RMC commencement to be Saturday morning
Rocky Mountain College will celebrate its 114th commencement at 9:30 a.m. Saturday in Fortin Education Center's main gymnasium.
This year's graduating class numbers close to 150 and includes students from 21 states and four foreign countries.
The RMC Concert Band, under the direction of David Reynolds, the RMC Choir, under the direction of Kathy Honaker and the Nighthawk Singers, a Native American musical group, will entertain. The keynote speaker will be the well-known educator Janine Pease-Pretty on Top, Indian educator and president of Little Big Horn College.
In addition to the degrees to be received by the graduating class, several honorary degrees will be given to individuals who have proven outstanding in their particular fields. This year the honorees will be Ron Nelson, a vice president of Nike Inc.; the artist Neltje; James R. Taylor, a longtime educator and administrator for RMC; and Pease-Pretty on Top.
The Rev. Catherine A. Barker, a graduate of Rocky and the pastor of Granite Falls United Christian Church in Granite Falls, Minn., will receive a distinguished service award.
Born on the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington, Pease-Pretty on Top has never lost touch with her traditional Crow heritage. Following four generations of educators, she has pursued higher education as a means to advance not only her own career goals, but also the preservation of tribal culture and American Indian civil rights. Pease- Pretty on Top will receive the honorary degree of doctor of humanities.
Nelson graduated from RMC in 1964 with a B.S. in economics and business administration. He earned an M.B.A. in 1965 at the University of Denver. In 1976, he became a vice president and one of 12 managers of Nike Inc. in Beaverton, Ore., at that time a small footwear company. Over the next 20 years, Nike rose to international prominence in the sportswear industry with sales of over $9 billion, and Nelson was part of an innovative system of management that made that growth possible.
Raised in Long Island and South Carolina, since the mid-1960s Neltje has chosen to live and work in rural Wyoming and New York City. She studied at the New York Studio School of Drawing and the Art Students League in New York. Neltje's love of the land is reflected in her abstract expressionist paintings, monotypes, collages and assemblages which have been included in museum and gallery exhibitions all over the United States. Neltje will receive the honorary doctor of fine arts degree.
James R. Taylor was born in Huntington, W.Va., and earned bachelor's and master's degrees in psychology from Marshall College. After teaching psychology there for three years and working as a clinical psychologist in Iowa, he obtained a master of divinity from Andover Newton Theological School, and served as a pastor, both while still in seminary and later at the Summit Avenue Baptist Church in Jersey City, N.J. "For long and distinguished service to Rocky Mountain College and the Billings community," Taylor will be awarded the degree doctor of public service.
After graduating from high school in Butte, Barker attended Rocky, traveling with the RMC Choir Tour to Europe in 1975, and graduating in 1976 with a bachelor of arts. She then went to Yale University Divinity School, graduating with a master of divinity in 1977. Barker receives the RMC Distinguished Service Award and will be the keynote speaker on Friday at the RMC Baccalaureate.
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