Women 360

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Women

360˚ A woman is the full circle. Within her is the power to create, nurture and transform. ­ — Diane Mariechild

Wendy Spry 2018 Woman of the Year

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INDEX WENDY SPRY..........................................................6 SOPHIA STRAND................................................ 16

SHAYNA RODEMAN.......................................... 20 TERI MILLER........................................................ 24 MISTY LAMPPA................................................... 26 WENDY FRITZ...................................................... 30

LINDA WIEDEWITSCH...................................... 32 JUDIE CHERRY................................................... 34 DIXIE JOHNSON................................................. 36 ANGIE BARNACK............................................... 38 CAROLINE EGENES........................................... 40 SUPPLEMENT TO THE TRIBUNE OCTOBER 28, 2018

PUBLISHED BY DL NEWSPAPERS

511 WASHINGTON AVENUE • DETROIT LAKES PHONE: 218-847-3151 FAX: 218-847-9409 • WWW.DL-ONLINE.COM PUBLISHER: MELISSA SWENSON mswenson@dlnewspapers.com

EDITOR: PAULA QUAM

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MAGAZINE EDITOR: MARIE JOHNSON mtjohnson@dlnewspapers.com

CREATIVE MANAGER: SARA LEITHEISER sleitheiser@dlnewspapers.com

MAGAZINE DESIGNER: LUANNA LAKE llake@dlnewspapers.com

CIRCULATION MANAGER: VIOLA ANDERSON violaa@dlnewspapers.com

A

From the editor...

mong the 11 women profiled in this 2018 issue of our annual Women 360 magazine, you’ll find teachers, retirees, business owners, volunteers, community leaders, mothers, daughters, friends and more. Their interests run the gamut from hot yoga and swing dancing to family time and quiet nights at home. Their ages span a wide range, from 11 to 100. They come from various backgrounds, religions, ideologies and walks of life.

Yet in spite of their differences, these women share a common thread that has woven them together for this magazine — they’re all extraordinary. In ways big and small, each one of these women represents the best of us. They possess qualities that we admire and strive for — strength, resilience, enthusiasm, joy, grit, ingenuity, generosity, persistence, power... and that’s just the beginning.

When we put out a call for Woman of the Year nominations on the Detroit Lakes Newspapers Facebook page in mid-September, we never expected such an overwhelming response. A steady stream of nominations came in through email and Facebook for days after that, and scores of people “liked” and “shared” the nominations they saw posted.

We were thrilled to see such an outpouring of support for our community’s amazing women, and were fortunate to see through this experience just how many of them are out there.

Truly, every woman nominated is making a difference in Detroit Lakes, and could rightfully be recognized as Woman of the Year. Narrowing down the long list of nominees, and inevitably having to scratch some names off of that, was the hardest part for us.

Some names were discarded simply because those women had already been featured in a previous issue of Women 360.

Others weren’t so much removed from the list as shifted onto another one that we’ve already started for next year’s magazine. Some women who were contacted declined to be featured. So the list got smaller, but there were still tough choices to make.

In the end, we decided on these 11 women both for their individual stories, which are all interesting and worthy in their own rights, as well as for the collective picture those individual stories paint — a picture of our community, of who we are, what we do and what we stand for. We are teachers, retirees, business owners, volunteers, community leaders, mothers, daughters, friends and much more. We possess strength, resilience, enthusiasm, joy, grit, ingenuity, generosity, persistence, power...and that’s just the beginning.

We hope you enjoy reading this magazine as much as we enjoyed putting it together. Thank you to everyone who submitted nominations for Woman of the Year.

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Detroit Lakes Newspapers would like to thank TLC Cleaning for their generous gift to the 2018 Woman of the Year

WENDY SPRY

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– Marie Johnson, Magazine Editor

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Woman of the Year:

Wendy Spry

Remarkable in every aspect of her life, this all-around unsung hero gives us a million little reasons to love her STORY BY MARIE JOHNSON

W

endy Spry had a hard time accepting this whole Woman of the Year thing.

When she got the call about it, a very surprised, tearful Spry just kept saying things like, “Why me?!” and “I don’t get it!” over and over again. She couldn’t believe it.

She didn’t think she did enough for the community to receive a title like Woman of the Year, she said. She didn’t think anyone would ever put her name into the nomination pool for something like that. She was nervous about putting herself out there with this story. She didn’t believe she deserved the recognition, and she almost didn’t want to accept it.

People close to Spry say it’s just like her to react that way. She has a habit of eschewing credit, and of shying away from praise, even when she’s obviously worthy of it.

Spry is described by those who know her best as a giving, caring, intelligent, remarkWOMEN 3600 | PAGE 7

Spry holds a framed photo of her family — the last photo taken before her husband Harry’s unexpected death from a heart attack in 2002. (Marie Johnson / Detroit Lakes Newspapers) woman with a great sense of humor and an infallible moral compass.

She’s not perfect, but she recognizes her mistakes, always tries to do her best, and pushes herself forward to survive the worst.

She’s a loving single mom to her three kids, a successful probation officer who treats her clients with respect and leads trainings across the state, a generous community and church volunteer, a beloved member of the White Earth Nation, and a devoted friend and family member who always puts others first, no matter how full her own schedule may be.

Spry’s not famous for any single big thing she’s done for the Detroit Lakes community; rather, she’s admired for doing a million little things. For being an all-around good person. A textbook example of the ordinary, extraordinary, unsung hero.

‘LITTLE THINGS MATTER’

Haverkamp, a teacher at Roosevelt Elementary School who has been Spry’s best friend since the third grade, says Spry watched out for her in those early days; she was sort of her protector, always having her back.

“She’s a very familyand friendsfirst person,” Haverkamp says.

“She – Wendy always cares for those around can be kind words. It can be letting her, and she’s always offering to people know that you’re thinking of help.”

Over the years, Spry has opened them. It can be, when you’re asked to do something, say ‘Yes!’ Don’t her door to various loved ones during be afraid. When you see something their times of need. She currently that’s not right, stand up to it and has a teenaged niece living with her, and she’s also playing an active role say something about it.”

Spry doesn’t just talk that talk in the care of her aging father. She — she actually walks the walk. Her did the same for her mother before friends say she’s one of the kindest her mother’s death in 2014. For and most thoughtful people they Spry, family is a top priority.

Born in Breckenridge, Minn., to know. She stands up for others, and she’s not afraid to do the right thing, Russell and Nancy Warren, Spry even when the right thing is the hard moved to White Earth — her mom’s childhood stomping grounds — when thing.

She’s always been like that. Deb she was eight years old. She spent the “One of the things I’ve always told my kids is, little things matter,” says Spry. “It doesn’t always have to be big. It can be being present, it

“What drives me? It goes back to service to others. It’s just at the root of everything I do. It’s service to my children. Service to my parents.

Service to others — whoever those may be. It can’t be just about me. I don’t know how to operate that way.”

PAGE 8 | WOMEN 3600

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passion for social justice. There was always room at the Warren house for anyone in need of a warm meal or a roof over their head, and Russell and Nancy’s generous natures made a deep and lasting impression on their daughter.

Despite the revolving door of new faces at the house, Spry says, “I always felt pretty safe and secure.

I’m pretty much related to everybody, so it was a really cool place to grow up, because you knew everybody and everybody knew you.”

After high school, Spry “took the seven-year route through college,” she laughs. She knew she liked law, and she also knew she wanted to make a difference in people’s lives, but pinpointing just the right career took some exploration. She worked as a legal secretary for awhile, and studied to be a paralegal, but after talking to a friend who was a probation officer, that’s when she knew she had found the right fit for her.

Probation officers work within the criminal justice system, meeting with offenders who are on probation to monitor their activities and, often, to help arrange things like rehab services and job trainings. To Spry, that sounded like a surefire way to make a positive impact on people, at a time in their lives when they could use it the most.

Spry’s been in probation for almost 25 years now, and has worked with hundreds upon hundreds of offenders.

