GREAT FALLS — Montana is a place that many people want to call home, and after the effects of COVID restrictions ran out both of this family’s businesses due to shutdowns, they decided to make Montana their home.
Jon and Amanda Bush were the power couple to beat in their town of Vancouver, Washington. Amanda had a successful trophy shop and Jon ran a gunsmith store.
The two had been in business for more than a decade and had no plans of stopping until 2020 shut so many things down.
“2020 came in all of the shut downs came and there we were left with essentially no income,” said Amanda.
The family had been successful for years and in the light of being non-essential businesses, money and bills became a huge obstacle.
“It was one of the driving factors of why we came to Montana,” said Jon. “We had our house on a forbearance but once the forbearance was up, all the money was due and neither of our businesses were open yet.”
So after a few months of research, they decided to pack up their home and businesses and move to Great Falls.
“It’s hard to leave your friends and family behind but we knew this was something we had to do,” said Amanda.
Jon’s gunsmith shop was their first focus: “There’s a lot less people here from where we came from, but a lot more gun people,” said Jon.
Amanda chimed in, “Which is why we chose to focus on his first. I wasn't even planning on bringing my trophy business here but we’ve had so much support that I wanted to start that up again.“
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Jon is thrilled with the amount of support that his shop has received since coming here: “We've been open for about a year and a year here. We are already way more along than a year in Washington.”
