Longtime Columbia Falls City Judge Susan “Tina” Gordon has been named the most outstanding non-attorney judge in the United States by the National Judges Association.

The award is the highest recognition the association bestows. It is based on nomination by one’s peers and recognizes the outstanding caliber of commitment to profession and community, according to Candace Hissong, executive director of the National Judges Association.

“I know [Gordon] to be fiercely dedicated to judicial education and to Columbia Falls. Judge Gordon is a credit to the American judiciary ... We are privileged to call her a member and we value her participation in our organization,” Hissong said in a prepared statement.

Gordon accepted the award last month at the association’s annual conference in Biloxi, Mississippi.

Gordon has been the city judge in Columbia Falls for 28 years. She took the position not thinking she’d be a judge for long. It was the opportunity to help protect people’s rights that drew her to the position.

“I wanted to get into human rights, then this position came open and it just seemed perfect, just to make sure people’s rights weren’t violated, that they got their rights,” Gordon said in a 2013 Inter Lake interview. “In the beginning, I would have liked to help people with their life, much as a social worker, but I wasn’t able to. All I can do is what the law allows me to do, so if someone needs treatment I can send them to treatment, but I can’t just willy-nilly decide to send them because I think they need it.”

She said it was a difficult lesson for her, moving from the idealism of her college days to the realization that she had to detach from her desires and see what the law said.

A 1962 Columbia Falls High School graduate, Gordon left the Flathead Valley for a time before returning to get a degree from Flathead Valley Community College in human services with an emphasis on interpersonal communications.

Gordon has seen some major changes in the judicial system during her time on the bench. The change in state drunk-driving laws making a fourth offense automatically a felony was a significant change, she recalled in the 2013 interview. She remembered handling cases for people on their ninth offense prior to the change.

She also said she has noticed more drinking violations, domestic violence offenses and requests for orders of protection, which she believed was a result of the depressed economy.

“But it’s different every day, and every case is different,” Gordon said.

The National Judges Association was founded in 1979 to represent limited jurisdiction judges in the American Judiciary with the primary goal of quality judicial education.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com