She’s seen and heard it all — the Wendy, second from left, in a recent photo with her kids Samuel, Hannah and terrible, along with the wonderful Shelby, left to right. (Submitted Photo) — and through it all she’s never lost her passion for the work.

“I really seriously care about the rest of her youth there, graduating days or weeks at a time.

“My dad processed wild rice,” Spry people I’ve worked with over the from Waubun High School in 1983.

It was a good upbringing, she says. explains, “so people would bring years,” she says. “I’ve wanted them For the family’s first four months rice in to finish during the harvest. to do well — and not everyone has, in White Earth, while Russell built Before that, family from southern obviously… But you need to sepaa new house for his wife and three Minnesota would come up to do the rate the behavior from the people. children, they started out in a little ricing. So it seemed like we always When someone’s behavior is unsafe cabin with no electricity or run- had some relative of some sort stay- or illegal, or if it’s your kid being naughty, or whatevning water. They er the case, my mom used gas lamps, and always instilled their bathroom was in me that idea of an outhouse. But it the inherent worth wasn’t something to of a human being. complain about, Spry I always treat peosays: “It was fun! It – Deb Haverkamp, on her longtime friend Wendy ple with respect, no was an adventure.” matter the behavior, There was always and I hope I’ve always conveyed that a lot of activity around the Warren ing with us.”

Spry’s parents were well-known in my work and with the people I’ve house, with people constantly coming and going, and some staying for for being charitable people with a worked with over the years. That’s

“She always cares for those around her, and she’s always offering to help…

(Also) she is funny as heck.”

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certainly been my intent, anyway.”

Spry started her career as a support staffer at the Mahnomen County Attorney’s Office. It was thanks to her mentor, Greg Potvin, that she found her way to Detroit Lakes.

“I’ve known Wendy for at least 30 years,” Potvin says. “She’s an amazing individual. She’s a very caring person; she’s bright, she’s intuitive, she’s a learner and she wants to improve… She has a wonderful sense of humor, and that really goes a long way in helping establish relationships. I have great admiration for her.”

Potvin, who worked – Greg for the Department of Corrections, told Spry about a job opening as a secretary in the Detroit Lakes probation office. Spry got the job, and quickly advanced through the ranks. By December 1994, she was a lead agent for the department, a position she held for the next 12 years. It could be stressful, with difficult caseloads of as many as 200 clients at any given time, but overall Spry enjoyed the work. She was doing what she had set out to do — making a difference.

a wedding dance in Waubun in the mid-1980s. She saw him dancing and thought he was cute. He had an untied tie hanging around his neck, and when she asked him why, he explained with a smile that he didn’t know how to tie a tie, but he figured he still ought to wear one anyway — “you know, for the occasion.”

She learned that Harry was from a big family of 11, same as her

born in May of 2000. Things were good.

Then out of the blue, at work one day, Harry had a heart attack.

It was Dec. 31, 2001, and he and Spry were supposed to have dinner with friends that evening. Instead, they spent the night at the hospital, where Harry fought for his life.

Five days later, at the age of 43, he died at Fairview University Medical Center in Minneapolis, waiting for a heart transplant.

Spry was devastated.

Harry was the love of her life, the father of her children. She was 36 years old and suddenly mentor on her own. Her youngest, Samuel, wasn’t even two yet.

“Some people could have just folded up their tent right then,” says Potvin. “But she didn’t. She suffered the loss of her husband with three very small children and managed to raise those children into pretty incredible adults. She was pretty much a single mom and at the same time she was working full-time and handled the job, in my opinion, with great aplomb. She hung in there and did it all by herself. She’s an amazing individual.”

Spry says she felt like she had no choice but to “just pick up and keep going,” for her kids’ sake — and once she made up her mind to do so, she says, her stubbornness saw her through. She credits her faith, her friends and family, her church community at Holy Rosary Catholic Church, and the community as a whole for helping her get through that difficult time.

“It was just incredible, the outpouring of care and concern,” she says. “You just knew you weren’t alone.”

People came out in droves to help, offering to give the kids rides, cook meals for the family, babysit… whatever Spry needed. For several years, there was even an annual memorial golf tournament in Harry’s honor, the Harry Spry Open, with monies raised going into a scholarship fund for the kids.

“That was so generous and thoughtful, and so much fun,” recalls Spry of the tournament. “It made the kids feel really special, and

“She’s an amazing individual.

She’s a very caring person; she’s bright, she’s intuitive, she’s a learner and she wants to improve.”

‘SHE HUNG IN THERE’

Spry met her husband, Harry, at

Potvin, Wendy’s professional father, and she was smitten with his goofy sense of humor. They dated for seven years, and were married in 1992, at St. Benedict Catholic Church in White Earth.

They moved from Ogema to Detroit Lakes shortly after that, and had their first child, Shelby, in 1993.

Harry worked for Folz Builders, and Spry landed her lead agent job. They had their second daughter, Hannah, in 1996, and moved to a house on the edge of town in a neighborhood with lots of other kids for their girls to play with. Their son, Samuel, was

Wendy, far left, with her extended family at a Christmas party. Though she considers Detroit Lakes her home now, whenever she returns to White Earth to visit family, she says she’s always met with big hugs and smiles. Many stories are told, and laughs shared. (Submitted Photo) PAGE 12 | WOMEN 3600

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has a lot of value. She’s teaching an evidence-based approach to client interviews that’s intended to help offenders define their own strengths, address their own challenges, and self-motivate.

It’s the ultimate indicator of success when offenders don’t fall back into the system, she says, and she believes her work is helping to up their odds.

“I’ve always viewed my role in doing this as an advocate,” she says. “(As a probation officer) there’s a dual role of public safety through accountability, and also the other side of it — that we are really hoping and helping and doing what we can to help people make the changes Wendy, right, they need and want to make so that with her daughter Hannah in Versailles. Traveling is they can be successful.”

Haverkamp says Spry is usually one of Wendy’s biggest passions in “so busy she can hardly breathe,” “IT CAN’T BE JUST ABOUT ME” life. (Submitted Photo) but her humor helps cut through Spry has never forgotten the kindthe chaos: “Her job is stressful, ness and support she received from and she’s done it for so long, but the community after Harry’s death, and over the years she’s been paying as a minimum-risk group agent, she’s always maintained her sense Spry took a chance on a new gig a of humor — that’s never changed.” it forward whenever she can.

“She is funny as heck,” adds She’s been active at Holy Rosary, few years back — and it keeps her Haverkamp of her longtime friend. serving on fundraising committees pretty busy.

Spry is one of three Motivational “The thing I really like and enjoy and teaching Sunday School and Confirmation on-and-off. She’s served Interviewing skills trainers for the about her company is that she doesn’t on the Lakes Crisis & Resource Cen- Minnesota Department of Correc- take herself too seriously. She’s just fun to be ter board, and around.” has recentW h e n ly joined the she wants board of the to unwind, local Rotary Spry turns Club. She was to evening a volunteer at card games, the Ice Palace or better during this yet, travel, past winter’s when she’s Polar Fest, got some and rang the – Wendy, on working with criminal offenders vacation bell for the time.

Over Salvation Army. She’s also been a volunteer tions. The job was originally part of the years she’s been to Italy, Paris, a pilot program, but now has become Rome, and all along the east coast, for United Way. In the future, she says, she’d like a permanent position. It’s a leader- among many other destinations. ship role, one that’s shifting the way Travel is her biggest passion, she to do even more volunteering.

“I feel like I should do way more probation officers across the state says, second only to family and friends. than I do. I’ve been so fortunate to be talk to their clients.

“What drives me? It goes back to Spry and the other trainers work the recipient of so much from others,” she says. “I think it’s import- with Minnesota’s roughly 800 agents service to others,” she says. “It’s and caseworkers, holding in-per- just at the root of everything I do. ant to give whatever time you can.”

