SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2022 | HEART | PROGRESS 2022 | ALBERTLEATRIBUNE.COM | PAGE 11
Asya Ozdemir started at Bonnerup Funeral Service started in May 2021 as a licensed funeral director and location manager. SARAH STULTZ/ALBERT LEA TRIBUNE
HELPING FAMILIES IN TIMES OF NEED ALBERT LEA’S FUNERAL HOMES HAVE SEEN LOTS OF CHANGES IN RECENT YEARS
By the numbers
60
By Sarah Stultz
sarah.stultz@albertleatribune.com
For many years, the funeral industry has been passed down from one generation to the next, oftentimes dominated by men. However, according to the National Funeral Home Directors Association, more than 60% of students studying mortuary science nowadays are women, and a majority of mortuary school graduates no longer come from families that ran funeral homes. Asya Ozdemir, who is the location manager and a funeral director at Bonnerup Funeral Service, is an example of this statistic. Ozdemir, 27, said she has always enjoyed science, anatomy and biology classes in school and originally thought she wanted to be a nurse. She became a certified nursing assistant, and said while she enjoyed it, she couldn’t see herself retiring from the job. Around the same time, she found out her grandmother’s health was declining, and she and her mother got on a plane and traveled to her family’s native country of Turkey, getting there just before her grandmother passed away. “That’s when it opened up my eyes about helping families in a
Percent of students studying mortuary science who are women, according to the National Funeral Home Directors Association
2021 Year Asya Ozdemir started at Bonnerup Funeral Service as a funeral director and location manager
3 Bonnerup Funeral Service is at 2210 E. Main St. in Albert Lea. different way,” Ozdemir said. “I came back home and said what can I do with this?” At first, she considered becoming a medical examiner and then an investigator before she started researching about becoming a mortician or funeral director. She called one of her friends whose grandmother was a florist for a funeral home and asked her if she could connect her with a funeral director to shadow. “I just knew right there I wanted to do this,” she said. So she attended the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
and earned a bachelor’s degree in mortuary science. After college, she started an internship in Owatonna and then went back north to Cottage Grove to finish up her internship and worked there for a 3 1/2 years as a licensed funeral director at Kok Funeral Home, which is owned by Vertin, the parent company that also owns Bonnerup Funeral Service. She stayed there until the opportunity came up in Albert Lea in 2021 to be not only a funeral director but also the location manager at the funeral home. Ozdemir, who now lives in
Albert Lea, said her duties as a director include a large variety, such as receiving the initial call when a person dies, meeting with families to plan arrangements and services, helping pick out headstones, planning graveside services and lining up plans with cemeteries. She also does embalming of the deceased individuals who come into the facility. But she said it doesn’t end there. “One day we’re calling an electrician, or calling a plumber,” she said. “One day I’m a therapist, a friend.” She helps two others plan
Years Josh Fossum has been a funeral director and manager at Bayview/Freeborn Funeral Home
aftercare activities for families who have lost loved ones, does billing and other tasks like washing cars and even cleaning. She also is a teacher for two students who have been coming in to learn more about the industry and are in school to become a funeral director. Ozdemir said she graduated with 30 people from the U of M program.
