My parents are Sue and Dave.

Just a couple kids from small towns in Iowa, they were married before they had even finished high school. I think. I know for a fact that my sister was born before they had finished high school. That was in the mid-1970s.

They are both very hard-working. The reason my family moved to Vermillion was so that my dad could be the produce manager at the then newly built Hy-Vee store (1986?), which he continued to be for many, many years. We had pineapple at every holiday meal, pretty much. He now has his own siding and remodeling business and the whole town keeps him busy. He recently returned home from his annual “guy’s trip” to do hunting and various other man things somewhere up north.

My mom also worked at Hy-Vee in a variety of departments: bakery, deli, customer service. She worked in food service at the University of South Dakota (“Take Your Daughter to Work Day” was a blast, we made donuts). She now works as the produce manager for Wal-Mart. We don’t eat as much pineapple, and that’s quite okay. She’s been on a bowling league since before I can remember, and her team has even gone to state bowling and done quite well!

My parents are good people and they are proud of their three children, who all have college degrees (I’m the only one without a master’s degree), even if we are a bit “slow” to get married (my brother was recently married, so I’m the only one not married) and give them grandbabies (my first niece, Hannora, was born in 2009).