For Spry, spare time is usually in son and over-the-phone coaching It’s service to my children. Service short supply. After spending sev- sessions, attending trainings and to my parents. Service to others — eral years as an “enhanced agent,” meetings, and serving as resourc- whoever those may be. It can’t be working with higher-risk felony es for them. It’s an exciting job, just about me. I don’t know how to offenders, and then a few more years Spry says, and one that she believes operate that way.”  they got to hear people talk about their dad.

I tried really hard to talk about their dad a lot — not in a sad way, but to keep him present. To make them feel really lucky to have had him.”

Today, the kids are 25, 22 and 18 years old. Shelby is an indigenous studies teacher in Bemidji, Hannah is a senior at the University of Minnesota in Morris, studying studio art and art history, and Samuel is a senior at Detroit Lakes High School, planning to go on to college.

“I’m very proud of them,” says Spry. “They’re just really cool people. They do well academically and in sports, but they’re just really good, solid people.”

“You need to separate the behavior from the people. When someone’s behavior is unsafe or illegal...my mom always instilled in me that idea of the inherent worth of a human being. I always treat people with respect, no matter the behavior.”

PAGE 14 | WOMEN 3600

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10's

Sophia Strand has raised thousands of dollars for the American Cancer Society through her own original fundraiser, Cupcakes for Cancer.

PAGE 16 | WOMEN 3600

Sophia Strand

At just 11 years old, this Cupcakes for Cancer founder has made some sweet strides in the fight against The Big C STORY & PHOTOS BY KAYSEY PRICE

her first grade teacher, who was diagnosed with breast cancer three days before school started.

“I wanted to help,” says Strand, adding that she thought of the idea to sell “Cupcakes for Cancer,” a catchy phrase that would become the name of her fundraiser.

She took to the city-wide garage sale in Frazee with a few dozen cupcakes and a handful of other baked goods in tow, not really knowing what to expect and, after a morning and afternoon of slick salesmanship, she walked away having raised $300 for her teacher.

From that point forward, Strand was hooked. She teamed up with the American Cancer Society and was back at her stand the next year with more scrumptious cupcakes — and

“Last year she easily had 150 businesses participate in one way or another.”

– Nicole Strand, on Sophia’s Cupcakes for Cancer fundraiser

A

t the young age of 11, Frazee sixth grader Sophia Strand has already made quite the impact on the community. Now in her sixth year of fundraising for cancer patients, she has raised thousands of dollars, and she’s already gearing up for her next event in June.

In 2018, Strand’s fundraising garnered $6,777 for the American Cancer Society, and next year she’s hoping to outdo herself with a goal to raise $7,500.

Her goals weren’t always so lofty — the whole thing started with Strand’s simple desire to help out

her fundraiser has steadily grown ever since.

Every year it’s a little different. Last year, the Ronald McDonald House motorcycle ride made a pit stop at her cupcake stand. This year, she started selling bracelets inside a few Frazee businesses as a way to earn additional money year-round. She’s also hoping to bring the fundraiser back around to where it all began: her school.

“Our athletic director, we went into a meeting with him the Friday before school started, and we proposed that we do something with the boys basketball team called Shoot for a Cure,” says Strand.

The plan is that at halftime during the first home basketball game, Strand will take to the court with a microphone to share facts and statistics about cancer while the varsity boys shoot hoops and a bucket gets passed around the crowd to collect donations.

Strand is always thinking of fun, new ways to improve her fundraiser and increase donations, but the

majority of her fundraising comes from hard work all year long while she’s pledging area businesses.

“Between the people who give her just cash donations and items for the silent auction, last year she easily had 150 businesses participate in one way or another,” says Nicole Strand, Sophia’s mom.

Nicole has the numbers, but she plays no part in her daughter’s fundraising — other than to drive her around.

“She’s my chauffeur,” jokes Sophia.

“It’s all her,” counters Nicole. “She goes into the business. She hands them a flyer. She does her little spiel that she does, and there are times when she comes out, and she goes, ‘Just cross them off. We’re never coming back here. They were really rude.’ And there’s other times when she’s like, ‘Might have just been an off day. We’ll try them again next year.’ It’s good for her. It teaches her how to respond to different people.”

The younger Strand says she has taken the good with the bad, and she’s changed her pledging strategy around her responses, ever growing and ever improving.

“For some businesses, I have the same approach,” she says. “For some that were an off day, I come in at a different approach, like, I have that stuck in my mind. I know what businesses I need to do the right approach for.”

She’s quickly become quite the business-minded young lady, taking an interest in subjects like math and science at school, and has already narrowed her college search down to three possible schools.

But Strand knows how to have fun, too. During the school year she’s in sports (basketball, volleyball, softball) and during the summers she shows horses with 4-H at the Becker County Fair. In her off time, which can sometimes be tough to find, she loves to be at the lake.

“I love tubing,” she says, emphatically.

WOMEN 3600 | PAGE 17

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20's Shayna Rodeman

Shayna Rodeman swing dances with her boyfriend, Wyatt Davis.

Rodeman learned to swing dance in 2013 and is now president of the Tri-College Swing Dance Club. (Submitted Photo)

F

rom swing dancing to teaching to spoken word poetry, Shayna Rodeman says all the things she enjoys most in life have to do with communication.

The 22-year-old grew up seven miles from Wolf Lake and graduated from Frazee High School in 2014. In May, she graduated from Minnesota State University in Moorhead with a degree in English as a second language and a certificate enabling her to teach middle school English in Minnesota.

PAGE 20 | WOMEN 3600

It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing: This Frazee grad is now the president of the Tri-College Swing Dance Club

Rodeman learned to swing dance in 2013 with a group of home-schooled friends. Together they discovered the Tri-College Swing Dance Club, which is open to anyone.

“It was totally worth it to go an hour and a half to Fargo-Moorhead for it,” she says, adding that the dances bring in 40 to 100 people, depending on the night.

She came to love it so much that she became president of the club, and now teaches a jazz dance style called the Lindy Hop at the Lindy of

STORY BY NATHAN BOWE

the North swing dance club. There you can learn basic swing dance as well as the Lindy Hop, Charleston, Balboa, Blues, and St. Louis Shag styles.

Compared to social dancing, swing dancing is very relaxed, Rodeman says: “It’s a lot of fun… There’s not this need to be on top of the beat. It’s more, you’ll get there when you get there — it’s all improvised by you and your partner. That’s what I like about it, is the communication, often without words, especially when you

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Shayna Rodeman swing dances with Jeremy Stoxen.

(Submitted Photo

by Louis R. Zurn) know somebody really well.”

She met her boyfriend, Wyatt Davis, at a dance two years ago and they got together as a couple last year, she said. Swing dancing may date to the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s, but these days women are just as likely to lead as men.

“Most people think men lead and women follow. We’ve been pushing to end that stereotype,” she says.

“Sometimes it’s really nice to be the person calling the shots in a dance — it gave me a better appreciation of dance as a whole.”

It also beats standing around waiting for a leader to get free, since there tend to be more followers than leaders, she says.

And forget about those old film clips of swing dancers doing flips and jumps and other crazy things on the dance floor. That was just for show, she says. The real dancing was more mellow, much safer, and didn’t look like that, though it was still a lot of fun.

Rodeman grew up riding her aunt’s horse, named Pepper, and the communication between horse and rider is kind of a dance of its own, she says.

“It’s so cool to feel that bond,

because Pepper and I were very close. It’s really very similar to swing dance,” she says. “Horseback riding taught me what firmness with compassion looks like.”

That comes in useful at her job as a youth care worker with troubled teens at the Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch.

English, she says, which is enough to form a foundation for language growth.

“It’s very difficult when somebody comes in that doesn’t know any English at all,” she says. “We just have to work with what we have. What ends up happening is we teach them very basic English, but honestly a lot of kids come in with a certain level of English.”

She actually prefers to think of her field as “English as an additional language,” since many of her students speak several languages.

Rodeman started out aiming to become a regular high school English teacher, but changed direction when she realized what she really wanted to do was help people communicate.

Over the last two years, she has become passionate about the communication going on at Outlet Spoken Word Poetry at Red Raven Espresso Parlor in Fargo, where one evening a month people from around the area gather to recite poetry in an open forum.

