Thursday, March 28, 2024
Submitted Photo The Richards family, Parker, Angie, Calleigh, and Adam.

Giving back to community important to Angie Richards

Angie (Johnson) Richards was raised in the farming community of Sacred Heart, Minn., a town of around 500 people located along Hwy 212 and 28 miles southwest of Willmar. Her dad, Paul, was a corn and soybean farmer and she is the youngest of three daughters. Given that her sisters are 13 and 15-years older, Angie spent a lot of time helping on the farm driving tractors, walking bean fields, and picking rocks. She says this is the reason she doesn’t enjoy gardening as she had her fill of soil under her finger nails growing up.

Angie attended a public school that has since merged with other neighboring towns, now called Renville County West. During high school, Angie was active in volleyball, basketball, played the sax in band, and took part in rodeo and 4-H horse shows.

Her husband, Adam, grew up on a farm near another town along Highway 212 called Buffalo Lake, located on the east end of Renville County. He went to school at Buffalo Lake-Hector High School. As a BL-H Mustang, Adam played football, basketball, sang in the choir, played the trombone in band and was also active in 4-H.

Angie and Adam met at the Renville County fair as teenagers and started dating when Angie was just 14! Adam showed hogs and she showed horses. Since no one likes to hang out in the hog barn during the fair….things progressed from there and the rest is history. Angie actually met Adams’s sister first and feels blessed to have a forever and always friend in her sister-in-law, Angela.

Angie and Adam both attended Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, where she earned a BA with a double major in business management and communication. Adam played football for the Norse for two years and was in the class one year ahead of Angie. They were married in 2001, just four weeks after she graduated from college. Luther College is a family affair as Angie’s sisters, Jackie and Kim, and Adam’s siblings, Angela and Aaron, all bleed blue having graduated from Luther.

For the next decade, Adam worked in retail management for Target Corporation. They moved six times over that period with his career taking them from Mankato to Rochester, Eau Claire, and several stops in the cities before he left Target. In 2010, they decided to return to southeast Minnesota to permanently raise their young family.

The Richards family enjoys traveling as they both had the opportunity to study abroad during the Luther College January Term. Adam ventured to Europe and Angie studied tourism in the Canary Islands, off the coast of Morocco.

They took their first family trip to Jamaica when their daughter, Calleigh, was just 9-months-old. And returned to Jamaica two years later with 2-year-old Calleigh and 7-month-old Parker. Jamaica truly has a special place in their heart, as they have now visited the country ten times. Adam and Angie have always loved Minnesota summers and lakes so taking an annual winter vacation became a go-to-getaway. She says “it warms her up from the inside out in the midst of negative temperatures”. Their travels have also taken them to Canada, Mexico, Turks and Caicos, and many states, including Alaska.

Angie remembers standing in line to register their daughter for K-M Community Education Preschool. It was the spring of 2010 and they didn’t own a home in the district yet, but knew they both desired raising their family in a great school system and a small farming community like they both grew up in. Adam had previously worked at Target with families who had children that attended K-M. They researched southeast Minnesota schools and reaffirmed that Kasson-Mantorville was the perfect fit for their family to learn and grow. That summer, they settled into their cozy home just west of Mantorville where they still reside today.

Angie serves as the Vice President of Sales for Experience Rochester. She leads the team responsible for bringing meetings, conventions and other groups to Mayo Civic Center, as well as generating hotel room nights and economic impact for the entire community of Rochester.

Throughout her professional career, Angie has felt the desire to give back to the community through board service. Years ago, she developed the personal mission statement HHH (Have fun, be Happy, Help others). This mission has been a light to determine where and when she should engage in the community, including previous board roles with the Rochester Downtown Alliance (RDA), Leadership Greater Rochester Steering Committee, and Rochester Area Chamber of Commerce, where she received the Volunteer of the Year award in 2017.

When Calleigh and Parker were young, Angie was also involved in the K-M Early Childhood Family Education Advisory Council, St. John’s Lutheran Church Education Commission and served as the chair of the Vote Yes! K-M Commitment to Excellence Referendum that led to the elementary school kindergarten and gym addition, new auditorium, and extensive high school building renovations.

As their children have grown, Angie has been exposed to new and different needs in the community. In 2014, Angie was appointed to the K-M School Board when a member of the board relocated out of the district. Angie has been elected to a board position twice since then.

She has always had a passion for education noting that when she was at Luther College her roommates were all education majors. In addition to the K-M School Board, Angie has also served on the Zumbro Education District Board. ZED is a cooperative special learning district shared between six school districts to offer an area learning center, setting IV school, birth to three services and a transitional program for students 18-21.

