Adrianna Celia “AD” Piernick was born July 20, 1961, in Penn Hills, Penn. She was the third child of Anthony and Lois Rosena who were residing in Penn Hills at the time. They later moved to Williamstown, W.V., where her dad was a renowned artist and designed many popular pieces for Fenton Art Glassware based out of Williamstown.
She spent the rest of her childhood in Williamstown, where her family put down roots and became respected members of the community. Throughout her childhood she became very close with Tammy Woodard. The two of them became virtually inseparable, from grade school up through high school and even beyond to the time of Adrianna’s passing. She graduated from Williamstown High School in 1979 and decided to pursue a degree in art at the University of West Virginia in Morgantown. That dream was cut short by the sudden death of her older brother Anthony J. Rosena Jr. and the plans they shared together just didn’t seem the same, so she decided to hang up her education and pursue a career in the workforce instead.
She returned home to Williamstown and began working in the gift shop of Fenton Art Glassware, where she worked as a cashier as well as taking visitors on a tour of the facility which she took a lot of pride in due to her extensive family’s history there. As she continued her career, she met and fell in love with Van W. Hill of Williamstown and they were married in 1981. From this marriage, came their only child, a son, Van R. Hill, who now resides in Kinnear, Wyo., with his wife, Maggie, and their two children, Josie and Brodie.
As life would have it though, their marriage grew apart and then in 1991 she met the love of her life Roman C. Piernick of Big Piney, Wyo. They spent the next three years traveling around the country chasing drilling rigs until they decided to return to Rock’s hometown of Big Piney and start up a new venture, Rocky Mountain Propane. They started from scratch and over the course of the next 11 years of working side by side they grew this dream into a very profitable business until its sale in the fall of 2005. Throughout this crazy adventure, they found the time to tie the knot in the summer of 1999 and with this union a blended family began with the addition of two adult children from his previous marriage, Lisa Ames and Rocky C. Piernick Jr. Even though they were only related by marriage, she never looked at it that way and always loved them like they were her own.
However, this was not the end of her ventures. She couldn’t stand to sit idly by so she began to dabble in selling a few items of clothing and jewelry online until 2007 when a spark was lit in her soul and she doubled down on the clothing industry and the dream of Cowgirl Chique and the Whispering Pines store in Pinedale came to life. She invested countless hours finding the newest trends and products to make sure her “girls” were always taken care of and had various styles and products to choose from. Because of her efforts and hard work, she became very successful with this new business and had clients all around the country, many of which became close friends over the years. She continued this dream all the way up until her untimely death in 2021.
Adrianna is preceded in death by her grandparents, Anthony and Celia Rosena of Van Vorhiss, Penn., and Arthur and Alice Black of Charleroi, Penn., her parents, Anthony J. and Lois, brother Anthony J. Rosena, Jr., sister Gina Shifflet, brother-in-law Robin Miley and mother-in-law Flora Miley. She is survived by her husband Rocky Piernick Sr., children Van (Maggie) Hill, Rocky Piernick Jr., Lisa Ames, five grandchildren, Chance, Shelby, Elayna, Josie and Brodie, one sister Cyndi Huff and one brother John (Joann) Rosena, brother-in-laws Kenny (Burnnie) Piernick, Randal (Heidi) Piernick, sister-in-law Ola Miley as well as numerous nieces, nephews and great-nieces and nephews.
Funeral services took place at 1 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021, at the Plainview Cemetery in Big Piney followed by a luncheon at the Fellowship Hall next to the Community Congregational Church in Big Piney.
