VOELKER FAMILY MAKES THE MOST OF LIFE IN TEA

By Bob Fitch

Tea has changed a lot in the past 20 years In fact, the city’s population has grown by 400 percent since the days Casey and Jessica Voelker were growing up just outside of the town.

Casey’s parents, Rob and Wanda Voelker, live northwest of Tea Jessica’s parents, Doug and Linda Vanderwerf, farm west of Tea Jessica graduated from Lennox High School in 2003 and then completed the radiology program at Avera McKennan Casey graduated from LHS in 2004 and then graduated from USD They were married in 2009 “We lived in Harrisburg for a couple of years,” said Casey “But we found ourselves driving over here every weekend We kept going to church in Tea and we were here on weekends visiting family.”

While Tea has grown and changed in many ways since the early 2000s, one thing hasn’t changed – Tea is still a great place to raise a family “We knew we wanted to be back here when we started raising a family,” he said.

They returned to Tea In 2012 . Their family includes two daughters, Emery, 13, and Jaina, 8; and their son, Brady, 11 Each child has unique traits, but one thread runs through all “We are a wrestling family,” said Jessica “Brady started wrestling young When girls wrestling was sanctioned, Emery joined in Now our youngest, Jaina, is following suit . Emery wrestles for the varsity team and she made it to state ” Casey continued, “Wrestling nurtures a competitive spirit and fosters mental resilience It’s an intense sport, physically and mentally Wrestlers develop a mental toughness that extends beyond the mat.”

Emery is also in volleyball, track and FFA According to Casey, “She is very driven She’s got a very entrepreneurial mindset and is always looking for a project or some business venture She doesn’t go halfway – she goes all in ” Her interests range from raising chickens to creating a business called EmScrubStudios (find her on Facebook at Emscrubstudios) Sugar scrubs are exfoliators utilizing sugar crystals to remove dead skin cells that may obscure healthy skin cells beneath Sugar scrubs are known to be gentle on skin.

Jessica said, “Linda (Kokenge) at Zooks has really taken Emery under her wing Zooks has a program called Kid Biz in the summertime Linda helps kids learn about business and she has a few events a year she promotes where she helps set the kids up outside with their products Em has learned a lot from Kid Biz.”

“Brady is very into sports,” Casey said . “He’s athletic and a natural leader He’s competitive and always trying to be a leader on his team It doesn’t matter if we’re playing football or tic tac toe, he wants to win He tries to be a good teammate If someone is feeling down, he’s always trying to build them up ” Besides wrestling, Brady also plays football, basketball and baseball.

Their youngest, Jaina, is very social “She can make friends anywhere She can hop into a group of kids 10 years older than her and she’ll just act like she’s supposed to be there,” said Casey Jaina wrestles plus plays basketball, volleyball and soccer “Kids have endless energy We take them from one sport to another to the next That doesn’t bother them a bit,” he said Both parents volunteer time as coaches.

According to Jessica, “In the summertime, we take a break from sports, except Brady is trying baseball But we like to take the summer to reconnect as a family We go camping and fishing ” The kids also enjoy events that help Tea maintain its small town atmosphere, such as Teapot Days (traditionally on Father’s Day weekend), Jingle Bell Boxes and Tea Cleanup Day.

X-RAYS AND BIG TIRES

Besides running kids around town, coaching, and volunteering at Trinity Lutheran Church, Jessica and Casey stay plenty busy with their careers Jessica is a radiologic technologist for Sanford in Sioux Falls . Following Covid, she moved her career out of the hospital proper to the Vandemark building across from Sanford while she is still actively taking x-rays, her role is more administrative now, coordinating workflow between the main hospital and smaller outlying hospitals that serve communities in the tri-state area.

Casey is an operations manager for Pomp’s Tire Service, a commercial tire dealer for large trucks in fields such as sanitation and construction . He travels in the north central states helping stores with whatever they need to “keep the trains running on time ” He also volunteers for Junior Achievement and is a high school football referee.

A PRO-BUSINESS COMMUNITY

“When Jessica and I moved home to Tea, we knew we weren’t going to move anywhere else,” said Casey “We knew this is where our kids would grow up With all the growth happening, I knew the Tea of the future wasn’t going to be the Tea that we grew up in – and I wanted to have some say in the decisions and changes that were going to happen So I got involved.”

He was elected to the Tea City Council in 2017, became council president in 2020, and was elected mayor in 2022 Council members inevitably disagree on some topics “But every single one of us has agreed on one thing: We want to have slow, measured growth We want to grow at the right pace and in the right way Growth for growth’s sake has never been the goal.”

Looking back in time, when Tea formed its own school district, it was an opportunity to hit the “reset button ” The growth in population and the business sector coincided with the district’s formation and expansion It was a time to ask: Who are we as a town? (and) What do we want to be? “I think Tea has really found its identity in the past 20 years,” Casey said.

“We see many families from places like Howard or Parkston who are moving here to be close to their jobs in Sioux Falls Tea is a place that feels like home for people who come from small towns I think that’s part of Tea’s flavor .” Jessica added, “I think each neighborhood has its own little, small-town feeling, which is nice The kids can roam the neighborhood, playing with their friends.”

She also likes the number of locally-grown businesses that are thriving because Tea residents are actively supporting them “Look at Zooks or Revive Boutique I remember Lauriebelles starting out in the basement of a house Now look at her Businesses like these draw people to Tea.”

Bigger entities are taking notice, too . Orthopedic Institute is in the midst of building a two-story, 70,000-square-foot clinic and office in the Bakker Landing development.

According to Casey, “Tea has just shown itself to be a probusiness community We have sort of an adventurous, entrepreneurial bent to us as a town We broke off and started our own school district at a time when many school districts were combining . We’re not trying to follow in the footsteps of another city; we’re just trying to do things our own way The doctors at Orthopedics Institute are like that, too They could have just worked for Sanford or Avera, but they went their own way to operate independently.”