In 2015, Angie co-founded Food For Friends. This community-wide ministry discreetly provides nutritious, child-friendly and easy to prepare foods to Kasson-Mantorville students in preschool through grade 12. There is no cost to the student or family to participate during the school year or over summer break.

Over the years, Angie has volunteered for numerous K-M groups, including post prom, football, wrestling, baseball, cheerleading, volleyball, and softball programs. She is an avid cheerleader for Calleigh and Parker as they participate in their favorite sports and activities.

You might also find Angie taking photos on the sidelines of these activities to share K-M families. She is also a volunteer photographer for the Dodge County Independent newspaper. Prior to the pandemic Angie started to tip her toes into photography and now calls herself a hobby photographer. Over the years has purchased used (i.e. new to her) equipment to be able to take better photos at these games and on family trips.

Once, when departing for home after visiting her mother in Arizona, she realized her camera bag was left in the rental car. Unfortunately they were already on the plane ready for takeoff; after several frantic phone calls to the rental car company the camera did eventually turn up a few weeks later!

Adam is the Market President of MBT bank in Dodge Center. In his free time, he fills in at K-M Schools as a substitute bus driver. Adam has served on the church council of St. John’s Lutheran and when their children were smaller drove the weekly St. John’s blue bus for after school programming. Angie commented that Adam likes to putz around the shop, the old saying “you can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy” certainly applies to him.

Even though neither Angie nor Adam attended the University of Minnesota they are big Gopher football fans. They also enjoy season tickets for Gopher volleyball and wrestling and try to make as many of the games or matches that fit into their schedule. Adam is the “tailgating king” hosting pre- and post-game events outside of the Gopher football stadium.

Following the Gophers, they have enjoyed bowl game trips to San Diego, Tampa, Phoenix, and even Detroit. Gopher travel has been a Richards family affair with Adam’s parents and his sister’s family joining in the annual tailgating and travel fun. Continuing a tradition that began several years ago, a trio of Adam, son Parker and Adam’s Dad plan to travel to one away Gopher football game each fall.

In 2022, they were fortunate to be at the Penn State stadium with 100,000 of their closest friends during the annual “white out game.” Their Gopher crew was one of the few decked out in maroon and gold, and even though the score did not end up in their favor it was a trip filled with great memories.

Angie and Adam’s daughter, Calleigh, is a K-M junior and also has the travel bug. Calleigh’s club softball team has had the Richards family traveling to Denver, Chicago, Kansas City, and more to play ball. It’s a great excuse to see and experience new places. New York City was on Calleigh’s bucket list and they were able to enjoy the sights and sounds of the Big Apple in 2021. Calleigh and Angie are heading to Los Angeles for the next bucket list adventure this summer.

Parker is the youngest, but not the shortest, in the Richards family! He is an 8th grader at K-M Middle School and is not one to sit still for long. He is involved in football, wrestles and plays baseball for the KoMets.

If there isn’t a softball or baseball game to attend, you will find the Richards family putting around Lake Francis enjoying a sunset pontoon cruise. Spending weekends at their cabin near Annandale is high on the list of favorite places to be. A place filled with relaxing days and lots of laughter you just may find them jumping off the boat for a cooling dip or in a serious game of wiffle ball in the backyard. The poor lawn has a permanent batter’s box where the grass no longer grows.

Angie loves to paddleboard in the morning when it’s just her and a lake like glass, and probably a few fishing boats too. If paddleboarding isn’t on the daily agenda, you might find Angie and Cooper, their ten-year-old golden doodle, in the woods on a trail run.

Angie and Adam have really enjoyed living in the Kasson-Mantorville community as it has the small town feeling that they grew up with. With a great school system and strong career opportunities, they feel so blessed to be raising their family here. Angie likes the willingness of the community to help each other out when things need to be done. When they recently arrived home after taking a winter trip their driveway had already been cleared from a snowfall and none of their neighbors took credit for getting it done! It’s just one example of why they love K-M so much.

Photo: Submitted Photo Angie Richards feels that giving back to the community is important. Given that belief, she is actively involved in activities at the Kasson-Mantorville schools, including serving on the K-M School Board, as well as other community groups.

 

Dodge County Independent

Dodge County Independent
Dodge County ADvantage
301 S. Mantorville Ave.
Plaza 57 • Suite 200
Kasson, MN 55944

Dodge County Printing
301 S. Mantorville Ave.
Plaza 57 • Suite 200
Kasson, MN 55944

507-634-7503
 
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