Kalispell's Wallace does it all
By Paul F. Vang
Montana Tavern Times
Alexis Wallace, an employee at the Best Bet Casino in Kalispell, is the 2009 winner of the Montana Tavern Association Worker of the Year Award.
The Worker of the Year Award is sponsored by Montana Tavern Times in honor of the late Gary Langley, former editor of Tavern Times. Cole Boehler, publisher and editor, presented the award at the Montana Tavern Association convention in Missoula.
Jill Frampton submitted the nomination. She praised Wallace for 14 years of continuous service with the Best Bet Company, starting as a casino runner when she was just 18 years old. She currently works as a cashier.
Since her start, she has progressed into positions of increasing responsibility and now, according to Frampton, “She is my right hand, my confidante, and a good friend. There isn't anything I wouldn't trust her with .…Shepractically runs the show!”
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Cole Boehler, publisher of the Montana Tavern Times, presents the MTA Worker of the Year Award to Alexis Wallace.
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“I could thank her a thousand times for the things she has done for this company,” Frampton continued, “and it wouldn't be enough.”
In her private life, Alexis and her husband, Buck Wallace, have three children, ranging from ages 10 to three. During an extended period when Buck was recovering from injuries incurred on the job, Alexis filled in as the family's sole support.
Alexis is modest about winning the award and a couple times during a phone interview she said, “I'm really not very interesting.” When pressed a bit, she reveals a love of her work, enjoying getting to know her customers, saying, “I like my customers. They treat me good.”
In addition, she expresses a strong feeling of loyalty to her employer. “They've really been good to me,” she says, as she relates how she gets a lot of freedom in planning her work schedules, so that she can coordinate her schedule with her husband's work schedule along with their children's activities, as well as covering day care for their pre-school children.
“I'm usually chasing children,” Alexis says, adding, “I don't have a lot of free time. It's work or home.” She enjoys scrapbooking, though she adds that her scrapbooks are mostly about her children's activities. She and her family enjoy camping in the summer, and the rest of the family likes fishing, though she says, “I'll sit on shore and watch.”
Balancing family and work responsibilities can often be a challenge, but Frampton says Alexis does it all and does it well. “Her family is so important to her and there isn't a thing she wouldn't do for them. She goes to all the sporting events and all the field trips she can, which winds up to be quite a few with all those kids.”
In announcing the award at the MTA convention, Tavern Times publisher Boehler explained that the MTA Public Relations Committee makes the selection for the award from among written nominations submitted prior to the August deadline. The award consists of a distinctive plaque and $100.
This is the fourth year of the Worker of the Year Award.