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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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