Borgni Edin

Borgni Edin, 85, Jamestown, North Dakota, died Thursday, December 1, 2011, at Jamestown Regional Medical Center in Jamestown.

Agnes Borgni Skorpen was born June 8, 1926, to Thomas and Edwina Skorpen on the family farm south of Valley City. She was graduated from Valley City High School in 1943. In 1947 she received her B.A. from Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota.

Following graduation from Concordia, Borgni began a lifetime shaped by constant and joyful teaching in classrooms and out of them, by word and example. Her gifts for teaching were always enhanced by her passion for connecting with others and her eagerness to learn from them, as well.

While teaching in Wahpeton in 1951, Borgni met and fell in love with Charles Edin. They were married on June 1, 1952, at Our Savior?s Lutheran Church in Valley City. Borgni and Chuck initially made their home in Wahpeton, but moved to Williston in 1953 during the first oil boom. There they began their family when their first child, Charles Thomas, was born in 1955.

The next year Borgni and Charles moved to Jamestown, Charles?s home town, where he began his career in the insurance business. Borgni was very involved in his work over the years. As the business grew she became office manager and, for a time in the Seventies, was licensed to sell insurance herself.

Throughout the Sixties Borgni continued to teach as a substitute in the Jamestown schools and in the compensatory program, which provided special help to students who were having difficulty with their studies.

Borgni?s first priority, however, was always her family, which grew in 1957 with the birth of Bradley Paul and in 1958 with the birth of a longed-for daughter, Barbara Lisa.

In 1979 this born teacher began her final and most challenging professional assignment when she started working at the North Dakota State Hospital in the adult education department. All of her skills as a teacher were challenged and deployed at the State Hospital. This was the perfect culmination of her professional career, and she worked at the hospital until her retirement.

Throughout the years Borgni was active in the Jamestown community, especially in University Women, Civic Music, the Mental Health Association, and Jamestown Hospital Hospice.

Most important to Borgni among her community commitments was St. John?s Lutheran Church. She taught more than one generation of confirmation-age students, mentored new parents in the Cradle Roll program, ministered with her husband to shut-in brothers and sisters in Christ as a lay sacramentarian, and rejoiced in the fellowship of the Mary-Martha Circle. Above all she was a faithful presence at worship, where she practiced an always gracious hospitality, welcoming newcomers and strangers. Borgni was quick to learn your name and careful never to forget it.

If teaching was the great joy of Borgni?s life, the great theme?which became more explicit every year?was gratitude. Especially in these last years, she daily expressed her thanks for the blessings of her beloved husband Chuck, who died in 2009, and her family; her health; her mental acuity, which never failed her; and the fact that she could still drive and live in the home she loved so much.

These blessings and so many others were grounded on the solid rock of the greatest blessing, the gift of a sure and certain faith in her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Borgni knew the freedom that comes from being a child of God, a freedom that enabled her everyday to reach out in selfless love and openness to everyone around her.

Borgni is survived by two sons, Charles, Bismarck, and Bradley, Valley City; one daughter, Barbara and her special friend Donald Brummond, Fargo; and two grandchildren, Charles and Taylor, Bismarck.

She was preceded in death by her husband of 56 years, Charles; her parents; and her sister, Valborg Skorpen.