Sincerely,

It's the time of year students are heading back to school. Parents are shepherding little ones to kindergarten for the first time and veteran moms and dads are packing up graduates who are heading off to college. Some of those college-bound Montanans are the deserving recipients of more than $400,000 in scholarships awarded by MCF this year. Of that $400,000, $34,000 came from the Louise A. Dean Scholarship Fund.

  

Louise Dean came to Montana from the Midwest with her mother and father. In 1928, the family moved to Miles City, where Louise spent time learning to ride horses from the cowboys of the big ranches in the area as well as the Northern Cheyenne kids. A few years later, the family moved again to Helena, where she met her husband, Samuel G. Dean, who became an Army Air Corps bomber pilot. Sam was killed during World War II.

In 1945, Louise purchased a small ranch in Lincoln and continued to fall in love with ranching and horses. Louise taught many in Lincoln how to ride.

In speaking about her, folks usually mentioned how good Louise was with animals. For a time she raised Rottweilers to show, and one person said, "She could make those dogs do anything!" She fed her cows from a dogsled and at the end of her life, she trained her last dog Hawk, as her seeing-eye dog. When you left after a visit, she and Hawk always stood in the drive and waved farewell.

Louise passed away in 2009 after managing her Blackfoot Valley ranch for more than 60 years. She left a bequest in her will to establish the Louise A. Dean Scholarship Fund to benefit Lincoln and Northern Cheyenne students. Louise wanted to support the students of Lincoln, where she spent most of her life, and the Northern Cheyenne, where she spent her childhood and learned to love horses and ranching.

"To put it real simple, this place has been so good to me, it has given me so much," Louise wrote. "I have had a lifetime of mornings when I step out that front door and look out over the land and say to myself, 'Son-of-a-gun, I can't believe I live here.'"

Fast forward eight years to 2017 and a young woman named Adrianna Pittman. Adrianna's hometown is Glen, a small unincorporated community in Beaverhead County between Butte and Dillon. Adrianna graduated this year from Beaverhead County High School and is headed to the University of Montana Western to pursue a degree in Secondary Education Math and Science. After earning her degree, she plans on teaching in rural Alaska for a while before returning to Montana to teach high school math or science.

Adrianna is a recipient of the Louise A. Dean Scholarship in the amount of $3,000 and the scholarship is renewable each year, meaning it will support her through her entire undergraduate studies. When we asked Adrianna if this scholarship would make a substantial financial impact, she said, "Absolutely, without it, it would have been difficult for me to attend college. I am truly honored and humbled to be the recipient of such a generous award. Thank you for your investment in my future." We also asked her about Montana: "I am very proud to be a Montana resident my whole life. Montana has given me many opportunities to get involved in activities and to let me grow into the young lady I am today. I couldn't think of a better place to live."

What we didn't know, what Adrianna didn't know, and what the wonderful group of ladies from the Montana Retired Educators Association who awarded her the scholarship didn't know, is that Adrianna and Louise have a special connection.

	Louise holding Adrianna in 1999.

Adrianna's grandmother was a very good friend of Louise Dean for more than 20 years. In fact, when Louise decided to sell her ranch in Lincoln, she said to Adrianna's grandmother, "I can't think of a better way to give back than to help kids go to college." It wasn't until Adrianna was telling her grandmother about her scholarship that she realized it was the same Louise her grandmother knew. Adrianna's grandmother started crying and said, "I never thought my granddaughter would be a recipient of Louise's good heart in this way."

Thank you to Adrianna for sharing her story with us and thank you Louise for your incredible generosity. You just never know how important your legacy might be to future generations of Montanans. You just never know what your good heart might do to help another good heart, even after you're gone.