Even over Zoom, Lynette McCue ’70 and Chris Hellekson ’70 have an easy rapport. They laugh as they fill in each other’s memories about classes and trips taken over the course of their half-century long friendship. The two women met on the campus of Minnesota State Mankato, then Mankato State College. They were among just a handful of women in the College of Business and naturally gravitated toward one another. “Many times, we were the only two [women] in the class,” says Hellekson. “We each had an interest in business because our parents owned businesses. We also realized we shared a love of sewing and other creative interests and our friendship grew from there.”
“We also believe once you have this experience of being immersed in another culture you begin to broaden your horizons and extend that newer viewpoint to other things that you will encounter in the rest of your life,” McCue adds.
Both McCue and Hellekson graduated with degrees in Business Administration. Hellekson went on to work for a savings and loan institution and eventually C.H. Robinson. McCue started in administration and continued her career working for Scott County, Minnesota. Today, Hellekson lives in South Dakota and McCue in Minnesota.
Both agree that broadened horizons and a wider view of the world are critical for business students who will enter into a global economy and need to know how to navigate it. “They’ve got to understand other countries; not view them through our lens but their own cultural lens,” says Hellekson.
In 1994 Hellekson invited McCue to travel to Germany, where Hellekson was born and still has family.
Post-pandemic, McCue and Hellekson look forward to continuing their travels. They’ve planned a river excursion for 2022 that will take them to Hungary, Croatia, Romania, Serbia and Spain.
“She had not ever traveled out of the country and it made quite an impression on her,” says Hellekson. “We thought we’ll do this again and again and again and again.” Since their first trip, travel has bonded the fast friends. They’ve been all over the globe together and separately—from Scotland to Russia, Peru to Tibet—even Antarctica. They’ve had scores of adventures and returned with stories to tell. Like the time they wandered into the wrong pasture in England and encountered a giant Black Angus bull. “I learned that if you go over a stile in Northern England, you better scout out what is lurking in the pasture,” Hellekson laughs. Or the memory of Hellekson’s relative telling them “German trains, you can set your watch by them.” “These are little things, but they are a piece of this whole big spectrum,” says McCue. “Every country has their little pieces that fit together, and you learn to work your way through them.” For both women, travel is about more than just sightseeing; it’s a window into different cultures, and a way to expand horizons. It’s in this spirit that the friends both decided to set up scholarships to support student travel experiences. “We learned so much on our travels,” says Hellekson. “We feel it is important that especially young people experience cultures that are different from ours.”
28 / C OLLEGE OF BUSIN ES S I N R E V I E W
