Former Teacher Kippen Visits Culbertson’s Nelson
A cherished Culbertson School teacher, Miss Joy Kippen, visited with former student Tom Nelson, 90, at his home in Culbertson on Sunday. Kippen taught Nelson, a middle schooler at the time, during the 1947/48 school year. She was 21 years old when she came to Roosevelt County.
Kippen made an impact on several area students and provided a namesake for Joy Finnicum Johnson, who told the Community News that her mother named her after Kippen. Kippen was traveling in the area last week with her daughter, Jennifer Joy Austin. Also present were Beth Hekkel, Mark Nelson and Johnson.
Kippen was one of eight graduates of the Minot State College system who were recruited to come to Culbertson in the late 1940s. Several of the graduates married and settled in the area. Kippen continued on to a fulfilling life in Cupertino, Calif., where she married Lee Sanders of Dunseith, N.D., and pursued a career as a teacher that spanned more than four decades.
In a further wrinkle, Austin and Johnson met each other at MSC during their college years.
Austin had no idea at the time that Johnson had been named after her mother. The two became friends. “Joy Finnicum and I met at MSC in 1971 on the third floor of Dakota Hall,” Austin said. Johnson described their chance meeting as, “a fluke.” Both women would go on to become public school art teachers.
