Longtime Columbia Falls dentist Robert Friess died of natural causes last week. He was 74.

Friess grew up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and graduated from Washington High where he was a standout football player and later inducted into the hall of fame. He went on to play college football as a lineman at the University of South Dakota and was accepted into dental school at Northwestern University in Chicago even before finishing undergraduate college.

As a dentist here, he was known for his kind manner and for a being a “painless” dentist. He was also an avid hunter and fisherman. He retired in 2017.

Friess graduated dental school in 1969 and then served as a dentist in the U.S. Navy in Okinawa, Japan during the Vietnam War. He was stationed on Whidbey Island before making the Flathead Valley his home in the early 1970s. Friess and his wife, Susan, had four children, Logan, Brian, Lindsay and Daniel.

A memorial service was July 30 at Easthaven Baptist Church in Kalispell.