See FUNERAL, Page 16
PAGE 12 | ALBERTLEATRIBUNE.COM | PROGRESS 2022 | HEART | SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2022
Over 3 decades in the A.L. district By Alex Guerrero
alex.guerrero@albertleatribune.com
Hawthorne Elementary second-grade teacher Pam Jacobsen has been a teacher for 34 years, and every single one of them has been in the Albert Lea school district. You could say education is in her blood. “Both of my parents were in education,” she said. “My dad was a middle school band director and my mom was the secretary at the elementary school, and I always just enjoyed working with kids and being creative about how you deliver curriculum to them.” So it made sense that, following graduation in Cloquet, she’d major in education while at St. Cloud State. She also has a master’s in education from the University of Minnesota. Currently, she’s working on a new science curriculum that’s more hands-on. “Right now our topic is plant and animal
relationships,” she said. To help them understand these relationships, she has asked students to build models of trees and had them use flashlights — serving as the sun — to show how shade can affect tree growth.” She is also having her students read and do math. “For reading we spend some time in a whole group reading good literature and then doing a comprehension skill with it,” she said. Students will then move into small groups, working with Jacobsen in guided reading and/or intervention work. They’ll also read independently for 20 minutes. Part of their work will involve working off a menu where they have the option to choose either a reading or writing activity they can do either independently or with a partner. Second-grade teacher Pam Jacobsen holds up “The Word Collector,” one of the many books available in her classroom She also implements a at Hawthorne Elementary. Jacobsen has taught in the district for 34 years. ALEX GUERRERO/ALBERT LEA TRIBUNE phonics program that will integrate into small group Since the pandemic start- on responsive classroom she has learned to adapt and sending a lot of texts work. ed, she has spent more time work, building relationships the classroom and ensure and that personal contact and ensuring students are enough space between with parents,” Jacobsen mentally healthy. students. said. “I have this year a worry Another change has been But the added work jar, and if the kids have a the amount of absences minimizes the time she worry they put the worry among students, which in can spend on parent letters. into the jar to kind of let turn have made her pre- She expressed some frusgo of that worry, so we’re pare at-home lessons her tration that masks made really adapting a lot of what students, as well as their it harder to communicate we do so that our kids feel parents, can do at home. with students, and said the happy and safe at school Her parent-teacher pandemic has led to more and know that this is a place communication skills also interventions in reading they want to be,” she said. improved. and math. Speaking of adaptation, “I like the phone calls
By the numbers
34
2 Number of Jacobsen’s parents in education
25
Years Jacobsen has been a teacher
Years Jacobsen has taught second grade at Hawthorne Elementary
Pam Jacobsen has taught second grade at Hawthorne Elementary School for 25 years. TRIBUNE FILE PHOTO
Nobody covers
HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS
like the
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2022 | HEART | PROGRESS 2022 | ALBERTLEATRIBUNE.COM | PAGE 13
SUPPORTING STUDENTS WHERE THEY NEED IT By Alex Guerrero
alex.guerrero@albertleatribune.com
COVID-19 might have paused typical school operations, but it hasn’t stopped Tonya Franks, principal at Halverson Elementary, from striving for more — even after distance-learning became the norm in the spring of 2020 and after the district adopted a four-day model during most of last year. Instead, she’s thinking about what needs improvement. “When I came here a number of years ago we were looking at working through a process to improve our students’ performance,” Franks said. “My work has been focused on looking at what our students need and responding to our data appropriately.” And for the past couple of years, Franks has been focused on a multi-tiered system of supports that looks at academic data and uses interventions to help with needs. “Those could be in reading or in math, and that is specifically responding to data,” she said. “So if a student’s data says that they’re needing additional support in phonics then we make sure that we find an intervention that maybe works on word blending. Maybe it works on isolated phonemic sounds.” She admitted the halted school schedule caused learning loss and that she wasn’t seeing yearly growth in every student. Franks emphasized the need to saturate resources and ensure everybody available was in the correct place and used the school’s intervention reading program — Respect, Ownership, Acceptance and Readiness — as an example. “During that reading time I look at who’s available to help,” she said. “I have my classroom teachers available, I have educational assistants available to help, I have success
Tonya Franks, principal at Halverson Elementary, has big ambitions for her school. ALEX GUERRERO/ALBERT LEA TRIBUNE coaches available to help that speak Spanish and Karen … I pull all of my resources together, determine whose available to help and then assign interventions to
students with the help of my resource specialists and instructional coach.” Another idea she’s focused on was meeting students’ social and emotional
needs with a particular focus on younger students in first and second grades who haven’t known anything except pandemicmodified learning, which meant always wearing a mask, shortened school weeks and exposure to virtual learning. “They just don’t have the stamina to be students like they did prior to the pandemic,” she said. “They’ve never had the experience to
be a full-time student from bell to bell.” To help with that, she and her team have developed a specific curriculum. “That’s provided consistent language in the classroom but also throughout our building,” she said. “It’s having common language for how we’re addressing our student needs.” Franks is also embarking on the high reliability schools process, and the
school is already certified level one. “It’s putting the right people in a position to do the best work that they’re able,” she said. Franks has been with the Albert Lea school district for almost 20 years and has served as a principal for seven years. This is her fourth at Halverson. Before arriving in Albert Lea, she had worked for two years in Mankato.