“People share profoundly intimate details of their personal life — horrific, sad, beautiful, happy moments in their life,” she says.

“It’s a lot of fun… There’s not this need to be on top of the beat. It’s more, you’ll get there when you get there.”

PAGE 22 | WOMEN 3600

– Shayna, on swing dancing “It’s the most intensive form of care possible for these kids,” she says, many of whom have had multiple placements and battle with self-destructive tendencies. So far, she hasn’t had any luck getting them into swing dancing, however. Most won’t dance, and those that do only dance hip-hop.

English as a Second Language is a high-demand field in the Fargo-Moorhead area, Rodeman says, and she has taught a lot of English to non-English speakers in K-12 settings as part of her college work.

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WOMEN 3600 | PAGE 23

Teri Miller with her first grade class at Rossman Elementary School.

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eri Miller’s love of teaching and spiritual faith helps light up her first grade classroom at Rossman Elementary School, even on cloudy days.

Miller has been through a lot in her 32 years, but tragedy only made her faith stronger. Her husband, Doug Miller, died in a car accident two years ago, leaving her with a young child and a baby on the way.

Stunned and shaken, she moved in with her parents, who were a great support. She didn’t get bitter about the tragedy. Instead, she opened herself wholeheartedly to her higher power.

“I wouldn’t have survived these PAGE 24 | WOMEN 3600

Teri Miller

Tragedy struck this teacher’s life two years ago, but her faith has grown stronger than ever STORY & PHOTOS BY NATHAN BOWE

last two years without Christ,” she says. “It’s been insane how I felt the Holy Spirit move through my life.

It (the accident) was such an awful thing, but I’ve seen some incredible things come from it… The last two years, I really grew in faith.”

Miller grew up in Michigan, N.D., which is about the size of Audubon, and went to school in Lakota, which is about the size of Lake Park and where her mother worked for 43 years in preschool special needs and as a speech therapist.

Miller earned her education degree at the University of North Dakota, then earned a master’s degree and worked for a year as a Kinder-

garten teacher in Ulen. She had 12 kids in her classroom there. In her Detroit Lakes classroom now, she has 25 energetic first-graders, and she loves it.

“In first grade, they’re sponges,” she says. “They come in barely knowing how to read, and they’re reading chapter books at the end of the year.” Same with math and science skills, she adds: “It’s crazy what they can do — they can design a structure to hold a pumpkin.”

She also taught fourth grade for a year when she first started teaching in Detroit Lakes, in 2011, and that has led to a certain kind of amazement — Miller is a Young Life vol-

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unteer, and now, her fourth graders are in Young Life: “We had the banquet last night and they spoke, they shared their stories,” she says. “My story is sad, but some of their stories are really sad. It was so awesome seeing them, I get shivers thinking about it.”

She is now in her seventh year of teaching first grade, and it’s fun to watch her handle her class as she calls on them one by one to take their place for a photo, or as she mitigates little disputes about sharing toy cars during recess.

Rossman is a public school, so Miller doesn’t share her faith with her students, but there’s such a thing as living your faith, she says, and she does that all the time.

“You can pour out God’s love without talking about Jesus,” she says.

To those parents torn over whether to send their kids to public school, private school or home school, she urges them to use the public school system: “We need kids who know Jesus in public school,” she says.

“How else are other kids going to know him?”

Miller is now engaged to

be married to Alex Holehouse, a music director for Young Life, who moved to the area from West Virginia two years ago to cook at Camp Castaway on Cormorant Lake. Her daughters, Telyn and Demi Jo, both know and love Alex already and are excited about the upcoming wedding in December.

When one door closes, another opens, and that hit home for Miller when she realized that Holehouse moved to Detroit Lakes the same day Doug died, although she didn’t come to know him until later.

While pretty much her whole family of origin is now living in Arizona, Miller has no plans to leave Detroit Lakes.

“I love it here — God wants me here — I’ve got a great church (Lakes Area Vineyard) that believes in Young Life,” she says.

“Churches around here support our ministry really well.”

She has known since she was in kindergarten that she wanted to be a teacher.

“I’m a Type A, so I get to kind of be in control — though less than you think you’ll be,” she says with a laugh. “I love teaching.”

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Teri Miller, in front of her first-graders’ artwork in the hallway of Rossman Elementary School. When tragedy struck her life two years ago, she didn’t get bitter. Instead, she opened herself wholeheartedly to her higher power.

(701) 412-3298 tlccleaningfargo.com WOMEN 3600 | PAGE 25

Misty Lamppa teaches a class at her studio.

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Misty Lamppa

Ripple effect: This entrepreneur and yoga instructor is empowering her fellow women through fitness, nutrition and philanthropy

M

isty Lamppa never saw herself as a business owner, but when she moved to Detroit Lakes seven years ago and found that there were no hot yoga classes offered in the area, she knew something had to change.

“I just really love yoga, and I just saw that there was a need for it,” says Lamppa, adding with a laugh, “I actually tried to get other people to open up (a hot yoga studio first).”

Lamppa got hooked on hot yoga while she was living on the East Coast, teaching health and fitness after graduating from the University PAGE 26 | WOMEN 3600

STORY & PHOTOS BY KAYSEY PRICE

of Minnesota-Duluth with a degree in health education.

Eventually, though, she took the leap and decided to open her own studio.

“My husband was really the one that urged me. He was like, ‘Just do it!’” says Lamppa, adding that it was still a scary jump. “I mean, I had taught at the community center and part of my ego was like, ‘Oh, everybody from the community center will come here and take yoga with me.’”

But she recalls that wasn’t the case.

“When I opened, nobody did. I had, like, one person from there,” Lamppa says now with a laugh.

And it wasn’t easy to get going — she says it was a lot of work. Lamppa had three rambunctious boys to care for and, shortly after opening up her studio, 180 Balance, she became pregnant with her daughter, who is now two years old.

“I had my daughter a year after we opened here and, oh my gosh, it was, like, the hardest thing ever for me,” she recalls. “I was, at that point, teaching most of the classes. I’d be here at like 4:30 in the morning and

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WOMEN 3600 | PAGE 27

be like, ‘Oh, my gosh! How am I going to teach this class?’ I’d lay down on the floor and just cry.”

But she wasn’t going to give up easily. Lamppa played soccer in college and says she has quite the competitive, athletic spirit.

“What a blessing in disguise,” she says, looking back at the struggles she overcame to build her business. “I mean, there’s so many amazing people in the community that slowly have tried it out and given me a chance.”

Lamppa says making connections in the community has been one of the most rewarding parts of opening 180 Balance — making a meaningful impact was the whole reason she wanted to teach yoga in the first place.

“I’ve always loved teaching classes. I love that you have the ability to change somebody’s day, to change somebody’s life, to chance somebody’s, like, hour. You have that ability. It’s an honor. It’s humbling.

It’s electrifying,” she says.

The people who know Lamppa best say she’s definitely achieving her goal of making an impact.

As one of her studio members, Nick Biermeier, says, “It’s hard to overstate the far reaching effect Misty Lamppa has had on this community…the positive effect of the

studio Misty Mae created, and the uplifting and philanthropic community that has grown around it. With the ripples of brightness emanating from the hundreds in this group to every corner of the county, it would be hard to find someone on whom Misty has not had an effect.”

move into a bigger space that would allow her to offer more than yoga.

She says she’d love to offer massage therapy, physical therapy, emotional therapy, just “everything that’s amazing for you.”

Lamppa has been brainstorming ways to incorporate the Lakes Crisis and Resource Center into her plans, as well. Right now, she has partnered with the center and offers classes there, but she wants to do more.

“I had help when I was in a bad situation when I lived on the east coast, so I feel like it’s important to do whatever I can for them,” says Lamppa of Lakes Crisis, adding that some area women are starting to meet and talk about what helping the center might look like.

“Like, what happens when those women leave the shelter? It’s not good... They have everything they need during that place — and the place does amazing there — but now somebody in the community, or a group of us in the community, need to step up when they leave, because they’re basically put back into the same situation they were in (before seeking shelter).”

