It's mid-august in Northwest Montana, which can only mean one thing: fair week.  

At the Northwest Montana Fair, taking place Aug. 12 to 16, there will be prize-winning hogs, electrifying rodeo action, boot-stomping concerts and, of course, more fried food concentrated in one area than previously thought possible.  

This year, though, Bigfork residents will notice one substantial change: the famous Bigfork Ladies Service Club booth, which serves up huckleberry milkshakes and hamburgers to the fair's tens of thousands of visitors, will be painted purple instead of its traditional red.  

"We're really excited because they painted it the color of a huckleberry milkshake for us this year," club President Katy Kaestner said. "It needed a paint job, and they painted it purple, so it definitely stands out when you're walking down the food road." 

The booth's color is the only major change to the beloved food stop. The women of Ladies Service Club will still be hard at work whipping up the same products they've served since the booth first opened in 2013 to serve as the club's largest fundraiser of the year. All of the profits from fair week go back to the community in the form of donations to nonprofit organizations throughout the year.  

The Bigfork Ladies Service Club is village's oldest women's service club, started in 1961 as a counterpart to the Lion's Club, which did not allow women to join until the 1980s. Kaestner said that in the last five years, membership has exploded, and there are now more than 70 women involved. 

In those five years, the Bigfork Ladies Service Club has granted more than $100,000 to different organizations in Bigfork, including the Bigfork Fire Department, Swan Mission Search and Rescue and the Bigfork Aces afterschool program, to name a few. The group also supports unfunded sports programs in the schools and some Kalispell-based organizations, like Braveheart Chaplain Ministry, that support the entire Flathead Valley.  

For years, the fair booth has been the club's primary source of income – during a few frenzied days at the fair, the women raise around $20,000 that they are then able to distribute to the community throughout the year.   

"The community has been real supportive," Kaestner said. "We have people come back year after year looking for our huckleberry milkshakes because they use real huckleberries and a lot of places don't. So that's our claim to fame, is we get real huckleberries and we use them and use them and everything." 

The club sources its huckleberries locally, which Kaestner said can quickly become expensive, especially in years when the wild-growing berries are scarce.  

"It's expensive to do it the way we do it, but we're happy to," she added. 

After more than a decade, the fair booth runs like a well-oiled machine, even within the typical chaos of fair week. The women spend the entire year leading up to the fair preparing, with biweekly meetings during the summer. The day before the fair starts, they gather at the booth for a crash-course training day, learning how to operate the grill and milkshake machine and prepare the corn dogs.  

When the booth is running at full swing, there are anywhere from 6 to 12 ladies on shift, with four shifts per day, operating the corn dog machine and slinging nachos and whipping up a seemingly endless number of huckleberry milkshakes. Everyone has their job assignment, from prepping food in the back of the booth to taking orders to running food.  

It's at the fair that the women of the service club can get to know each other. The booth is hard work, but it is also a place where they can chat and have fun with one another. While the club holds monthly meetings at the Bigfork VFW on the first Monday of each month at 5 p.m., the meetings are mostly business, Kaestner said.  

"After you work with somebody for so long, you really develop the camaraderie and there's a lot of laughter and it's fun," Kaestner said. "It's the fair and you're feeding people and it's a great atmosphere." 

Find the Bigfork Ladies Service Club booth at the Northwest Montana Fair behind the grandstand. The fair runs from Aug. 12 to 16. 

Reporter Elsa Ericksen can be reached at 406-758-4459 or [email protected]. If you value local journalism, pledge your support at dailyinterlake.com/support.