Browns crowned Carnival king and queen

Whitefish crowned its 2013 Winter Carnival royalty Saturday following a lively dance party at Depot Park and torchlight procession through downtown. Harry Brown has been named King Ullr LIV and his wife Nancy Brown as Queen of the Snows.

Each wearing cloaks to conceal their identity, the Browns arrived at the coronation by a horse drawn wagon.

In Harry’s acceptance speech, he recalled his first visit to Whitefish in 1971, and how snow was lightly falling as he stepped off the Empire Builder train at the depot. Following that ski trip 42 years ago, he knew he wanted to live here. Seven years later, Harry and Nancy and their family made the move west and settled into the community.

After all his years in Whitefish, Harry said he realized it’s not the mountains or lake or skiing that makes Whitefish so special.

“It’s the people,” he said.

The Browns serving as King Ullr and Queen of the Snows marks the fourth consecutive year a married couple has been selected as Carnival royalty.

Harry Brown

Harry was born and raised in Pittsburgh. After high school, just having turned 17, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy where he served during the Korean War. He attended Penn State in 1954 where, having been discouraged from walking onto the football team, he became a four-year starter on the PSU Lacrosse team.

Upon graduation he married Nancy May — the very first girl that he ever spoke to in college.

While a lending officer at the Pittsburgh National Bank, he attended night school at the University of Pittsburgh and got an master’s in finance. He, subsequently, was a contributing author to “The Banker’s Handbook” and spoke at several American Bankers Association conferences.

He played lacrosse until he was 45, played into the mid-rounds of National Platform Tennis Championship Tournaments, played in several flag football leagues and tennis leagues in Chicago.

However, all it took was one ski trip to Whitefish in 1971 for him to realize that he wanted to walk away from his corporate chief financial officer job in Chicago and move here. In the meantime, he became Pres. & CEO of a Chicago Bank. Having three children made moving here a longer process than anticipated, but in 1978 the family moved to Whitefish.

Along with Tim Grattan and some others they developed Lion Mountain, and along with Gary Elliott, they developed Sun Crest. He was one of the owners of the Palace Bar, Dos Amigos, Little Big Men in Kalispell and the Montana Pie Co. in Missoula.

Over the years he has been involved in Congenials, vice president of Winter Carnival, and helped in coaching Whitefish High School tennis and was an assistant coach of the Whitefish seventh- and eighth-grade football program.

He is on the advisory board of the Whitefish Community Foundation and is an individual member of the Whitefish Chamber of Commerce. Nancy and Harry contributed the control room to the Whitefish Performing Arts Center and also helped to finance the construction of The Wave. They assist with the on-going operations of the Alpine Theatre Project and the Whitefish Theatre Company.

Nancy Brown

Nancy grew up in Summit, N.J. After high school she went to Penn State and it was there she met her college sweetheart and future husband, Harry Brown. They were married two weeks after graduation. Harry’s career took them to Louisville, K.Y., Pittsburgh, Grosse Pointe, Mich., and then Glenview, Ill. — a suburb of Chicago.

Nancy enjoyed playing tennis and was in a competitive league there. When all three children were in school full time, she went to work selling real estate for several years. She later became an executive secretary for a large power company.

In 1978 the family finally realized their dream and moved to Whitefish. It was a little scary since they had no jobs and three kids, but they managed to make it work. Nancy worked for many years at the First National Bank of Whitefish, now Glacier Bank.

By the time they moved to Whitefish their daughter, Bonnie, was already attending the University of Montana. Chuck and Sallie graduated from Whitefish High School and the University of Montana.

After two of the kids entered the corporate world, got married and had children, Harry and Nancy had the wonderful fortune of having them all move back to Montana to raise their families where they had grown up.

The Browns have all seven grandchildren living in the valley. Bonnie has two children, David Hammett and Emily Nichols (recently married to Brendan). Chuck and Julie Brown have three children, Ryan, Kellie and Lauren. Sallie and Bob Foley have two children, Amanda and Sean.

Several years after the Browns moved to Whitefish, Nancy’s sister Catie and her husband Jimmy Welsh, a former Winter Carnival Prime Minister and mayor of Whitefish, also moved to town. Their three daughters, Whitney, Jessica, and Hilary, all graduated from Whitefish High School. Jessica married Shawn Tucker and they still live here.

Nancy serves on the events committee of the Whitefish Community Foundation.

The Browns love of travel has taken them to nearly every state in the U.S., to Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, the South Pacific, and most of South America, but their favorite place in the world is a little town in northwest Montana called Whitefish.