By the numbers
4
4
2
Days of in-person learning in a typical school week last year; Fridays were used for distancelearning so buildings could be thoroughly cleaned
Years Franks has been principal at Halverson Elementary School
Years Franks worked in Mankato prior to moving to Albert Lea
Thank you for supporting local journalism. www.albertleatribune.com • 507-373-1411 808 West Front Street • Albert Lea, MN
PAGE 14 | ALBERTLEATRIBUNE.COM | PROGRESS 2022 | HEART | SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2022
Roger Fears from First Lutheran Church in Albert Lea helped launch the Fusion program, an afterschool program for school children. ALEX GUERRERO/ALBERT LEA TRIBUNE
A.L.’s First Lutheran begins program focused on faith formation for youth By the numbers
By Alex Guerrero
alex.guerrero@albertleatribune.com
Roger Fears, co-pastor at First Lutheran Church, is starting to settle into life in Albert Lea after almost seven months on the job. “I’ve been blessed to be called as pastor here at First Lutheran,” he said. He described Albert Lea as the perfect size for him, his wife, Heather, and their three children. “I grew up on a farm and I’ve also lived in larger cities, and Albert Lea’s a great mix where you have just about anything you could possibly need, but at the same time there’s not rush hour traffic either,” he said. But it was while he was listening to a presentation from the synod office for this area of Minnesota that the area really appealed to him, particularly a pitch for a faith-formation program called Fusion. “Before I got here, there were some surveys that were done,” he said. “We wanted to know how we could better serve the people in our congregation.” One suggestion was to have worship services outside of traditional Sunday mornings to accommodate those who couldn’t attend. “We started playing around with this idea of moving the programming to Wednesdays, and what it would look like to have a mid-week service for our education programs and a worship service and a meal … for people that gather,” he said. And what started off as a daydream became more
121 Children signed up for the Wednesday Fusion program, though the number continues to grow each week
4 Years Fears has served as a pastor
3 Children Fears and his wife have
Students line up for snacks as part of the Fusion program at First Lutheran Church. The program was started this fall by Roger Fears, a new pastor in the area. tangible, and Fears and his team began planning for such a service. Fears would have been happy with 30 children during that first Fusion service in September. “Here we are a few months into it, and we have 121 kids from kindergarten through sixth grade signed up,” he said. During those Wednesdays, children are dropped off by a bus from their schools. “When they get here they go into some free playtime
and some snack time,” he said. “Then they go into their classroom time.” During that class time, children learn about faith and music. Following that, children are broken up again by grades before a meal is served. Anyone is invited to attend. And at 6:30 p.m., First Lutheran staff lead a 30minute worship service. “It’s something we want to make exciting and informal, but yet at the same time very Lutheran,” he
Signe Winter, left, and Piper Balfe eat snacks during the Fusion program at First Lutheran Church.
said. “All the pieces are there, they just look a little bit different sometimes.” Confirmation classes for seventh, eighth and ninth graders follow that. This is the first year the church has held Fusion. “We’ve really gone in this collaborative direction in a way that emphasizes community and that each one of us has an important place in that community,” he said. The first-ever Fusion program was the largest-attended service for the week,
and Fears said they’ve had services with upwards of 225 to 250 people. “A lot of students take parts in that worship,” he said. “They serve as readers, as acolytes to light candles, as prayer leaders. It’s a service that definitely pulls a number of people.” Jenny Edwin, education director at First Lutheran Church, was thrilled with what has been happening. “It has far exceeded our hopes,” she said. “It has been extremely positive.
We’ve always had a large number of kids come to Sunday school here, but seeing this number come on a consistent basis has been a very wonderful surprise.” She said because Fusion happens in the afternoons, students come with more energy, and the two hours (as opposed to one) gives their team more time to do things. The program has also helped busy families who might do other things on the weekends. Fears attended ministerial school at Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa, and received his undergraduate at Grand View in Des Moines.
