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Stubbs honored for
30 Years of Rescues
Tuesday
March 29, 2005
By CANDACE CHASE
The Daily
Inter Lake
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SHIRLEY
STUBBS, affectionately known as "Mother Superior" by her fellow
volunteers with the Flathead County Search and Rescue
Association, is retiring after 30 years of service to the
organization.
PHOTO - Karen Nichols |
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When Shirley Stubbs joined Flathead County Search and Rescue, women were
only allowed to bake cookies and to work as a dispatcher as part of an
auxiliary.
A lot of things changed over 30 years. Stubbs eventually trained as a
first responder, to operate four-wheeler and drive an ambulance along
with dispatching. She also worked as a dive tender for a friend on
underwater operations.
"I was acting search leader on several occasions," she said. "But most
of my work was in dispatch, PR and fund-raising."
Stubbs, affectionately known as Mother Superior, was honored recently
with a plaque and 30-year pin from the rescue organization that became a
passion and personal mission for the Kalispell woman and her late
husband.
"It's a very elite, well-trained and well-oiled organization," she said.
Leafing through a thick scrapbook, Stubbs recalled the thrill of finding
people alive. She also remembered the agony of finding some dead,
including a few close friends.
Losing children was the worse experience, including the time a teenager
drowned in the Flathead River. But Stubbs said the search and rescue
team has many more successes than tragedies.
"There is no bigger thrill than when you find them alive," she said.
Stubbs laughed as she recalled cow rescues and even her own when she
learned not to sit on the edge of a rubber raft after applying Armorall.
She slipped right over into the river but someone in the boat caught her
by the foot.
"I thought I was going to drown because he wouldn't let go of my foot,"
she said laughing.
Stubbs had so many clothes on that the water didn't even penetrate to
her skin. For Christmas that year, the organization presented Stubbs
with a snorkel at the annual awards banquet.
Over the years she has also received the top volunteer of the year award
twice. In 1998, Flathead County Search and Rescue presented her with a
special award for her dedication to providing first aid at the Flathead
County Fair.
"I love it and not many do," Stubbs said. "It's dusty, it's hot and it's
long hours."
She said she enjoys the work because it involved her two greatest loves:
medicine and people. She calls herself "a talky person" who thrives on
interacting with old friends as well as strangers at the fair.
When her husband was alive, the two of them would live in their camper
at the fairgrounds. Her husband worked in security at the fair as a
major with the sheriff's posse while Stubbs put her career skills as a
nurse to good use.
"We would treat up to 200 people a day," she said.
Sometimes the injuries were minor. People often came for treatment for
blisters from their brand new fair shoes.
Stubbs laughed as she recalled a fellow worker's comments.
"He said 'I've washed more feet than Jesus," she said.
Youngsters would run and fall down or people would get burned or cut in
the process of cooking operations. Stubbs, a CPR trainer, treated quite
a few heart attack victims.
One, a member of the posse, collapsed and died of cardiac arrest while
on duty at the fair.
"He was just 42 years old," she said. "It broke your heart."
Stubbs recalled the day a young girl of about 17 came to her with a
strange question.
Although she was nine months pregnant, she had hitchhiked to Kalispell,
following a boyfriend who worked in the carnival.
She asked Stubbs why her pants were soaking wet. Even though her water
had broken, she arrived at the hospital before her baby did - thanks to
Stubb's quick work.
"That's the closest we've ever come to having a baby at the fair," she
said.
Stubbs came close to dropping out of the work she loved when her husband
died of cancer 15 years ago.
"I was ready to chuck it," she said. "I wanted to sit in a corner and
feel sorry for myself."
After six weeks, Flathead Search and Rescue came to her rescue in the
form of Bob Helms, search leader for many years. He put her to work,
with one week's notice, organizing a booth for career day at the mall.
"From then on, they never gave me a chance to think twice," Stubbs said.
It was also Helms who dubbed her Mother Superior.
"Now they all call me that," she said with a laugh as she showed off her
orange hat bearing her title.
At past 70, Stubbs intends to return to fair service as soon as her
health permits. She hasn't let heart attacks and injuries from a car
accident dampen her enthusiasm for putting on her dark slacks, white
shirt with patches, orange jacket and cap.
When her co-workers worry, she tells them if she has a heart attack on a
search she will die doing what she wants to do.
:I love my uniform," she said. "I want to be buried in it."
Reporter Candice Chase may be reached at
406-758-4441 or by email at
cchase@dailyinterlake.com.
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