For now, Lamppa says, it’s just talk, but she’s passionate about the cause, and it’s not something she’s just going to give up on, her competitive nature peeking through again.

“It’s hard to overstate the far reaching effect Misty Lamppa has had on this community.”

– Nick Biermeier

Through her teaching and her business, Lamppa has been able to create a space, a place where people feel welcome, where they’re able to take ownership over their wellbeing — but she doesn’t like taking the credit.

“I feel like if you just were in this space that you’d feel like it’s not me that’s inspiring,” says Lamppa, adding that she feels like there’s a certain “magic” that happens when people gather for a class. “I feel like everybody that’s here owns this place. People will say, ‘That’s my yoga studio,’ and I’m like, ‘Yes! It totally is yours!’ That’s exactly what I want for this place.”

She has visions of expansion, as well. Lamppa says she would love to

Misty Lamppa has had a far-reaching effect on the community since opening her yoga studio, 180 Balance, about three years ago.

PAGE 28 | WOMEN 3600

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WOMEN 3600 | PAGE 29

Detroit Lakes High School special education teacher Wendy Fritz has been running the school’s Laker Shop for about four years now. It’s just one of many hats she wears in her work with the school district.

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hough Wendy Fritz has lived and worked in many places throughout her career as a speech pathologist — including Louisville, Nashville, St. Paul and others — she and her husband Mike ended up settling right back in their hometown of Detroit Lakes to raise their family.

“I was happy to come back to Detroit Lakes,” says Fritz, who graduated from Detroit Lakes High School with the Class of 1984. “I was pregnant with Ian and wanted to be around family and friends… and we both had such a great upbringing here.”

Fritz, the youngest of four children, grew up on a farm just outside of Detroit Lakes, while Mike grew up in town.

“We went to kindergarten together, then started dating in high school,” she recalls. “We dated on and off for 10 years before we got married.”

Besides Ian, who just graduated from St. John’s University, the Fritzes also have a daughter, Sydney, who is a senior at North Dakota State University in Fargo.

After moving back to Detroit Lakes PAGE 30 | WOMEN 3600

Wendy Fritz

A ‘very special teacher’ with a heart of gold, she always goes above and beyond for her kids STORY & PHOTO BY VICKI GERDES

in 1994, Mike got his first post-law school job working as an attorney at a local law firm and Fritz began working as a speech pathologist with a company that was contracted to provide speech pathology services at Essentia Health St. Mary’s.

“I also drove to Walker and worked with patients at the nursing home there three times a week,” she says.

After doing that for a few years, Fritz’s mother-in-law, Cathy Fritz, told her there was an opening for a part-time speech pathologist at Frazee-Vergas Public Schools.

“I never thought I would work in a school,” says Fritz, adding, “I never planned on working with children...

I loved my work with stroke patients and people with neurological disorders and head injuries. But my mother-in-law loved her job at the school and thought I would, too.”

So she applied for the job in Frazee, was offered the position, and accepted it.

As Mike moved up the ranks to become the Becker County Attorney and later, a 7th District Court judge based in Clay County, Fritz worked her way into a full-time job

at Frazee-Vergas, where she ended up staying for 10 years — until she saw an opening for a speech pathologist in Detroit Lakes.

“I’ve been working in the Detroit Lakes schools since 2006,” she says.

“When I started, I was at Rossman (Elementary) mostly, though I worked at the high school a little bit, too. When I started here 12 years ago, autism was really starting to be identified more, so I started a social skills group at Rossman (for kids with autism). The little guys came to see me four or five times a week.”

Eventually, Fritz ended up working at the high school full-time. Today, much of her work is as a case manager for students who have what is identified as “high functioning autism,” helping them with their organizational skills, self-advocacy with both peers and adults, and social skills.

“They’re very bright, they just need a little help navigating the social world,” she says.

Even though her own kids have both graduated from DLHS, Fritz is more involved with school activities than ever. She serves as the advisor

“She is kind, caring and compassionate to all people.”

– Amanda Germundson, on Wendy

for the school’s Knowledge Bowl and Gender & Sexuality Alliance extracurricular programs, and runs both the Laker Shop and WeBC — short for Work Experience Business Center — a work experience program designed specifically for the school district’s special needs students.

“Right now we’re working on a new commercial for WeBC,” says Fritz, noting that the students market themselves through online advertising as well as word of mouth. “We start by having them go out to jobs within the school district, working with a job coach one on one. As juniors, I’ll find them jobs out in the community, and they’ll go to work 2-5 days a week, for 60-90 minutes.”

Some of the jobs have been with Lakeshirts, Bergen’s, Becker County and Dairy Queen, to name just a few.

“The community has been incredibly supportive,” Fritz says. “And the kids are just excited to be out there, bringing their infectious enthusiasm to the job every day.”

As for the Laker Shop, Fritz took that over about four years ago, and has grown the formerly lunchtime-only shop into a shop that’s open throughout the school days. She’s also expanded the shop’s offerings to include healthy snacks, Laker apparel, school supplies and hygiene supplies.

About three years ago, at the request of some of her students, Fritz also helped put together a “flash mob” dance presentation for

the annual talent show, performing to the song “Don’t Stop Believing.” It was such a hit that they’ve been doing it every year since.

So how does she keep track of everything that she has to get done each day? Fritz says it’s a cooperative effort between herself, her colleagues in the special education department, and her students.

“The special education department just ‘clicks,’ you know?” she says. “We really support each other…

And the other teachers I work with are all fantastic, as well.”

“She is a very special teacher and not many people realize just how much she does,” says Amanda Germundson, who works as a paraprofessional in the DLHS special education department. “She goes above and beyond helping her students in her programs become successful. She encourages them to think for themselves.”

Germundson says she’s learned a lot from Fritz, “which is good, because I have two kids who are also in special education.

I asked a few of her students and they said she always helps them when they need her. She is kind, caring and compassionate to all people. She is an amazing teacher to learn from.”

For her part, Fritz says it is the students that make her job worthwhile.

“I love my job because of them,” she says. “It’s been fun to get to know them all. That’s the best part of my job, period.”

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WOMEN 3600 | PAGE 31

Linda Wiedewitsch and her dog Jonathan, at Lucky Dog. (Paula Quam / Detroit Lakes Newspapers)

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Linda Wiedewitsch

A straight shooter all around: DL’s first female patrol officer and founder of Lucky Dog is known for fairness and honesty STORY NATHAN BOWE

I

t’s hard to imagine Linda Wiedewitsch ever losing her calm composure. From the Patriot Assistance Dogs she trains these days to the burglary suspects she used to nab in the old days, she takes a forthright, honest approach to whatever situation is in front of her. She’s what they used to call a “straight shooter.”

Which isn’t to say she didn’t ruffle some feathers at home growing up.

Wiedewitsch’s mother was a devout member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Detroit Lakes, and Wiedewitsch grew up in a cozy house next door to the church on Richwood Road. Her mom wanted her to become a nurse, doctor, teacher — “something safe,” Wiedewitsch says. Instead she followed in her dad’s footsteps.

“I became a cop,” she says. “That PAGE 32 | WOMEN 3600

wasn’t her choice, but bless her, she supported me.”

Wiedewitsch became the first woman patrol officer on the Detroit Lakes Police Department. After earning a criminal justice degree at Bemidji State University in 1975, she became (with the help of State Patrol Captain Jack Murray) an intern in the State Patrol’s women and minority training program.

But Wiedewitsch was antsy to quit doing ride-alongs and get out and do real police work, so she joined the New Hope Police Department in 1977, where she stayed for three years. She always planned to come home to do police work, but wanted to start as a seasoned officer, not a rookie.

“I wanted anonymity for my first job, not to break in here,” she says.

“There had never been a female in

Detroit Lakes or Becker County on patrol. In the Twin Cities, I could just be a rookie.”

It wasn’t that she minded local officers correcting her rookie mistakes. She just didn’t want to deal with possibly having to arrest friends and family members until she was more seasoned.

