Mass of Christian Burial for Norbert N. Rodakowski, will be at 11 a.m., Friday, June 10, 2011 at St. Bernard’s Catholic Church, Belfield, with Fr. Shannon Lucht as the celebrant. Interment will follow at St. Bernard’s Cemetery, with military honors provided by the Belfield American Legion William C. Blair Post #144. Visitation will be on Thursday from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m., at the church and also on Friday from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., at the church. There will be a rosary & vigil at 7:30 p.m., Thursday at the church.

Norbert Neil Rodakowski, 62, formerly of Belfield, died at the Richardton Health Center on Tuesday, June 6, 2011 during hospitalization as a result of being hit by a vehicle while he walked along a snow- covered street in Dickinson five months earlier on January 6, 2011. This tragedy ends the life of one whose life seemed so promising. Illness and now death did not allow Norb to be what he wanted. His family mourns his passing.

Norb was born on December 23, 1948 to Emil and Mary (Dolyniuk) Rodakowski, and his formative years were spent on his parents’ farm north of Belfield. Norb’s early education started in a one-room rural school near the farm, but he graduated from the eighth grade from the Belfield elementary school, and then in 1966 he graduated from Belfield High School as a Honor Student. During high school Norb participated in football, basketball, baseball and played trombone in the high school band. He was homecoming king his senior year. After high school, Norb attended Dickinson State College for two years in a pre-engineering curriculum where he was chosen as the outstanding mathematics student his 2nd year. He then transferred to NDSU where he graduated with BS degree in Agricultural Engineering in 1970. Norb was drafted into the US Army and served in Viet Nam. Upon his return he began to exhibit signs of schizophrenia but returned to NDSU and earned his MS degree in Engineering 1974.

Norb subsequently worked for Crystal Sugar and the Department of the Interior. During this period and later he went through times of hope and times of disappointment and eventually could not attain gainful employment. He was living at the Badlands Human Service Center Residential Care Center in Dickinson at the time of his accident. Norb during his good days loved playing his guitar and singing Gordon Lightfoot and country songs, loved athletics, loved being outdoors and going for a run or a walk.

Norb was preceded in his death by his father Emil A. Rodakowski and his brother Emil P. Rodakowski. He is survived by his mother Mary; six siblings, Ken (Gloria) of Eugene, Ore.; Ron (Libbie) of Belvidere, Ill.; Harold (Julie) of Rochester, Minn.; Marcia of Clinton, Mich.; Noel of Poplar Grove, Ill. and Gloria Brown of Las Cruces, N.M. In addition he is survived by sister-in-law Diane Rodakowski of Lenore, Idaho and 13 nephews and nieces.