National Get Up Day is Feb. 1. Through the month of February, U.S. Figure Skating will be featuring its eight Get Up ambassadors. The following story appeared in the February issue of SKATING magazine.
By Harry Thompson
Whether she’s serving her country as a member of the U.S. Marine Corps, her community as a police officer, or the local figure skating club as the volunteer president, Stephanie Kazior is all about giving back.
Since arriving in Great Falls, Montana, in April 2019, Kazior has immersed herself in this community of 60,000 located in the heart of Big Sky Country.
What she found early on was that the once-proud Great Falls Figure Skating Club was in a state of disarray, brought on by rink issues followed by the pandemic.
In addition to having a full-time job as a police officer with the Great Falls Police Department, Kazior also stepped up to volunteer as president and immediately set out to put one of the oldest skating clubs in the country back on the map.
Even her limited knowledge of how to run a skating club couldn’t deter Kazior from raising the bar.
“I did not know how to register people for Learn to Skate and I didn’t know anything about running a board at a not-for-profit,” said Kazior, who grew up skating in the Windy City Skating Club in her home state of Illinois. “I’m used to paying $10 and then skate for the hour.
There were some lean years at the Great Falls FSC when the town’s seasonal rink had no ice. And then COVID hit. While Montana fared better than many other states, there were still challenges to maintaining membership numbers.
“We could go out and advertise our skating program, but when you can only limit signup to 10 people per session and only hold two sessions once a week, you can’t retain numbers,” she said.
As numbers dropped, so did interest in skating. Motivation waned and passion plummeted. Some skaters confessed that being on the ice felt more like a job than a fun activity.
That all changed as Kazior brought a renewed sense of purpose and a relentless spirit that quickly spread throughout the community.
“Somehow, some way, something I did along the way reignited that spark in that flame,” she said. “We even got some of the older club members who stepped away from the club to start skating again.”
To keep that spark alive, Kazior and another coach would take some skaters to Helena, a 90-minute drive each way, just to get an hour of ice. There were other trips to even farther locations to find one of the few year-round rinks in the state.
“If I didn’t say, ‘Hey, let’s go do this,’ those kids wouldn’t have done it. They wouldn’t have kept with the sport,” she said.
“Even if it’s once or twice a month that you’re driving that far to get on the ice, it’s not like riding a bike. Yeah, you can get on the ice and you can stroke around, but the finesse of the edges that you use, you don’t develop that overnight. That comes with practice.”
In addition to stoking the passion of other skaters, Kazior returned to the ice after a hiatus while serving with the Marine Corps at Camp Pendleton in California. She also had to battle back from knee surgery after being injured on the job. Still, she managed to pass her junior moves-in-the-field test as well as her adult gold moves-in-the-field test and her senior moves-in-the-field test, making her a double gold medalist.
“This is not something that I do for the money or to have bragging rights for passing a test or winning medals in competition,” Kazior said. “The ice rink itself is a safe place for me. When you step onto the ice, you’re not thinking about family issues or money problems or the pandemic or any of those other things.
“It’s a place of freedom, and I’m hoping that the skaters that stick with it or give it a shot can experience that feeling as well.”
Based on a steady growth in membership, others feel the same way. After a few lean years the Great Falls FSC is experiencing a resurgence in its ranks. And those who have been around the rink can point to one driving force for the change.
“You can feel the enthusiasm and the energy since Stephanie has taken over as president,” said Jill Ahlbrecht, who nominated Kazior as one of U.S. Figure Skating’s eight Get Up ambassadors for this season.
“A lot of people are excited about skating again and being part of our club.”