Wiedewitsch’s first husband, Paul Livingston, was a trooper in the Twin Cities, and the couple moved to the Detroit Lakes area in 1980. There were no patrol officer openings around at the time, so she cooked at Perkins and worked part-time as a patrol officer in Frazee as well as a dispatcher for Becker County.

She joined the Detroit Lakes Police Department on July 1, 1983. There wasn’t a lot of turnover on the local force back then, and Wiedewitsch spent her first six years as the rook-

ie, sharing the midnight shift with another officer. On blizzard nights they would borrow a fourwheel drive from local car dealerships and help hospital personnel get to and from work.

Always interested in being an investigator, she worked for six months in investigations at her first job in New Hope, and in Detroit Lakes did two ninemonth stints with the West Central Minnesota Drug and Violent Crime Task Force. From 1992 to 2006, she worked as a full time investigator for the Detroit Lakes Police Department.

“I used respect, and I was always fair,” she recalls. “I never lied to put a case together.”

That earned her a lot of respect and trust in the community, and sometimes people involved in a criminal case would talk only to her.

A down side of the job

A longtime Detroit Lakes police officer and animal lover, Wiedewitsch became a founder of Lucky Dog and the Marshmallow Foundation after her retirement from the force. Now, she trains service dogs for veterans and others with medical conditions. (Paula Quam / Detroit Lakes Newspapers) time in the rocking chair.

“I retired from one job and jumped into another,” she says with a laugh.

She married Archie Wiedewitsch in 1993. “Archie and I own Lucky Dog,” a boarding and training

“I used respect, and I was always fair. I never lied to put a case together.”

– Linda, on her work as an investigator was watching multiple generations from the same family go through the local justice system, making the same mistakes over and over again.

“One family, I met or dealt with four generations — grandpa, son, son junior and son III — two of them I sent to prison,” she says.

It’s not as awkward as one might think bumping into people she once arrested, since she always treated suspects fairly, she says.

She retired in 2006, with 31 total years of law enforcement experience.

But she didn’t spend any

facility in Detroit Lakes, she says. They also founded the Marshmallow Foundation for homeless animals, which has grown to serve as the city pound for Detroit Lakes, Frazee, Audubon, Lake Park, Callaway, Waubun, Mahnomen and occasionally White Earth.

Wiedewitsch has always loved animals, and was involved in showing Arabian horses when she was in college. But she is perhaps best known these days for her work training assistance dogs for veterans.

“I got into service dog work because of my daughters,” she says.

“When my oldest daughter was in high school she wanted to train a puppy for the Leader Dog for the Blind program.”

Wiedewitsch jumped at the idea: “I thought ‘sweet — what a great lesson to teach.’”

Their first service dog in training, a German shepherd, went to prom with her daughters and marched down the aisle at graduation time. The girls took turns all year taking the puppy to school to help socialize it. Wiedewitsch fell in love with the program.

“Now I’m hopelessly hooked,” she says.

“Between the three of us, we’ve raised 24 puppies for Leader Dogs.”

She has trained dogs to help people with seizures and other medical conditions, as well as for a child with autism, and of course for the Patriot Assistance Dogs program, which helps veterans dealing with insomnia, anxiety, panic attacks and post traumatic stress.

Each of the dogs becomes a veteran’s “battle buddy,” who can be trusted to have the veteran’s back so he or

she can relax some of that hypervigilance learned in the service and get some sleep.

“It’s not the right program for everybody, but it has changed so many of the veterans that come here,” Wiedewitsch says.

So far, 162 teams of veterans and dogs have completed the Patriot Assistance Dogs training.

The icing on the cake is that the program also helps dogs find a home, since three-quarters of all Patriot Assistance Dogs come from pounds, reservation round-ups or animal rescues.

“It’s a win-win,” Wiedewitsch says.

“I am honored and thankful for the privilege of working with the awesome dogs, veterans and dedicated volunteers that have come through the Patriot Assistance Dogs program,” she adds. “My law enforcement career was a great fit for me. But the rewards of rescuing a dog, training it, and then letting that dog work its magic to change a veteran’s life — that intrinsic reward defies any monetary value.”

WOMEN 3600 | PAGE 33

A resident of Detroit Lakes since 1957, Judie Cherry shares her two-bedroom home on Long Bridge Road with her 3-year-old cat, Foxy Roxy.

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Judie Cherry This active golfer, swimmer, skier and community volunteer spreads ‘contagious’ enthusiasm wherever she goes

T

hough she grew up in Billings, Mont., Judie Cherry has been part of the Detroit Lakes community for so long that it’s not too surprising she’s often mistaken for a native.

“I moved here in 1957 with my husband, Curt, who was born and raised in Detroit Lakes,” she says.

The teenaged Judie met Curt while she was a student in the dental hygiene program at the University of Minnesota; he was there studying to be a dentist.

“He graduated a year before I did,” Cherry says.

Curt ended up enlisting in the U.S. Air Force. His first deployment was supposed to be Korea, but he was assigned to go to Japan instead — so Cherry, not wanting to wait until his deployment was over, followed him there after she graduated.

“It was a struggle to get there,” she recalls. “I’d never been on an airPAGE 34 | WOMEN 3600

STORY & PHOTO BY VICKI GERDES plane before. It was the 1950s, so not too many people flew in those days, and it was really expensive. But we had a great two years there together, and Japan was lovely. It was a great way to start a marriage, and we made a lot of friends there. We loved the Japanese people. It was a fun time.”

After returning to the United States, the couple found themselves in Curt’s hometown.

“We were going to move to Oregon,” Cherry recalls, “but Tom Rogstad (another local dentist) talked us into staying here.”

Curt joined Dr. Rogstad and two other dentists in their practice at Dental Associates, which also included five dental hygienists. Cherry became the sixth.

“It was a great career,” she says of working alongside her husband.

“I loved it.”

In 1960, the same year their first daughter was born, they moved into

their new home on East Shore Drive.

Two more daughters would follow, in 1963 and 1964.

“We had three daughters in four years,” says Cherry. “Detroit Lakes is a very giving, friendly, wonderful community — and a great place to raise a family. Everything you’d ever want to do is right here.”

Today, those daughters are grown.

Two live nearby, in Crosslake and Thief River Falls, Minn., while the third makes her home in Almont, Colo.

“I also have two grandchildren, who are both grown and living in the Twin Cities,” Cherry adds.

After Curt passed away in 2006, Cherry continued to live in their East Shore Drive home until last year, when she purchased a two-bedroom home on Long Bridge Road that she shares with her 3-year-old cat, Foxy Roxy.

Cherry keeps busy with a variety of activities, from golfing at the Detroit

Country Club in the summer to skiing at Detroit Mountain in the winter, as well as swimming at the Detroit Lakes Community & Cultural Center — where she also spends her time volunteering at the Historic Holmes Theatre, which is part of the complex. She helps decorate the theatre and usher for events.

“I love Judie!” says Amy Stoller Stearns, the Holmes Theatre’s executive director. “She’s been a rockstar volunteer for us… She’s organized, friendly and always positive and upbeat about whatever she’s working on. I also love how active she is in her retirement. She volunteers in so many places, golfs every week in the summer, downhill skis in the winter and has some adventurous travels. She’s a wonderful role model for aging gracefully!”

In addition to the theatre, Cherry is a volunteer with the Lake Detroiters, a 75-year-old lake association that serves both Big and Little Detroit lakes, as well as the Damiens, a local nonprofit that supports local charitable causes, and Zion Lutheran Church, where she serves on the leadership council. She’s also on a communty

“She is so warm and engaging and her energy and enthusiasm is not only contagious but it just overflows from her!”

– LeAnn Mouw, on Judie

relations committee at Essentia Health St. Mary’s, and she helped the St. Mary’s Foundation get its big Fire & Ice fundraiser started. She’s worked with the St. Mary’s volunteer advisory and annual support committees, and helped raise money for the new helipad that was just installed on the Detroit Lakes campus this summer, with the first successful test landing held at the end of September.

