Pauline H. Rich Memorial Endowed Scholarship

Pauline Hancock Rich was born in Barre, Massachusetts, on September 18, 1891. She grew up in Barre and attended Wellesley College, graduating in 1913. She worked in New York City for the H. W. Wilson Company, publishers of the Reader’s Guide and the Literary Digest. She attended Library School in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1926, moving to Billings, Montana, the following year. Pauline became a member of the original organizing faculty of Eastern Montana College (now MSU Billings) where she was Librarian until her retirement in 1956. Pauline naturally loved to read. She enjoyed books by Norman Vincent Peale and Bennet Cerf. She liked mysteries and Catherine Marshall’s books. She enjoyed uplifting items which made you appreciate living. There were always books of humor and poetry lying around. Pauline was a fantastic children’s storyteller, especially the “Galumpus Stories.” They were her own creation and came out of her imagination as she told them. They were slapstick comedies of what happens in a department store and were out of character for Pauline’s personal dignified image. But they were hilarious, wild, athletic, and vaudevillian. Pauline passed away May 8, 1981, at age 89. In Pauline’s memory, her aunt, Mary Susan Rich Bush, and her husband, Herbert, established the Pauline H. Rich Memorial Scholarship Endowment in 1995. The first scholarship was awarded in academic year 1996-1997.