It's really interesting how The Lord works! At the time we began this little enterprise as a business, we were loacated in Medford, Oregon. We had been looking at property at the foot of the Beartooth Range, NOT in Idaho mind you!
Anyhow, a year later while still living in Medford, we took a trip, up through Idaho on our way making a loop over into Montana, then down to the Beartooth's to look at property in earnest. Well, we made it as far as Sandpoint, Idaho, spent the night, goofed around town for the day, ended up on a realestate office, and then on to look at some property. We made a lowball offer on a piece of rural uniproved forest land that very day, within four hours the out-of-state owners of that land accepted our offer! We were now the proud owners of a choice piece of North Idaho! Within two days we had cleared escrow on the property.
During those two days, my wife Gayle, who is a registered nurse, naturally ended up at the hospital in Sandpoint to look around. They had a position open in their OB department, and she hurridly, and off the cuff filled out a hand-scrawled application, (without saying anything to me). This was the last week in May.
We returned home to Medford, Oregon, and on the answering machine upon our arival, there was a message from the hospital in Sandpoint that they would like a telephone interview with my wife. She called them back, and in two hours she had a four way telephone conference with the folks in Sandpoint. They offered her a job right then. We prayed about it, and then she accepted the job two days later, them wanting her to come to work 21 June... three weeks away!
Our business was not tied geographically, so moving it was no problem, mail forwarding and call forwarding works wonders until you let your customer base know that you've moved. We put our house in Medford on the market and called a real estate outfit to come and get the ball rolling. We expected trouble, because at that time the neighborhood we were in had five nice homes for sale within a two block stretch of the street upon which we lived. The realestate folks told us it was a two to three year market (meaning for sale of the home, as most in that area had been on the market for well over two years) . We braced ourselves for that, and planned how to manage renting the home. I planned to leave the end of the first week of June to line up housing in Idaho. Before I left we had a bona-fide offer on the house that went through and was final by the 19th of June!
I went to Sanpoint, with our camp trailer, placed it on our property, and used that as a base of operations to find a place to stay for the time being for my family. Housing in Bonner county is tight to say the least, with very few rental houses available. I found nothing. Through the realestate agent that sold us our land, I met a man that lived up here and we ended up going fishing together a couple of times. Come to find out he had recently purchased two homes in Priest River Idaho, as rentals. I had never been to PR, but it was 22 miles from Sandpoint, we went to go have a look. He had just closed escrow on one of them, and the lady occupying the house was due to vacate by the 19th of June! He said he'd rent us the home, and have it cleaned up and ready for occupancy by the late evening of the 20th! ( I love the Lords way of working)
As it turned out, we lived in that house a year, renting it, and the owner came to us and ask if we would like to buy it, the payments were lower than the rent, and we agreed. We lived there five years, then sold the house in town to move out to the country where the Lord had provided yet another piece of property, backed up to state forest lands, with a year-around creek, an awesome 180 degree plus panorama view, and lots of uncut timber.
No, we never made it to the Beartooth's for at least four years AFTER we moved to Idaho. The Lord had other ideas. He planted us here in the Idaho Panhandle, said stop here, do not pass go, and has blessed us richly in the process. No we aren't anywhere near the Beartooth's Like we assumed we would be when we named the business. Instead we are sandwiched between the Selkirks, the Cabinets, and the north end of the Bitterrooots. So much for the Beartooths.
God had a much better plan!
So, after gettting very long winded, there you have the origin of the name for Beartooth Bullets.
God Bless,
Marshall
