by Bethany Pierce Death, Obituary – Bethany Margaret Pierce was born on June 30, 1968, and passed away on January 7, 2023 in Rapid City, South Dakota. Bethany Pierce, a much-loved wife, mother, sister, educator, and friend, passed away unexpectedly on January 7, 2023 at the age of 54 while she was sleeping at home. Her devoted husband, Kevin Pierce, who is 54 years old, her children Hannah Flint (Michael), 30, Abby Pierce, 26, Bella Pierce, 14, her brother Jason Verbarg (Laura and niece Kayla), 50, and her grandson Oliver Flint, 4, all survive her.
Following her time at Pasco High School, where she graduated with the class of 1986, Bethany went on to earn a degree in Elementary Education from Central Washington University in 1991. After teaching for one year at St. Patrick’s School in Pasco, she taught kindergarten at Columbia Elementary for two years before moving up to second grade, where she remained for the subsequent 27 years of her career in education. Because of the commitment that she showed to her students and the tenacity with which she advocated for the requirements of others, Bethany rose to the rank of much-loved and respected educator in the Burbank community.
In 2009, she was honored with the Mid-Columbia Crystal Apple Teacher of the Year award bestowed to her by the Columbia School District. In addition to that, she presided over the Columbia Education Association for a number of years and participated in a number of different committees that dealt with negotiations. She spent her entire life advocating for the teaching profession and has never stopped being proud of the accomplishments she has helped bring about in that field. While Bethany was a student at Pasco High School, she began a romantic relationship with Kevin, who would eventually become her husband of 32 years.
After waiting another four years, they got married and moved to Pasco. After another few years, they moved to Burbank and built a house right across the street from Bethany’s parents. There, they began a family, and Hannah and Abby enjoyed a close relationship with their grandparents, Dave and Beverly Verbarg, which lasted until the grandparents’ deaths in 2014 and 2015. This close relationship lasted until the grandparents’ deaths. In 2016, Bethany came into contact with Bella, one of her students in the second grade whose placement in a foster home was in peril.
When Bethany first saw Bella, she felt an instant connection to her. “There was a connection,” she recalled. Bella was formally adopted as Bethany and Kevin’s legal daughter a couple of weeks before Mother’s Day in 2017. The adoption process took Bethany a total of eleven months to complete, during which time she completed all of the standards for adopting a child in the state. Officials from the state stated that they had never witnessed somebody finish all of the required processes in such a timely and effective manner.