“Judie Cherry has volunteered with us for over 12 years, and was actually the person who helped us start our Fire & Ice fundraiser,” says the foundation’s Director of Development, LeAnn Mouw. “We were looking to move away from our traditional New Year’s Eve event when Rhoda Hooper, a board member, suggested I

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meet with Judie. It was the first time I met her but I felt like I had known her forever. She is so warm and engaging and her energy and enthusiasm is not only contagious but it just overflows from her!”

“Judie...is that person you can call and ask her to do anything and she just jumps at the chance,” Mouw adds. “Judie brings tremendous value to our community and those of us who have a chance to work with her are truly blessed.”

So what keeps Cherry’s enthusiasm burning so bright?

“A community needs volunteers to thrive,” she says, noting that not only monetary donations are necessary to make things happen, but donations of time and talent, as well.

Not only that, she adds, but she has met a lot of people through volunteering, and made many good friends.

“Detroit Lakes is a fantastic community,” Cherry says. “We have so many amenities… a beautiful golf course, a skiing lodge, a wonderful community and cultural center, and excellent health care. Of course we also have our beautiful lake, which is the backbone of the town. We are so fortunate.”

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Dixie Johnson was the first woman to serve on the Detroit Lakes City Council and has had a tremendous impact on the community through her extensive city, business and charitable involvements.

aunpd Dixie Johnson

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powerful woman before powerful women were in favor, Dixie Johnson paved a path for female leadership in Detroit Lakes.

She moved to town in 1971, and over the next few decades established herself as one of the most influential people in the community.

She had a hand in everything, from government to education, banking to business, church to charitable causes.

The first woman to serve on the Detroit Lakes City Council, Johnson was appointed in 1979 and held office for 23 years. She had a major say in the construction of the Washington Square Mall and Detroit Lakes Community and Cultural Center, among other big projects, and started the local Port Authority (known today as the Development Authority) to open the door to more state funding for Detroit Lakes.

She’s had a strong hand in just about every committee, board and commission in town, including the PAGE 36 | WOMEN 3600

A trailblazer for female leadership in Detroit Lakes STORY & PHOTO BY MARIE JOHNSON

Public Utilities and City Planning Commissions, West Central Minnesota Initiative Fund Board, Industrial Development Corporation, Holmes Center Board, First National Bank Board of Directors, Chamber of Commerce, St. Mary’s Hospital Governing Board and many others.

She was a charter member of the Detroit Lakes League of Women Voters and the Lakes Women’s Society. And as a co-owner of Lakeland Cablevision, Inc., she and her husband, Don, were responsible for bringing cable to town.

In the nonprofit realm, Johnson has been an influential advocate and top fundraiser for years, for causes including the local hospice, school district, Kiwanis, United Way and more.

“She’s truly the leading lady of Detroit Lakes,” says Amy Stoller Stearns, the executive director of the Holmes Theatre. “She’s a quiet yet powerful woman, and has been a major force behind the fundraising

for all that we now take for granted in Detroit Lakes. She’s really created the space for other women to lead.”

Looking back on all her involvements and accomplishments today, Johnson simply shrugs and says, “One thing led to another.”

“Things came up that I felt needed to be done,” she explains. “Things were put in front of me and if I could see the good in them — after I researched things, if I felt that yes, it would move the community forward — I would go for it. I don’t feel that it was me. I feel that things were put in front of me.”

There wasn’t much put in front of her that she couldn’t handle. Her upbringing and early professional experiences, she says, prepared her well for the life she’d come to lead, though she didn’t realize any of that at the time. A woman of strong faith, she believes God had a path in mind for her from the start.

“God had all of this worked out,” she says. “I truly believe that all of

this was done because that’s what God wanted, because there is no way that I did this by myself. I didn’t.”

Raised on a farm southwest of Fergus Falls, Minn., Johnson was born into a life of hard work and little means. She and her five siblings would wake up early to do chores before leaving for school, and when their dad became ill during Johnson’s junior year, she and her older brother stayed – home for two weeks to put in the crops themselves.

She worked alongside her brothers as a youth, she says, and played football with the boys. These experiences came in handy later in life, when she was the only woman sitting around a boardroom table with a bunch of men.

“When I grew up, I worked with the boys,” she says. “I didn’t do the woman thing, I did the men thing.

So men didn’t intimidate me at all.”

After high school, Johnson took a job as a bookkeeper in Fergus Falls — a line of work that would come to serve her well during her own business ventures later in life. It was during this time that she met Don, and the two were married in 1952. They had three

the end. Lakeland connected its first customer to the system in November 1971, and the company grew from there. Johnson did the bookkeeping and served as co-owner, vice president and then, after Don became ill, president.

Don was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1977.

Johnson cared for him at home as long as she could, she says, but by 1985 he Amy Stoller Stearns, on Dixie required more care than work. The couple had always wanted she could provide. He passed away at to get back to Lake Country, though, Emmanuel Nursing Home in 1995.

With Garret’s help, Johnson kept and in 1971 they moved to Detroit Lakeland going — and growing, Lakes to start Lakeland Cablevision.

They started the business from until the family decided to sell the scratch, and it was a risky move. business to Arvig in 1986. By that Everyone told them it would never time, it had expanded to include work, Johnson recalls today. But that eight properties in addition to the only made them more determined. original Detroit Lakes location.

Today, Johnson has largely She literally ‘dug in’ to the business, buying a small digger and digging stepped back from the public eye, trenches for the underground cable but remains active at her church, lines herself. She also strand mapped United Methodist, and continues to all the telephone and power poles in visit people in need as a Stephen town herself, walking the entire city Minister. She enjoys spending time limits to measure and map the dis- with her family, which now includes eight grandchildren and five great tance between poles.

It was a lot of work, but it paid off in grandchildren. children over the next several years: Debbie, Garret and Holly.

Don had a background in engineering and worked for telephone, radio and cable TV companies in the early years of their family life, and they moved around quite a bit for his

“She’s really created the space for other women to lead.”

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WOMEN 3600 | PAGE 37

Angie Barnack doesn’t let a little thing like a number slow down her desire to help out around the community.

aunpd Angie Barnack

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eing 91 doesn’t slow Angie Barnack down. Fiercely independent, she still lives on her own and volunteers as much as she can in the Detroit Lakes area.

“You can’t baby yourself,” says Barnack, matter-of-factly. “I do everything myself — except mow my own lawn and snow removal.”

Born in Starbuck, Minn., Barnack knew hard work from an early age.

She remembers helping her father on their family farm until she marPAGE 38 | WOMEN 3600

Fiercely independent at 91, she’s proving age is just a number STORY & PHOTO BY KAYSEY PRICE

ried David Barnack and, eventually, the two moved to Detroit Lakes, where David took a mechanic job at the armory.

While her husband chipped away the days there, Barnack began waitressing at the VFW. “It was interesting work because you meet so many people,” she recalls, “but it was difficult work.”

Barnack and her husband raised two kids, who both graduated from Detroit Lakes High School — a son,

Darrell, and a daughter, Dawn. Over the years, their family continued to grow, and now Barnack boasts four grandkids and six great-grandkids, whom she loves spending time with.

“My great-granddaughter and I, we go to the Twins Fest every year,” she says. “I’ve got all those players’ signatures… If you want to know something about a Twins player, I’ll tell you. I go to the game every chance I get.”

Baseball is just one of many inter-

ests that keep Barnack busy. She is also a VFW Auxiliary member, an avid Ecumen volunteer, works a gate at the Becker County Fair each year, and helps out at First Lutheran Church — when she isn’t baking cookies, keeping up on her housework, or doing her shopping, of course.

“I’m over (at Ecumen) every Monday, for sure,” says Barnack. “And if they call me, I can’t say no...

That’s one thing I can’t do — I can’t say no.”

Barnack used to drive residents to appointments, but she spends most of her volunteer time these days delivering the mail and visiting with patients, whom she says she gets a kick out of.

