson was also an assistant track coach at Columbia Falls.

She said she wanted to be a teacher all her life, following in her parents’ footsteps. Her mom, Diana Washburn, was a para-educator. Her mom and sisters still live in town. She is the oldest sister and would pretend to be a teacher with her sisters when she was younger.