Colfax school district honors 27 at staff appreciation banquet

PROTECTED CONTENT

If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.

Username

Password

Login

Lost your password?

Username and Password Help

Please enter your email and we will send you a password reset link.

Email

Submit

← Back

By LeAnn R. Ralph

COLFAX  —  The Colfax school district honored 27 employees at the staff appreciation banquet at Whitetail Golf Course on May 29.

Keep an eye on future editions of the Colfax Messenger for profiles of the retirees.

William C. Yingst Jr., school superintendent, introduced each of the honorees, and school board members handed out the awards.

One year

Employees who have been with the school district for one year receive a school district pin.

Andy De Moe, school board member, handed out pins to Kassandra Behymer (middle school math and science teacher); Emily Mattson (high school English, sophomores and seniors and college prep); Heather Niesen (early childhood teacher); Megan Pawlak (sixth grade English Language Arts and Social Studies); Tiffany Schaffner (high school agriculture teacher); Kim McEldowney (bus driver); Edward Stuart (bus driver).

Five years

Employees who have five years of service receive a paperweight.

Jodi Kiekhafer, school board member, handed out the paperweights to Michael Dombrowski (World History, Current Events and Social Problems teacher; ice fishing club and boys’ golf coach); Kelly Haskamp (elementary and middle school counselor); Jennifer Mohr (second grade teacher); Denise  Buchholz Solberg (special education teacher’s assistant); Bradley Hostak (special education teacher’s assistant), and Kenneth Wittmer (bus driver).

10 years

Employees with 10 years of service receive a desk set.

Ken Bjork, school board member, handed out the desk sets to Kenneth Neuburg (school board member and vice president of the school board); Jamie Buchholtz (technology education teacher); Karen Sahm (speech and language teacher ); Troy Knutson (custodian); Diane Satter (custodian).

15 years

Employees with fifteen years of service receive book ends.

George Entzminger, who has served the school district as a bus driver for 15 years, was not able to attend the staff appreciation banquet.

20 years

Employees with twenty years of service receive a plaque.

Christie Hill, school board member, handed out a plaque to Jane Rude (special education teacher’s aide).

25 years

Employees with twenty-five years of service receive a Vikings statue.

Jennifer Steinke (Geometry, Calculus and Pre-calculus) received a Vikings statue to honor her 25 years of service in the Colfax school district.

30 years

Employees with thirty years of service receive a time piece.

Ken Neuburg, school board vice president, presented a mantel clock to Kara Zutter (business education teacher).

Zutter chose the mantel clock as the time piece of her choice.

Retirees

Employees who will be retiring from the Colfax school district receive a Colfax school district ring.

Retirees this year are Kara Zutter (business education), Jim Woodford (band director), Charles Owen (bus driver), Jon Suckow (bus driver) and Darrell Schauer (custodian).

Yingst noted that the recognition of Darrell Schauer’s retirement was a “correction” from quite a few years ago.

“I’ve always said it is never too late to right a wrong. Darrell worked for us for 28 years as a custodian, a night custodian, and he did some maintenance work as well, and a little bit of everything in the summer months. Darrell retired after our staff banquet in June of 2011. A year later, when the next banquet was held, his name was left inadvertently off the list. So after I was made aware of this in the past year, I wanted to correct a wrong … and recognize Darrell for all of his years of service to Colfax,” Yingst said.