Students in the Fusion program at First Lutheran were on the playground across the street from the church during a recent Wednesday.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2022 | HEART | PROGRESS 2022 | ALBERTLEATRIBUNE.COM | PAGE 15
Donna Lair of Lake Mills has volunteered for sports programs in both Forest City and Lake Mills for a combined 41 years. In early February she was honored in-between games with a “Friend of the School” award for her service from the Iowa High School Athletic Association. SARAH STULTZ/ALBERT LEA TRIBUNE
‘She loves working with kids’
Lake Mills woman has volunteered at sports games for a total of 41 years “Donna has been one of By the our most important event numbers workers over the years as she By Sarah Stultz
sarah.stultz@albertleatribune.com
LAKE MILLS — A woman who was recognized in early February for her volunteer efforts with the Lake Mills sports program said she enjoys volunteering because it is a way to give back to the youth in her community. Donna Lair said she started volunteering 41 years ago when she worked as a teacher in Forest City. At that time, teachers were required to volunteer at two events for the school, so she got involved — not only with the two required events but many others. When she came to the Lake Mills district, her volunteer efforts continued and she signed up to volunteer at all of the middle school games. “It kept me in touch with the kids,” she said. She was a special education teacher and didn’t have many of the other students in her classroom. “It was a good way for me to get to know them and get to know me for something other than as a teacher,” she said. Lair said she left teaching for a few years and cooked at the Turtle Dove Teahouse in Albert Lea
before returning as an onstaff substitute teacher and then a learner assistant. The volunteering, of course, resumed, too. “It was fun still to get to know the kids,” she said. Over the years she has volunteered as a scorekeeper for middle school volleyball, a bookkeeper for boys and girls basketball at the middle school level and a wrestling announcer at the middle school. She has also announced at high school wrestling tournaments and at both middle school and high school boys and girls track meets. Though she took another break three years ago when she had a liver transplant, she has since returned and is still involved in numerous activities. “Donna has been one of our most important event workers over the years as she has volunteered to work at a number of middle school events,” said Lake Mills Athletic Director Jim Boehmer in his application to the Iowa High School Athletic Association for Lair’s award. “These are often the toughest jobs to fill.” Boehmer said Lair has been willing to do any job from being the official scorer of a basketball game
has volunteered to work at a number of middle school events. These are often the toughest jobs to fill.”
— Lake Mills Athletic Director Jim Boehmer to being the announcer at a wrestling meet and jobs in-between. “She loves working with kids and providing them with opportunities to participate,” he said. Lair said she had no idea she was going to be given the award and came to the game Feb. 1 after Boehmer called and asked if she could help at a varsity game that evening. “I figured there must be something he needed me to do, or he couldn’t find somebody else,” she said. Between the games that night, he started talking about the award and then the next thing she knew, he called Lair to come down and receive the award. “I was very surprised and very honored,” she said. “I
just like doing it because I like doing it for the kids.” Though Lair retired in 2017, she can be seen at the school at least a couple nights a week, depending on how many home games there are that week.
Other involvement in the community
Lair’s volunteer work at the school continues into other areas in her life, as well. As a member of Asbury United Methodist Church, she has served on the Staff Parish Relations Committee for 15 years, is the church council secretary, taught Sunday school and has been a part of the church’s Thanksgiving meal committee, which served a meal to over
250 people last year on Thanksgiving. She is also the site coordinator and on the national board for Sheltered Reality, a drum group that aims to put good back into the world. She has also been involved in the Mills Players, Lake Mills’ community theater group, and hopes to get the group revitalized again.
‘It’s addictive’
Before Lair got married 36 years ago, she said she had a breakdown in her classroom. She dealt with many emotional kids, and she said one day she walked in and started crying. She went and got some therapy, where she was reminded to make herself a priority, too. She was clinically diagnosed with depressive tendencies. “When I find myself going there, giving back to others it really brings back more to you than you could ever realize because I’m concentrating on other people, not on me,” she said. She reminded people that volunteering doesn’t have to be a big time commitment — it could involve working at a food shelf
3
Years since Lair had a liver transplant
2017 Year Lair retired from the Lake Mills school district
15 Years Lair served on the Staff Parish Relations Committee at Asbury United Methodist Church
two hours once a month, reading to children at a school once a week, making mittens or starting a food drive. “It’s finding a need and seeing how you can do something about it,” Lair said. “It’s addictive.” Lair and her husband, Lynn, have one daughter, Kelli, who graduated in 2010.
Lake Mills Athletic Director Jim Boehmer recognizes Donna Lair with the “Friend of the School” award through the Iowa High School Athletic Association on Feb. 1 for her dedication and support of school activities in the district. PHOTO COURTESY LORY GROE
PAGE 16 | ALBERTLEATRIBUNE.COM | PROGRESS 2022 | HEART | SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2022
our challenge, our future Albert Lea’s challenge: • Upgrade our wastewater treatment plant • Plant processes 3.5 million gallons of wastewater every day from sinks, toilets, tubs and factories • Treated water is discharged to the Shell Rock River
7,300 residential & commercial customers 10 major industries employing 1,600+ people
Our plant is 40 years old and needs upgrading The State of Minnesota is requiring an 85% decrease in phosphorus pollution
Josh Fossum has been a funeral director and manager of Bayview/Freeborn Funeral Home for three years. SARAH STULTZ/ALBERT LEA TRIBUNE
FUNERAL Continued from Front Page
Cost of upgrade: $60 million
$$$
To keep rates affordable, the City is asking the Minnesota Legislature for $30 million toward the upgrade
Help us meet this challenge
For more information:
www.cityofalbertlea.org/wwtp
works for him now sent him a link to the job opening for the director/manager position, and he applied, never having been to Albert Lea. He has no family background in the industry but looked into the position initially because it is a profession that is different every day.
