HONORI BOB GLANZER By Tom Glanzer
Photo courtesy of LakeHaus Productions
When I first heard about the novel coronavirus in about December 2019, I remember laughing it off as another one of those global panic attacks that would never impact me … or anyone I knew. When we started the “work from home” procedure at NorthWestern Energy in March 2020, I still didn’t really buy into the chance that little old Huron, South Dakota, would be impacted. I was so wrong on so many fronts. During the first few days of learning how to work from home and ensure our kids were getting homework done, my dad got pretty sick. He went to the doctor and went back home with a prescription usually used for someone with a common cold or the flu. Ten hours later, he was tested for the coronavirus; 32 hours later he was in the hospital in Huron. Eight hours after that, he was on a plane 24 | BRIGHT MAGAZINE Vol. 1
to Sioux Falls. The rest of the story is one of the most trying, yet peaceful times I have ever experienced in my adult life. My mom got sick with COVID-19 while dad was in the hospital. She was hospitalized for 32 hours and released, all while still recovering from breast cancer surgery a little over a week earlier. In times like this every phone call is a bit unnerving, and when you are waiting from news on a critical patient, you fear the worst on each call. Then on March 28 at 3 in the morning, my cousin called me to tell me the news that would shock us, and is probably still the hardest to accept in all of this mess. My cousin, a 51-year-old, active and healthy school teacher, mother of three, Mari Hofer, had died only a few hours after becoming ill.
