Car Show Brings Friends, Community to Seeley Lake Lot

SEELEY LAKE - The sixth annual Seeley Lake Car Show on Saturday, July 6 gave old friends a chance to gather and community members the chance to show off their cars.

The show's founder Ken Keith and his wife BeAnne began the car show five years ago. It wasn't intended to be a big event but just a group of friends hanging out. The Keiths, of Great Falls, have a cabin in the area and the car show started while they had other friends visiting them.

"The first year we did the car show, it was just a group of eight who wanted to take a road trip in our cars," Keith said. "We asked Dan [Johnson] if we could park in his lot and we didn't advertise or anything but by the end of the day, there were 23 cars here."

Every year since then, the car show has consistently drawn 20-25 cars to the lot of Johnson's Parts Plus store on Highway 83. This year they had nearly 20 cars participate.

Among those cars was a 1970 Oldsmobile 442, owned by Carla and Curt Bedwell, also of Great Falls.

The Bedwells bought the car in 2005 from its first owner, who purchased it brand new from the Don Reynolds dealership in Great Falls.

"When you own an old car like this you can expect some problems every once in awhile," Carla said. "But fortunately with these old ones, my husband knows how to fix them."

The Bedwells have driven the Oldsmobile, one of their two classic cars around Montana and to Idaho as well, but their group of friends comes to Seeley Lake and stays on the Keith's property every year.

"There's a bunch of us that come from Great Falls," Carla said. "And we've got a wonderful group and we all just have a darn good time."