Tammi Fisher
Attorney. Former Mayor of Kalispell. Podcast host. Community advocate.
Great Falls High, Class of 1994
Tammi Fisher’s story is one of Montana grit and a fierce belief in opportunity, responsibility, and the power of public schools to prepare kids for life.
As a kid, Tammi moved often, attending schools in Glasgow, Simms, Great Falls, and even out of state in Washington and Oregon. Frequently being the new kid gave her an early instinct to stand up for others. “I hate bullies. I always appreciated when kids were kind to me,” she says. “And I’d stand up to bullies on their behalf. That felt good, and it stuck.”
Her Montana public school education, she says, set her apart everywhere she went: “I was always ahead when I left Montana for another state, and always behind when I came back to Montana, because other states’ public schools weren’t as good. There’s no doubt I got a gold-star public education that gave me far more opportunity than I would have had elsewhere.”
That opportunity wasn’t handed to her. In high school, Tammi worked full time at Scheels and Kinney Shoes to pay for her own apartment and bills. She was so broke she couldn’t afford sliced bread, so for most dinners she’d slice it herself, spread margarine on it, and fry it up for dinner. In college and law school, she juggled multiple jobs: cleaning dorms in the summers, working as an RA, and bartending at the Elbow Room in Missoula. “I had a great group of regulars who would read me legal cases and then quiz me on them,” she laughs.
Through it all, she saw how public schools build resilience. “We’ve insulated our kids so much that they don’t always know how to get into a problem and work their way out of it. That’s life. That’s what Montana schools gave me: the grittiness to figure things out.”
Montana history also shaped her. She credits her 5th grade teacher in Glasgow, Craig Brayko, with instilling a deep respect for Montana’s past. “If you don’t really know Montana’s history, it’s hard to develop a love and admiration for it. If you don’t know that women had the right to vote in Montana before women had the right to vote in the United States – and that the woman who ushered in the right to vote nationally was from Montana – how can you really appreciate Montana? It’s remarkable. Men and women here have always worked side by side just to survive. That’s the Montana way.”
Today, as host of the Montana Values podcast, an attorney, and co-founder of Gap Fillers Flathead (a nonprofit tackling school lunch debt and puberty shaming), Tammi keeps pushing for fairness and opportunity rooted in Montana grit. “I am a product of opportunity,” she says. “Not just in what was given to me, but in what was demanded of me. Montana public schools made me believe in my ability to figure it out, and that’s what true freedom looks like.”