Keeping the community on track

REARDAN - Many children are fascinated by trains. Dale Swant was not one of them. As a child he owned "a train set or two," but reading, not trains, was his passion.

But his love for the written word led the 81-year-old local man on a windy path from Montana to western Washington and finally to Reardan, where he is president of the Lions Club and face of the Inland Northwest Rail Museum.

Swant was born in Deer Lodge, Montana, in 1942. While his father worked at the copper ore smelter in Anaconda, Swant sold magazines and Burpee seeds to earn spending money.

He realized he had a knack for sales...