“This program used to be much older, more male dominant,” she said. “It’s definitely switched — it’s more women and younger women.” She said the job is a rewarding one, though it does have its challenges, particularly when she is helping families of sensitive deaths, such as the death of a child or a suicide. “When you don’t know them it does make it a little easier, but we’re also human, we’re going to cry, and that’s not a bad thing,” she said. Though Bonnerup is presently a few funeral — Bayview/ directors short right now, Ozdemir wanted to let the Freeborn Funeral community know she is Home Manager still there to help families Josh Fossum in need. “It might not be some of “I like that it’s a constant the same faces you’re used to, but we’re still here,” she change,” he said. He was one of 19 in his said. graduating class from the University of Minnesota, ‘A member of your and one of only four from family for about a his class who are still in the week’ Josh Fossum started profession. Fossum, though only in at Albert Lea’s Bayview/ Freeborn Funeral Home his 40s, is presently the about three years ago and oldest funeral director at now works as both a funeral Bayview. He said the fudirector and manager of the neral home recently had another director in his 20s and funeral home. Fossum said he was a also has Dominic Krezowsfuneral director at a St. ki, who is in his 30s. Another Paul funeral home and was intern, who is working as poised to manage a larger support staff right now, is funeral home until the getting licensed to be a dicompany restructured and rector and will start in that the position he was being position soon, along with a trained for was no longer student in his mid-20s, once there. he finishes his degree. “My options were stay “There’s a lot of turnover there where I could be a fu- in the funeral industry right neral director, or try to find now,” Fossum said. somewhere where I could He said a lot of funeral have some sort of leader- home owners are getting ship position,” he said. old and are looking for a One of his directors who line of succession, and not
“You get to serve families in a lot of capacities a lot of jobs just don’t do.”
everyone’s child wants to be in the business. He noted he thinks there are less second generation owners because of how difficult the job is. “We’re on call 24 hours a day,” he said. “We miss birthdays, holidays … it isn’t always appealing. “There are obviously rewards to this job, but going out at 3 a.m. is difficult, especially when it’s 11 below zero.” It is also an emotional job, he said, as being around people who experience death everyday can wear on people, though he tries to remind his directors it is OK to laugh and smile. Fossum said Bayview is a full-service funeral home, offering everything from traditional burials, cremations, headstones, monuments and prearrangement services, among other services. “We get to be a member of your family for about a week,” he said. “You get to serve families in a lot of capacities a lot of jobs just don’t do.” He enjoys working in a city the size of Albert Lea, where he can go downtown and see someone he served. “Even then you’re still being thanked,” he said. “It’s nice to see these people, versus in the Cities you serve someone and never see them again. It’s a little colder.” He enjoys building relationships with families and helping make the process as easy for families as he can as they continue with their grieving process. “We answer our phones 24 hours a day, and when anybody needs anything, we’re more than happy to assist,” Fossum said. “It’s kind of just what we do.” Fossum and his wife, Chastity, together have seven children.
Bayview/Freeborn Funeral Home is at 1415 Minnesota Highway 13 N. in Albert Lea. SARAH STULTZ/ALBERT LEA TRIBUNE
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2022 | SECTION NAME | PROGRESS 2022 | ALBERTLEATRIBUNE.COM | PAGE 17
Changes in the heart of downtown Albert Lea during the last year
Man Between the Lakes, a store with men’s clothing and gift items, opened last spring in downtown Albert Lea at 119 S. Broadway. SARAH STULTZ/ALBERT LEA TRIBUNE
The Funky Zebras boutique moved from the strip mall near Walmart to downtown Albert Lea at 220 W. Clark Street.
FARMING MEANS FLEXIBILITY. Adapting to weather conditions, being dedicated to the land, and adopting new technologies. Let’s grow together. How can CCFBank make more possible for you?
Demolition and renovations have begun at the former VFW building and the neighboring building at the intersection of Newton Avenue and Clark Street to turn the space into apartments.
www.ccf.us/agdreams
The old water tower on the corner of Newton Avenue and Fountain Street was demolished last fall and preparations began for the new tower, which is expected to start going up this year.
PAGE 18 | ALBERTLEATRIBUNE.COM | PROGRESS 2022 | SECTION NAME | SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2022
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