Nursing scholarship honors Echo DeLong
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Leah Emerson, St. Luke director of nursing, talks with Valerie Johnson, recipient of the first Echo DeLong Memorial Scholarship. Johnson is a nursing student at Salish Kootenai College.
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RONAN — Despite the fact that Echo DeLong was the all-around cowgirl in the Montana High School Rodeo Association in 1986, being a nurse who really cared about her patients meant more than any special recognition that she may have ever received during her lifetime.
“She had a gift for being compassionate,” remembers her mother, Lorraine Lynch. “She loved being a nurse.” And, Lynch adds, “she spent 20 years doing just that, loving the people she served.”
After her death in 2012, family, friends and colleagues wanted to remember Echo in a meaningful way.
“We decided what better way than to establish a scholarship in her honor just for nursing students at Salish Kootenai College in Pablo?” says Leah Emerson, director of nursing at St. Luke Community Healthcare.
To be eligible, the applicant must be a senior Associate of Science in Nursing or a Bachelor of Science in Nursing nursing student at SKC.
The first recipient of the Echo DeLong Memorial Scholarship is Valerie Johnson, an ASN nursing student from St. Ignatius.
The road to a nursing degree has been a lengthy one for Johnson. The seeds were planted early for the Mission Valley native who grew up with a sibling seven years younger who had cancer.
“Cancer affects the entire family,” Johnson explains. “But it was a wonderful learning experience on how to care for people.”
As a result, Johnson studied nursing at the University of Montana for three-and-a-half years nearly 20 years ago. However, marriage, rearing four daughters and raising beef cattle on a ranch near St. Ignatius delayed the completion of the nursing dream.
“I’m back to finish (my degree),” Johnson now says with a proud smile. “I love learning. And I absolutely love SKC and the nursing program and nursing instructors.”
Johnson says that she really appreciates receiving the scholarship since the time commitment of being a student “leaves very little time for work.”
Echo DeLong’s mother says, “There are a lot of good nurses out there, and hopefully this scholarship will help continue the training for those who care for others as much as Echo did. Next to her boys, Riley and Clayton, there was nothing that Echo loved more than being a nurse to people here in this valley.”
Donations to the Echo DeLong Memorial Scholarship can be made by contacting Leah Emerson or Liane Clairmont at St. Luke Community Hospital in Ronan. Or deposits can be made into an account that has been established for the scholarship at Community Bank of Ronan.
