Mother proud of 3 children graduating in same class

Paulette Pipe is a proud mother who says she's "elated" that her three youngest children will walk together in the Box Elder High School graduation ceremony Saturday.

Box Elder school administrators said this is the first time they have seen three siblings walk at the same time.

"The time us long-timers have been here, we've not seen that happen," Academic Dean Shari Ruff said May 11.

Pipe said she wasn't always too sure she would see the day, either.

"I didn't know it would ever happen," Pipe said in her Rocky Boy home.

Tia and Tai Russell, 18, are twins, and Ennis Russell is their 17-year-old brother. Tia is planning to go to Salish Kootenai College; Tai said she wants to go into historic preservation, a notion influenced by an older sister who is pursuing a master's in curation at University of Montana; and Ennis said he wants to study journalism. He has written for the school newspaper, the Bear Report.

The road to graduation was not an easy one, Pipe said. She had moved her family from Billings to Rocky Boy in 2006 to help an ailing family member. Pipe said she also incurred health problems at the time, a hip injury brought on by her ex. From 2006 to 2011, she said, she battled the hip injury.

During that time, her children helped with the healing, she said, bringing the family closer, tighter.

The house they live in is small and, Pipe said, they implemented a lottery-like system to determine in what order the shower was used, along with other tools such as bribes, to get them ready for school.

"I just want to be able to get them through high school," she said she remembers thinking.

Pipe looked at her children, who were posing for pictures with a small mountain in the background, and assigned them roles.

Tai is the mother, she said, and Tia is the ringleader.

"She'll help start the fire, help you put it out, and ask who did it," Pipe said of Tia.

Ennis, she said, is pampered by his older sisters.

They all get along, and they'll miss each other, come fall, Pipe said.

The family is having a celebration at the family home after graduation. Relatives from North Dakota as well as Missoula and Fort Peck are coming for the celebration, Pipe said.