Life comes down to tow things for Diane Slobojan

For Diane Slobojan, life comes down to two things.

"Church and family," she says, "that's where it's at."

Slobojan's priority list is short, but just looking at the many activities that fall under those two categories is enough to make a person tired.

There's lay ministering work with Risen Christ Parish, coordinating and participating in a faith-based program that helps the elderly, volunteering for various other organizations, being the mother to four children and the grandmother to six.

And don't forget the clowning.

Slobojan, 62, has been volunteering here, there and seemingly everywhere for so long that she has trouble differentiating between when one activity started and another tapered off. The standard answer to how long she's been doing a particular activity is, "Oh, a long time."

Slobojan, who's moved from Anaconda to the Flathead Valley when she was 12, started volunteering when she was a student at Columbia Falls High School. Her mother helped run the March of Dimes annual telethon, so Slobojan answered phones.

"March of Dimes was one of my things I did for a long time," she says.

After she met her future husband, Tim, Slobojan began another association that would guide her volunteer activities for years to come.

As a child, Slobojan's parents did not attend church but they were supportive of her decision to pursue being a Methodist. Tim, though, was Catholic. Slobojan decided to convert. Regardless of her fiance's religion, she would eventually have found her way to Catholicism, she says.

Catholicism is the right religion for her because "there's a feeling of security in the continuity of the church, knowing it's (existed for so long)," she says.

She and Tim met through her cousin David. The two men worked together at the Columbia Falls Aluminum Co.

"He'd call and say, 'I need five girls," she says.

Slobojan rounded up some other ladies and the group went to Glacier National Park. Her cousin, though, did not have the future married couple in mind for each other.

"We're about as opposite as opposite can get," she says, laughing.

"Introvert and extrovert," her husband sums up.

Her husband is quiet and reserved. Slobojan is anything but.

An example of her outgoing nature is Rainbow, her clownish alter ego. Slobojan created Rainbow when she was a room mother (or teacher's aide for activities such as birthday and holiday parties) when her children attended St. Matthew's.

The children and adults often dressed up for Halloween, and one year Slobojan went as a clown. The persona stuck with her.

"It's a hard job," she says. "It's a lot of work, a lot of energy."

She demonstrates the grinning, eyes wide with enthusiasm manner she adopts as Rainbow.

"It's like that the whole time," she says.

A clown smiles all the time, even when she loses her nose. Slobojan recalls one child pulling off her clown nose - which is adhered with a glue-like substance.

"It's funny now," but it wasn't when it happened, she says. Nevertheless, Rainbow kept on smiling.

"She does a ton of her volunteer work as a clown," says United Way Executive Director Sherry Stevens-Wulf.

Stevens-Wulf has known Slobojan since the two were room mothers together, and she has since watched Slobojan take her clown act out of the classroom and to various organizations throughout the area.

Clowning wasn't her only activity while a young mother, though.

Slobojan has four children: Teresa, 39; David (named for the cousin who introduced his parents), 38; Michael, 37; and Jerome, 34.

"Four in five years. We missed a year - we had a dog that year," she jokes.

Four children kept her busy, shuttling one child or another around town in her wood-paneled Ford station wagon. Slobojan didn't work, for which she thanks her husband, who is a veterinarian.

"So I was the official chaperone for anything," she says.

The shuttling and the chaperoning didn't go unnoticed by her children.

"Her greatest gift that she passed on to me and my brothers," says her daughter, Teresa Slobojan-Monaco, "was her time. She was always involved in anything we did."

Slobojan says her mother's gift to her was a love of music. Her mother was always singing or playing records. Slobojan has long sang in the Glacier Chorale. This spring she'll finish up her term as a board member of the Glacier Symphony.

Slobojan's children were active in Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and 4-H, which she participated in as a child. The kids' involvement with 4-H brought her back to the fairgrounds, where she began entering items in the culinary competition as a way to indulge her competitive side, she says.

Slobojan's dinner rolls and raisins earned her ribbons for many years, but for some time now she's foregone the baking in favor of organizing. Slobojan organizes the fair's culinary department. Her daughter comes up from Anaconda, where she lives, to help her mother with the fair in honor of the Slobojans' long tradition of attending.

Slobojan included her children in her volunteer efforts when they were younger.

"That was just part of our lives," Slobojan-Monaco recalls.

Slobojan-Monaco specifically remembers often going door to door soliciting contributions for causes such as the American Cancer Society "and loving it."

Slobojan has volunteered for many secular organizations, but her interest in volunteerism stems from religion. Her philosophy is, "When there's a need, it should be met.

"Because God says to help each other," she adds.

Perhaps what Slobojan is most proud of in her volunteering career, though, is her work with Faith in Action Care Team Ministry.

The program, which is supported by several local organizations such as Immanuel Lutheran Corporation and Agency on Aging, helps elderly people with tasks such as transportation and meal preparation. Care Team members also simply visit with the elderly.

Slobojan coordinates Care Team volunteers in addition to helping with tasks and visiting.

Slobojan also works as a lay minister for her church. She gives communion to Catholics at the Immanuel Lutheran Home and Kalispell Regional Medical Center and helps with a number of other tasks.

Last year she received the United Way's Valley-wide Volunteer of the Year award.

"She's truly passionate about volunteerism," Stevens-Wulf said, "That's what sets her apart, it's her passion and her heart."

But when it comes to matters of the heart, Slobojan says it's her 41-year marriage she's most proud of.

She credits her husband with encouraging her in all her pursuits. And for all their differences, she says, throughout their marriage they've come together on church and children.

"She stays busy and I stay out of her way, in that way supporting her," her husband said.

"But the secret to a happy marriage," she says, laughing, "is two TV sets."

He watches history and war programs. She often opts for science fiction.

Their children have all left the area. Slobojan-Monaco is a special education teacher in Anaconda. David is in the Coast Guard. Michael and Jerome both live in the Seattle area. Michael manages a restaurant, and Jerome is in wine sales.

The family stays in touch through e-mail and occasional visits.

And for Slobojan, as long she stays connected with her children, her husband and her church, she's says she's got her priorities straight.

"You can do a lot of things and have a lot of friends," she says, "but what it comes down to is God, your kids and your husband."

Reporter Camden Easterling can be reached at 758-4429 or by e-mail at ceasterling@dailyinterlake.com