Jani Louise-Christian Lerback left our earthly plane to join her Lord on July 17, 2021 at Monument Health Hospital with her children by her side.

Jani was born October 17, 1948 in Lusk, WY; the first child of Charles LeRoy and Ruby Ellen (McCullough) Christian. At the time of her birth, her parents were living in a sheep wagon on the Ira Lamb ranch where her dad worked. She got her very own drawer in the wagon as her first bassinet. Jani attended Lusk elementary and middle schools and graduated from Niobrara County High School. She was an avid supporter of school events, traveling across the state to attend a variety of extra-curricular activities. She was active in student government and was a page on the floor of the Wyoming Senate in High School.

After Graduation, Jani went to San Diego, CA to meet her "pen pal" David, who was arriving home from Vietnam. Not long after, she married David Allen Lerback from West Allis, WI. He was a Navy Corpsman and eventually an officer in the Air Force. They moved with his military career from California to Maine and several places in-between. They finally settled in Rapid City, SD, where she made her home for the remainder of her life.

Jani had three children: Christian, Jennifer, and Andrew; they were the light of her life. Anyone who knew her got to hear about their escapades growing-up and then, later in life, their successes. The only thing that trumped the love for her kids was the love she had for her grandkids. A plaque on the wall in her house states "If I had known grandkids were so much fun, I would have had them first!" She was both a nurse and a granny when she was present for all of their births.

Jani's second love was nursing. She graduated from Casper College with her LPN degree and first practiced in Cheyenne. She was a nurse at several different hospitals across the country learning and practicing in many different specialties from family practice and labor & delivery to emergency medicine. The latter providing many stories of entertainment and of caution to her children growing-up. She received her RN from Dakota Wesleyan University. Later that year, she began her specialty focus on the care of premature babies. She started working at Rapid City's Bennett-Clarkson Hospital and moved to Rapid City Regional when it opened in its current location. She was instrumental in helping to build what became the best Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in the central northwest; caring for babies from SD, ND, WY, NE, and MT. She also helped to form the transport teams that took ambulances (and later, airplanes and helicopters) to go get sick babies from surrounding communities for care in Rapid City. Her time in the NICU left a lasting impression on the families she met there; many of whom would stop her on the street or in the mall to introduce her to their now teenage child she had cared for years prior.

She obtained further, specialty education on breast-feeding and became a Certified Lactation Consultant. This was a skill she often took to the homes of new moms in a continued effort to improve the health of the babies they had just gone home with. Although going on home-visits in the evenings after a shift at the hospital wasn't always her first choice on how to spend her time, she LOVED the success she got to see in those new moms and babies! And this skill wasn't just for patient's families but one that was well utilized by her own family, friends, her children's families and many of their friends as well.

In 1997, Jani retired from RCRH to pursue different interests. She moved to Laramie to fulfil a lifelong dream of graduating from the University of Wyoming. In 2002, she did that, receiving her Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN). She then spent the next several years as a traveling nurse all around the country. Some of the most memorable locations were Las Vegas NV, Corona CA, and caring for victims of Hurricane Katrina in Texas. She took many of these travel assignments with her daughter who is also a Registered Nurse. They were a great team and with her NICU background and Jennifer's Labor & Delivery background, the travel agencies occasionally had bidding wars in an effort to get them into their hospitals.

After nearly ten years of traveling, Jani returned home to retire again. This lasted approximately six-months, at which point, she accepted a nursing faculty position in the LPN program at Western Dakota Technical Institute. Within a year, she was Director of the nursing program there and held that position for two years. Being around education, she decided to become a student again. She enrolled in the "Doctor of Nursing Practice" program through the west-river campus of South Dakota State University.

In 2016, she was having abdominal pain and went to the hospital to find she needed to have her gallbladder removed. During this procedure, the area was too inflamed to remove the gallbladder. Drain tubes were placed and antibiotics given with a plan to revisit in a month. Unfortunately, samples sent to the lab after the initial procedure showed cancer in her gallbladder. More unfortunate, was that by placing the drain tubes, the cancer was given a route to invade her entire abdomen. She was told of the severity of this type of cancer and it was suggested that she go home and get on hospice care. Jani, however, was not one to accept negative advice, especially negative medical advice without doing some of her own research. She was a gifted researcher and a tireless advocate; skills which have, quite literally, proven life-saving to many patients, family members, and friends. Her research this time took her to Andrew's house in Ohio for a drive with him to Roswell Park Cancer Center i n Buffalo, New York to seek treatment from experts there. She would explain "providers here might see one case like this in any given year; I'm going to seek help from a provider who sees several of these cases every day." She found a care team in New York that managed her case and helped provide her with over five additional years of quality life with a diagnosis that would have killed her in a few months if left untreated.

She made the most of these years by spending a lot of time with her family in Rapid City as well as making several trips to Ohio to be with Andrew and his family. She also went ahead and finished her Doctorate; graduating, with honors, in 2019. She passed her boards to become a Certified Family Nurse Practitioner the following year. She also put on her teacher's hat again and started taking nursing students through their clinical instruction at local medical facilities.

Throughout her life, Jani was also active in many organizations; Jobs Daughters, Sigma Theta Tau Sorority, P.E.O., ECW and the Altar Guild at her church, Al-Anon, ACoA, and The American Nurses Association, where she made many life-long friends.

Jani touched many lives. She was not only willing to help others but often reached out to offer her expertise to anyone that she heard might be in need. She taught so many nurses; nurses that have not only gone on to improve the quality of people's medical care but to teach this care and compassion to yet another generation of nurses after them. She also set a strong enough example that her daughter and first-born granddaughter followed her down that career path. A look through posts and comments on her Facebook page will shed a small light on just how big her circle of influence has been.

Jani is survived by her son Christian and his children Kylee (Sam) Bonnecroy, Collin and Colt; Daughter Jennifer (Marc) Feliz and their children Sammy, Mary, Clara, and Marc II; and son Andrew (Edie) and their children Roslyn, and Nash; and her dog, Charlie, now living in Ohio.  She was preceded in death by her parents and her husband.

A visitation for Jani will be held on Friday, July 30, 2021 at Osheim & Schmidt Funeral Home from 4:00 pm until 6:00 pm.

A Eucharist will be offered at 10:00 am on Saturday, July 31, 2021 at Emmanuel Episcopal Church.  Inurnment in the Emmanuel Episcopal Memorial Garden will take place immediately after the funeral and will be followed by a reception in the Parish Hall of the church.

A memorial has been established.

Friends may sign her online guest register and view her full obituary at www.osheimschmidt.com .