By Jean Schurman
Debbie Severson is one of the most well known individuals in the Stevensville area. Over the years, she’s worn many different hats, from bank employee to volunteer to golfer. But next week, she’ll don one more hat, that of retiree. Severson is retiring from Rocky Mountain Bank after working there for 36 plus years. But her work ethic didn’t begin at the bank.
Severson grew up here in Stevensville and began working at her family’s grocery store, Gears’ Market when she was in junior high, helping her grandmother, Buelah Gear. The store was located about a mile south of Stevensville. Severson said she’d help around dinnertime so her grandmother could prepare dinner. Her mother, Audrey Ebel, also worked there. They sold the market in 1970. In her high school years, she worked in the Mini Market on north Main.
After high school, she went to work at a real estate office in Missoula but later moved back. She worked at the old Anthony’s Clothing Store that later became the Village Department Store. She also worked at the Feed Mill.
“The retail world here in Stevensville was thriving at that time,” recalls Severson.
She was a clerk at Valley Drug when Alan Kelly owned it and then went to work for Delos and Sylvia Dickerson at their hardware store. She worked there for a couple of years. When her sons, Billy and Joey, were born, she filled in at her mom’s dry cleaning business.
In 1980, she went to work at First State Bank as a teller. At that time the bank was an independently owned bank and she was able to learn the banking business from the ground up. From teller she moved to being the loan department secretary. Severson gives a lot of credit to Chris Ruffatto for teaching her the ropes from the ground up. “I was trained in house,” she said. “Now the new people have to go somewhere else to be trained.”
Severson’s first few years in the bank were in the old building at the southeast corner of Third and Main in Stevensville. In 1990, a new bank building was completed and in 1994, the bank changed its name to Rocky Mountain Bank. It was purchased by Heartland Financial in 2005. Not only has the building changed but so has the technology involved in banking. Where she once had face-to-face conversations with clients, much of her business today is done via the internet.
After being the loan secretary she moved on to become the loan processing supervisor and then to mortgage lending and consumer lending. She is now the construction lender for all 10 branches and so she is on the phone almost all the time. She said working at the bank gave her flexibility when her sons were younger so she could attend their games and events.
Severson’s mother, Audrey, was the town’s longtime clerk and was well known for her civic contributions and Severson has followed in those footsteps. She was the secretary/treasurer in the Stevensville Civic Club for several years as well as the secretary for the Stevensville Booster Club. She remembers long days preparing for the Booster Club Bazaar, from setting up to the final cleanup in the old gym.
A group of Main Street businesses came together 16 years ago to form the Stevensville Main Street Association to promote business on Main Street. Severson is a founding board member and still serves on that board. She is the treasurer of the organization and to honor her mother’s contribution to Stevensville she created and manages the Audrey Ebel Memorial Golf Tournament each year as a benefit for the Main Street group.
In 2003, she married Dan Severson, and not only changed her name but also added to her resume. Up until March of 2016, she handled payroll for Dan’s business, Valley Drug & Variety. He sold the business and so she was out of a job there.
Now the two hope to travel. Much of the traveling will be to see grandkids. They have 12 between them with one more on the way. Severson says it will be nice to take off and go see them without worrying about work. She plans on staying active in the Main Street Association and will still be involved in other things but for now, she just wants to relax (although she did say her last day wouldn’t be the 30th, but the 31st so she would have some quiet time to finish up clearing out her office.)
“It’s been a pretty boring life,” she said. “But I wouldn’t have it any other way.”