After high school, I went to Northern State College and graduated in August of 1973 with a double major in Elementary Education and Speech Pathology and Audiology.  Two weeks later, I was employed at Gettysberg, SD as a speech therapist.  I initiated their first speech therapy program, which included traveling to Blunt, Hoven, Bowdle and Hosmer.

 The following summer, I married Ordean Stern, of Crocker SD, in Bison SD.  He was a Sales Manager for Combined Insurance of America.  We moved to Grand Forks, ND with his two boys, Michael, age 5, and Craig, age 3, who lived with us from time to time.  Six months later we moved to Hillsboro, ND, where I became employed again as a speech therapist. I traveled to several nearby schools, as there was another speech therapist in Hillsboro.  Two and a half years later and pregnant, Ordean and I moved to Little Rock, AR, as Ordean was promoted to Zone Manager for Combined Insurance.  He traveled the entire state, hiring and managing his people.

Our daughter, Sally, was born in Little Rock during a horrible ice storm! Arkansas had a record snowfall in 1978, and people accused us of bringing the snow down from North Dakota!  Two years later, we moved to Independence, MO and lived there for 14 years.  Ordean was promoted to Regional Manager from Combined Insurance for the states of Missouri, Nebraska and Kansas.  He traveled and I was a stay-at-home mom.  When Sally began preschool, I began teaching preschool at our church.  When she started grade school, I got a job as a speech therapist at a state school for the severely handicapped. The school was in downtown Kansas City… in the ghetto!  It was quite an experience since most of the students could not talk and their I.Q.s were 50 or below!  I learned how to communicate through sign language and communication books.  It was a real education…one I loved!  Two years later, I got a position at an elementary school in our local district, Fort Osage, as a speech therapist.

In 1994, when our daughter was 16, we decided to move back to South Dakota to be closer to Ordean’s failing parents.  We chose Watertown, as it was situated between the Twin Cities, where his boys lived with our 5 grandchildren, and Bison, where my family lived on their ranch.  Watertown was also similar in size to the school that Sally attended in Independence.