Jill, second from the right, with her fellow AmeriCorps leaders in 2012.

It was a bittersweet day for us this Monday, in Big Sky Country: Rocky Mountain College‘s Jill Washburn packed up a U-Haul, and is heading to Vermont. For the past five years Jill’s been a great, consistent face of community engagement, service, volunteerism, veterans services and parent relations at Rocky, with Campus Compact, in Billings and across our state.

Before her time as a staffer at Rocky, Jill served two terms as an AmeriCorps leader -also with Rocky and  the American Red Cross- in Billings. In that capacity she organized responses to floods and disasters, and deployed to help with numerous natural disasters around the region and country. Jill’s a Rocky alumna, and if you know her, you know that she’s a spark plug for service! She’s helped create one of our state’s great campus-hosted community involvement/civic engagement offices at Rocky, has tirelessly promoted service, facilitated numerous Volunteers of the Game and Montana Athletes In Service, supervised AmeriCorps members, built a partnership with the Girl Scouts, organized and led alternative breaks, and done a ton to position Rocky as a strong, responsive campus whose students get world-class opportunities to learn and grow as citizens.

Jill’s off to her next career move, in her home state of Vermont. And while we’ll miss her, we also know that Vermont is lucky to have her back. Thanks, Jill!