“You see the residents and you have to stop and visit them — they’re so comical!” she laughs.

She says her favorite resident is a 105-year-old who is still sharp. They visit and laugh.

As an Auxiliary member, Barnack had a big role in the annual Voice of Democracy speech contest for about 20 years, finding judges to listen

to the high school students deliver their speeches. She doesn’t organize the contest any longer, but she’s still helping out after being with the organization for 50 years.

“I just got my 50-year pin,” she says, proudly.

She’s been a member of, or helped out, many organizations for many

change. It’s never, never the same… but I managed.”

Now, Barnack says people are in awe of her independence, but it’s just in her nature. She says she just doesn’t feel 91, and she’s not going to let a little thing like a number slow her down.

“One thing I won’t do is sit home in a rocking chair — no!” she says.

One thing she doesn’t do anymore is snowmobile, even though it was a favored passtime for her not so long ago.

“Years back, I rode snowmobile, and I rode it for the March of Dimes,” she says, recalling garnering roughly $6,000 in pledges for the organization. “I won first place for pledging.”

She may not have her snowmobile any longer, but Barnack is still on the go, helping out wherever she can, whether she’s at Ecumen, First Lutheran, the Fair, or anywhere else she finds herself lending a helping hand.

“I feel this way: I never know when I’ll need the help,” she says.

“One thing I won’t do is sit home in a rocking chair — no!”

– Angie

years. For about 40 years she has run a gate at the Becker County Fair.

“I guess I’ll get to do it next year again, ‘cause after this year they said, ‘See you next year!’” she jokes.

It’s almost like she didn’t miss a beat after her husband passed away 23 years ago.

“People always ask me, ‘How come you didn’t get married again?’

Well, I was too busy!” Barnack says.

“It was hard after he left. We’d been together for years. It was really a

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WOMEN 3600 | PAGE 39

Centenarian Caroline Egenes, who celebrated her 100th birthday in September, spent most of her life in Thief River Falls before moving to Detroit Lakes with her husband in 1970. Widowed in 2009, she now makes her home at Ecumen Emmanuel Nursing Home in Detroit Lakes. (Vicki Gerdes / Detroit Lakes Newspapers)

aunpd Caroline Egenes

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hen Caroline Egenes was born on a small farm south of Thief River Falls on Sept.

25, 1918, she was the fifth in a family that ultimately included 13 children.

Money was tight, so Egenes quit school after graduating eighth grade and went to work in town, eventually finding a job as a waitress at the local Rex Café, where she continued to work for many years.

One night while at a dance with some friends, a man she had met PAGE 40 | WOMEN 3600

There’s nowhere else she’d rather be: Still loving life at 100 STORY BY VICKI GERDES

when he delivered mail at the café introduced her to a friend of his, Stan Egenes.

“We were married in 1941,” she says. When the U.S. joined in fighting World War II at the end of that year, Stan enlisted with the U.S. Air Force and ended up spending the next four years stationed in Hawaii, where “he loaded ordnance (weapons) on airplanes.”

“I never made it to Hawaii,” Egenes adds a little wistfully, noting that travel to and from the island nation

was not only extremely expensive, but also restricted due to the war on the Pacific front.

“My brother was in the Navy, so he would stop in to see Stan whenever he was there,” she recalls.

After Stan came back from his stint in the Air Force, he worked a few odd jobs before going to work for the local railroad, where he would end up being employed for the next 30 years.

“That’s where I get my pension from,” Egenes says, noting that

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Caroline Egenes’ family gifted her with 100 roses in honor of her 100th birthday, which was Sept. 25.

(Submitted photo)

some representatives from Cana- in the late 1960s. four left. dian Pacific also came to visit her “That’s while I was in Vietnam,” “Stan passed away in 2009, at on her 100th birthday this Sep- says Lynn, adding, “she said she age 94,” she says. “All three of my tember. didn’t want to just sit around the brothers are gone now, along with After Stan came home from house (and worry about that).” five of my sisters.”

Hawaii, Egenes said she tried workAfter Stan retired from the railAfter living at The Madison for 12 ing outside the home for awhile, road, he and Caroline stayed in Thief years, Egenes moved to Ecumen’s but after he went to work for the River Falls for a few more years, Transitional Care Unit (TCU) for a railroad, “when he was home, I but when her brother and his wife while, then became a resident of was working,” so she gave up her retired from their jobs in Chicago Emmanuel Nursing Home about a job to become a full-time wife and and moved to Detroit Lakes, the year ago. mother.

Egeneses were convinced to move “I think this is a great place to After giving birth to a live — the people here daughter, Shari, and a son, are really nice,” she says, Lynn, Egenes says jokingly, adding that she has made “That was enough,” refersome good friends and ring to the fact that after tries never to miss playing growing up with 12 sibBingo with the rest of the – Caroline, on her secret to longevity lings, she preferred to keep residents on Tuesdays, as her own family small. well as enjoying the occaBecause they didn’t have a lot of here, too. That was in 1970. sional game of dominoes and lismoney in those days, the family Both of their children ended up tening to some of her favorite tunes spent most of their vacations hunt- settling down in Detroit Lakes, as when she wants to relax. ing and fishing together. They had well: Shari married local resident So what’s her secret to longevity? a small hunting shack near Grygla, Dennis Meyer, while Lynn and his “I think it just kind of happened,” where they tried to spend as much wife now have a home on Little Floyd she jokes, noting that she had an time as they could.

Lake. older sister who lived to be 101 before “We still have it,” says her son, As they aged, Stan and Caroline, she passed, though all of her four Lynn. as well as Caroline’s brother and surviving sisters are younger than After her children were grown, sister-in-law, all ended up living on her.

Egenes tried working again, getting the Ecumen campus in Detroit Lakes.

“I can’t think of anywhere I’d a job at the local Artic Cat dealership Today, Caroline is the only one of the rather be,” she says.

“I think it just kind of happened.”

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WOMEN 3600 | PAGE 43

The relationship between health and volunteering

While volunteering is a selfless act, volunteers may be benefitting in ways that can improve their lives in both the short- and long-term.

Volunteering is often its own reward. Helping others can be just as beneficial to the people doing the helping as it is for the people being helped.

T

hough it can sometimes be hard to find time to volunteer, a close look at some of the various health benefits of volunteering may compel adults and children alike to find the time they need to volunteer.

PAGE 44 | WOMEN 3600

VOLUNTEERING AND HAPPINESS

Veteran volunteers may have long suspected they’re happier when they volunteer, and research suggests that’s true. A study from researchers at the London School of Economics

that was published in the journal Social Science and Medicine found that the more people volunteered, the happier they were. The researchers compared people who never volunteered to people who did, finding that the odds of being “very happy” rose

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by 7 percent among people who volunteered monthly. Those odds increased by 12 percent among people who volunteered every two to four weeks.

VOLUNTEERING AND MENTAL HEALTH

Psychologists have long known that social interaction can improve mental health. Psychology Today notes that interacting with others decreases feelings of depression while increasing feelings of well-being. Volunteering is a great way to meet new people, exposing volunteers to people with shared interests. That can be especially valuable to people who are new to a community, helping them to avoid feelings of loneliness after moving to an area where they have no preexisting social network.

VOLUNTEERING AND LONG-TERM HEALTH

Volunteering that requires social interaction can produce long-term health benefits that can have a profound impact on quality of life as men and women age. A recent study published in the Journal of AlzheiPAGE 46 | WOMEN 3600

mer’s Disease focused on participants without dementia who were involved in a highly interactive discussion group. Researchers compared those participants to others who participated in Tai Chi or walking or were part of a control group that did not receive any interventions. The former group exhibited improved cognitive function, and MRIs indicated they increased their brain volumes

after being involved in the discussion group. Larger brain volume has been linked to a lower risk of dementia. Many volunteering opportunities require routine interaction with others, potentially providing significant, long-term health benefits as a result.

While volunteering is a selfless act, volunteers may be benefitting in ways that can improve their lives in both the short- and long-term.

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WOMEN 3600 | PAGE 47