35 Years of Keeping the Pulse of the Community

For the past 35 years, Linda Bodick has had several jobs at the public health department, but one aspect has remained the same through her career: Her primary job has been to see people — really see them — and get them the services they need.

Her passion for her work has taken her into the community to teach about safe-sex practices, as well as working with at-risk populations to stem the tide of communicable diseases. It’s not always glamorous, and it takes patience, but Bodick has a knack for being able to connect with the human underneath the drugs or the trauma or the tough circumstances.

It’s all been about treating everyone with baseline decency and respect, and it served her well in her career, which she plans to end in retirement this month.

“I worked with Linda for 30 years,” said former Flathead Public Health Officer Joe Russell. “I have just a handful of people I would say are those amazing public-health advocates and Linda would be one of them.”

Her career with the health department started in 1984, but she had worked in public health in California and Chicago before moving here. Bodick was using the health department’s well-child checkup services when she heard about an opening in the family-planning department for the receptionist position. Even though she was an LPN, she didn’t care that the job didn’t involve any of her nursing skills.

“I love family planning. I’m a true believer in family planning and its mission,” Bodick said. “And it’s not only women who use it — people don’t understand we have a lot of services, for men and women. We’re not gender biased. To me, family planning is helping people decide what they want to do with their life.”

She came to the health department right as the AIDS crisis was reaching the Flathead, and with former health department Executive Director Wendy Doely leading the way, the department started educating the valley on safe-sex practices and sexually transmitted infections and diseases.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever met anyone as passionate about public health as Linda,” Doely said. “She truly believed in what we did and she gave it her all.”

“We got funded for AIDS prevention in 1986,” Bodick said. “Everybody wanted me to talk to their kids. I went to churches, schools. People were unaware and afraid.”

The Flathead was the only area doing that type of educational work to that extent, Bodick said, and it helped set the tone for the current Flathead City-County Health Department and Community Health Center as it is today.

“The reason why we could grow a program that can really come under fire all over the country is because first of all, we never lost the root that family planning was a public health program,” Russell said of family planning. “We always kept it in the prevention framework. Even in one of the most conservative counties in Montana, that program thrived and it was because of people like Linda and Wendy and all of the great providers that have gone through there.”

Though she loves teaching, Bodick said her “biggest job” has been her work as a disease-intervention specialist. Building rapport with her clientele, who may use intravenous drugs or engage in other risky behaviors, was one of the most important aspects of her work. It’s about being nonjudgmental and supporting one another, while also remembering that without client trust, the community health center would cease to function.

“People think I’m crazy because I like what I do so much,” Bodick said. “But it’s the people out there who count.”

“She’s so matter of fact,” Russell said. “She really understands her clientele. She can be very matter of fact about things, but she never turned anyone off with how she approached what she did. I think a lot of that was because of her passion for what she did.”

Hillary Hanson, the current public health officer, said Bodick’s career and the relationships she’s built within the community will continue to benefit the work the health department does.

“I think we’ve all learned a lot from her — I know I have — and not just in the basics in the job and what’s going on in the community, but also the passion for the topic and those we serve. She always has the ability to go above and beyond. She’s really been a trailblazer for us in the communicable-disease world,” Hanson said.

Bodick said she looks forward to helping her two grandchildren learn to swim in retirement, and that she knows the health department will find more educators to continue its service in the valley.

“We’re important. We provide good education, and we really appreciate parent involvement,” she said. “People here believe in the public-health mission.”