Joe Briggs was born and raised in Great Falls and has been a Cascade County resident his entire life. Joe is the youngest of three children born to Jiggs and Florence Briggs. With the exception of attending college in St. Louis, home was always 3227 9th Ave. South for Joe. After returning from college with fiancee Kathy, Briggs purchased a home at 5900 Western Drive where the couple still live with their two children, Jessica and Jim.
Joe
is a product of
the Great Falls School
district having attended Lincoln Elementary and East Junior High. He
attended Great Falls Central his freshman year and then transferred
when Central ceased operations and is a 1976 graduate of Great Falls
High. Briggs was active in a number of extraciricular activities
including Band, Football, Scouting and the National Honor Society.
Joe's father, Jiggs, was raised in the Bitterroot Valley of western Montana but moved to Great Falls following his discharge from the Army after W.W.II. He met Florence Polich of Black Eagle while working at Rice Truck Lines. They married and settled first on the West Side of Great Falls and then moved to the residence on 9th Ave. South. Jiggs was well known in the trucking industry as the Shop Foreman for Rice Truck and Equipment and later as Maintenance Manager for Transystems. He was also very active in Boy Scouts as a Cub Master, Scout Master and Troop Committee Chairman. Florence was a stay at home mom and a very dedicated member of the St. Peter and Paul Parish Community having served in the Altar Society, St. Bernadette Circle and on the Parish Council for many years.
Joe's father, Jiggs,
believed that everyone in
a family had a role to play in the success of the family. In
the
case of the children, their primary job was to get an
education.
Good grades were not optional. They were expected and the
children rose to the challenge. Secondly, Joe and Janice were
expected to earn money for college and help around the house.
Jiggs had quit school in 9th grade and started working in a logging
camp to help support his family during the depression. When
the
war broke out he enlisted in the Army-Air Corps and as such never
graduated High School. It was perhaps the one thing that he
always regretted in life and he made certain that his children would go
to college.
Kathy and Joe were married in St. Peter and Paul Parish here in Great Falls in 1981 and have two children named Jessica and Jim. Family is central to Joe's life, and he takes great pride in his children. He is a strong believer that it is in the home that values are taught and the future is crafted. Kathy and Joe are strong advocates of both formal education as well as education in the home. There is an extensive collection of books in the Briggs' household covering a broad range of fields of study and interests. The availability of materials matched with the example of parents who love to read have created a second generation of avid readers in the Briggs' household.
Son Jim, is at Rocky Mountain College in Billings in his Junior year pursuing a degree in Secondary Education. Like his sister he is a CMR graduate where in addition to his studies he was involved in a number of extracurricular activities including Varsity football and Boy Scouts. Jim is an Eagle Scout, a Brotherhood Member of the Order Of the Arrow. He will be returning to Rocky this fall for his Junior year. He hopes to teach English Literature and Physics after completing his degree.
The newest addition to the Briggs family
is our Basset Hound puppy "Sophie". She is definitely a
character and has added a whole new level of chaos to the house.
Like most Basset Hounds, she is strictly
supervisory in nature, but she does that extremely well.
