Distinctly Montana Magazine

68 D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A M A G A Z I N E • S P R I N G 2 0 2 4 Joe Mc A Life of Service by DOUG STEVENS I N DECEMBER OF LAST YEAR (2023), A GIANT OF EDUCA- TION PASSED AWAY. Montana's own Joe McDonald was 90, and he left behind a legacy that will affect Native American students for generations to come. Much has already been written about the breadth of his ac- complishments. A brief Google search of Joe McDonald will provide these in detail. His crowning achievement, though, was the establishment of Salish Kootenai College (SKC) on the Flat- head Reservation of western Montana in 1977, serving as its first president until retirement in 2010. He tirelessly worked to raise that college up from very humble beginnings to being one of the flagship tribal colleges with a national reputation for excellence. Along the way, he helped set up other tribal colleges across Montana, as well as serving as a resource for building colleges on other reservations across the country and beyond. But where did the vision, ambition and energy for a life devoted to service and education come from? Joe was raised along Post Creek, north of Saint Ignatius, bordering historic Fort Con- nah on the Flathead Reservation. He was the great-grandson of Angus McDonald, a Scot- tish fur trapper who settled in the Mission Valley and established Fort Connah in 1846— the last Hudson Bay Trading Company's trading post south of the 49th parallel and the oldest building still standing in Montana. (www.distinctlymontana.com/his- toric-fort-connah-last-hudson-bay-trading-post-us). Angus and his Nez Perce wife, Catherine, placed a high value on education and brought in tutors for their 12 children to be sure they would be well educated. Along the way, they shared their tutors with interested local tribal members. The importance of bettering oneself through education was instilled into Joe at a young age. This imperative would be, and still is, handed down through the successive generations of McDonalds. Joe had a very active childhood on his family's ranch, learning to ride, rope and race, as well as the more mundane chores of life on a ranch. In school, he would find a lifelong home in or- ganized sports and athletics. He was a gifted athlete—it didn't matter the sport—football, baseball, basketball, and later, golf, Joe McDonald relating stories of Angus and Catherine McDonald, Fort Connah Rendezvous, 2021 DOUG STEVENS

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