By Alan Sorensen
ROCKY BOY Surrounded by students, former students, and fellow faculty and staff at Stone Child College Thursday, Pat Tierney celebrated the end of his 50th year as an educator.
The celebration, complete with refreshments, was held amid balloons in the Sitting Old Woman Building conference room at 10:30 a.m.
As SCC President Steve Galbavy thanked Tierney for attending the gathering and began acknowledging Tierney's contributions to education in Montana, Tierney turned to English instructor Marilee Russell and said, "You told me to come over for lunch."
Tierney spent the last eight years teaching education and psychology courses at the Chippewa Cree Tribal community college on Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation.
Before taking up his position at SCC, Tierney taught at Northern Montana College in Havre for several years and served as dean of the school's education department.
Galbavy presented Tierney with a Stone Child College coat and a beaded bolo tie on behalf of the school. Tierney said the coat will come in handy in the next few weeks as he and his wife, Rosie, a long-time Havre Middle School teacher, travel to Seattle, Wash. to visit their children. As for the tie, he asked for help in figuring out how to work it.
In response to a former student's recollections of how much Tierney's teaching had meant in her life, Tierney said, "People like you is what makes us want to stay (in education) for 50 years."
Tierney reportedly had made no decision prior to party about whether he would return to the classrooms at SCC next fall or not.
