Darlene graduated from UND at Grand Forks with a PhB in Social Sciences in 1969 and went on to graduate school in Sociology at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois with a teaching assistantship. She became a Vocational Counselor at the North Dakota State Hospital in 1975 and a year later began on the job training as an Addiction Counselor and became certified and then licensed as an Addiction Counselor and worked in this capacity until she retired from NDSH in 2005. While at the NDSH she was a Team Leader and Clinical Supervisor on different Alcohol and Drug treatment wards. The last five years at NDSH she worked with a 100 day Corrections Program that treated individuals coming out of the penitentiary into treatment on an early release program. She was a Team Leader on one of the all mens unit at this time. She has served as secretary and later as president for the ND Addiction Counselor’s Association. Her sobriety date is September 1975. She co-directs the Intensive Outpatient Program at Heart River Alcohol and Drug with Sharold Oster.