Golden Grads remember the good times and share the present

Friday, Montana State University-Northern's Vande Bogart Library hosted the graduates of 1968 who attended the school while it was still Northern Montana College as they spent the afternoon reminiscing about life as college students and what their futures brought them.

Becka Stone, who said she has worked for the Northern Alumni Foundation since 2014, said that the Golden Grad program celebrates former students who graduated more than 50 years ago with the focus on graduates on their 50-year anniversary.

Stone said this program was originally started to celebrate former students who could not graduate because they were drafted to the military while attending Northern.

In her comprehensive record of historical events and college memories, Gwendolyn M. Newman Buck, 1968 Editor-in-Chief of the official Northern Montana College student newspaper, NoMoCo, wrote, "We have traveled into a new dimension - the Zone of Retired Baby Boomers - the largest cohort in history."

Buck said that one of her greatest memories at Northern was former English teacher Joseph "Whiskey Joe" Keller. She said she will never forget him or his dog, Lucky, who would come to the class, barking, to make sure everyone was awake and alert.

"I never could figure out how Lucky knew where to find Mr. Keller and especially what time was the class," Beck said. "Looking back, he was an important, welcomed guest."

"Northern was a nice, warm place," Buck added about her time spent on campus.

Buck, who graduated with degrees in English and history, said she went from teaching in Polson to being a single mother, waitressing the graveyard shift in Cannon Beach, Oregon, to remarrying and moving to Heart Butte to losing her husband from cancer. She said she now enjoys being an amateur historian and reminiscing about her good times at Northern.

Barbara Taylor Smith, who was one of the editors of the NoMoCo and graduated in '68 with degrees in English and education, said she has great memories of making friends during her time at Northern.

"We were young and we thought we knew everything," she said.

Smith, whose father was County Sheriff Howard Taylor, ended up attending graduate school in South Dakota.

She taught at a community college in Wyoming, she added, where she retired as professor emeritus.

Smith said she also wrote books and memoirs and won the Governor's Art Award for her writing.

"My first published work was a poem that was published in the xeroxed Northern Literary Magazine," she said. "I had a great experience here.  It made me think about going to grad school."

Another NoMoCo member, the sports editor, was Jan O'Connor Iverson who was listed in the NoMoCo as having graduated with a Bachelor of Science in secondary education and history/social sciences. After graduating, O'Connor moved to Alaska to teach.  

Today, O'Connor said, she lives in Billings and is the district director for Jafra Cosmetics as well as writing books about business.

Smith said that whenever she and O'Connor got into a difficult situation when they were at college, O'Connor said, "Think about what a great story this would make."

O'Connor, who is originally from Baker, said that she had a difficult time after college, being a single mom in a small town, but it made her who she is today.

She said that when she meets people, she wishes them failure instead of success because failure teaches much more than success, and it creates a stronger person.

Karen Heen Reinerston said she graduated in 1968 with an elementary education degree. She left school early to teach at a country school in Big Sandy, Reinerston said, and finished the credits for her degree during the summer after her first year of teaching.

This year is especially special to Reinertson, she added, because the 50-year anniversary of her graduation is also her grandson's Northern graduation.

Reinerston said no one knew about her coming to the graduation, where her grandson was receiving his degree.

"It is a surprise," she said

She said she told her family that she was busy this weekend and she was going to surprise them at the commencement ceremony.

Rich Winters, who graduated in 1968 with a Bachelor of Science in secondary education, said that Havre and Northern were a wonderful experience to him.

"To a guy from the Eastside of Chicago, the bustling town of Havre, Montana, looked like a Hollywood sound stage," he said. "Streets clear of clutter, tidy storefronts, rust free vehicles and warm, friendly people stretching from the Great Northern Beanery all the way to Beaver Creek."

One student who attended who was not a 1968 graduate was Robert Boettcher.

Boettcher said he was a 1951 industrial arts graduate who is from west of Big Sandy.

He said he likes coming to the Golden Grad events so he can socialize with other graduates.

Boettcher said that after he finished college he was drafted and spent three years in the U.S. Army. He then went to Montana State College on the GI Bill because he said he figured he should go back to school since he had the chance.

In 1966 he took over his family farm and said he is now enjoying his retirement while his family runs the farm.

As Buck says in the record of events and memories she wrote, "In our lives, we create a perfect window for people to admire. Our success is based in what we've done in our past years. In the final analysis we can all agree WHAT GREAT YEARS WE HAVE EXPERIENCED. Thank you for the good times."

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Editor's note: Watch for a story and photos from Northern's 2018 Commencement in Friday's Hi-Line Living.