There are three seats up for grabs on the Detroit Lakes School Board come Nov. 4, with two incumbents and two challengers vying for the honor of serving the district for the next four years. Incumbents David Langworthy and Brenda Muckenhirn will face a strong challenge from Kylie Johnson and Brett Bridgeman, who are both seeking their first term in public office. Brett Bridgeman
Though he isn’t a Detroit Lakes native, Bridgeman, 33, moved to the community with his family in 1990, and graduated from DLHS before moving to Florida and eventually, to Greeley, Colo., where he spent two years with State Farm Insurance (2004-06). In 2006, he got a job with Wells Fargo in Des Moines, Iowa, where his future wife, Heather Harris, was also employed. Later that year, on June 30, 2006, they were married, and the couple moved back to Detroit Lakes in 2007. (Heather is the daughter of the late Bob and Michelle Harris, who were longtime residents of the community.) “I left Wells Fargo in 2009, and I’ve been with U.S. Bank for the past five years,” Bridgeman said. (Heather is now a full-time mom, he added.) As the father of two young children - Nash, 4, and Jordyne, 1½ (20 months) - he decided that the time was now to run for a school board position. “I had thought about it eight years ago, when we had just moved back to the community, but it was a little too soon,” he said, noting that he wasn’t as familiar with the district and its needs as he would have liked at that time. “I started paying attention to what was going on in the schools,” Bridgeman said. “After my youngest sister graduated (from DLHS) in 2012, I thought that would be the year I’d run.” Instead, however, he opted to stay in the background, following the school board meetings and gathering information about the district. “I decided I didn’t want to just voice my concerns, I wanted to be a part of the decision making process, be more directly involved,” he said - especially after his oldest son started attending preschool. Bridgeman readily acknowledges that “the district’s space issues are obviously at the forefront, “and we need to deal with that as quickly as possible… after two years of discussion, it’s time to put something together.” However, he added, “I don’t want us to do just a ‘band-aid’ fix.” While it is important to come up with a solution that voters will understand and support, and to minimize the tax impact on residents where possible, it is equally important to make sure that the solution takes future growth into account, he explained. “If we see more growth 5-10 years into the future, it will be tough to come back to the voters and ask for more money,” Bridgeman said. “It’s important to ensure that we utilize any money we’re given wisely, to maximize the resources we have.” Bridgeman is particularly interested in the recent state legislative mandate that will require all public school districts to provide preschool education as a regular part of their curriculum, and said the district will need to take that into account when planning for its future space needs. “It (early childhood education) is something both my wife and I have been getting more involved in,” he said. “It’s such a great program… my kids love it. If my 1-year-old could go to preschool every day, she’d do it.” Kylie Johnson [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"1188398","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"400","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"274"}}]] Though she has only been a resident of Detroit Lakes since 2005, Kylie Johnson’s roots in public education go way back. “My dad, Larry Mischke, is still the K-12 principal at Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley,” she said, noting that he was a teacher for several years as well. “I have a strong belief in public education. It can work, and it does work, but it needs parental involvement, too.” Johnson, 31, said she had “three small motivators” - her children Brenna, 5, Wyatt, 3, and Jake, 21 months - behind her decision to run for school board. “I think that as the parent of a kindergartner, a parent who is involved in this school district, I have a first-hand view of what’s going on in the schools,” she added. When bringing her daughter in to Rossman Elementary for the first time, Johnson said she learned just how bad the space issues in that building were when she discovered that the students were using the same space for both lunchroom and gymnasium. “When you’re there and you’re involved, you see things you might not otherwise,” Johnson added. Though she feels that whatever solution the school board chooses to put before the voters would be decided before she would even take office, Johnson said she would “put faith in them to present the best option for the district.” “I would hope that whatever option they choose, they are considering district growth in the future,” she added. Like Bridgeman, she is particularly concerned with the addition of daily pre-kindergarten classes to the district, which will bring with it an additional 200-plus kids that will need to be housed within its already overcrowded facilities. “Audubon and Ogema (elementary schools) already have pre-kindergarten as part of their district offerings… Holy Rosary already has a full-day (prekindergarten) program,” she said. “It’s the one area where Detroit Lakes is lagging behind other districts in the area.” Kylie, who is married to Frazee High School graduate Eric Johnson (a 14-year veteran of BTD Manufacturing), has been the housing manager at Lamplighter Manor (part of the Ecumen-Detroit Lakes campus) for the past seven years. A graduate of Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley High School, she has a bachelor of science degree in business management, with a minor in marketing, from Minnesota State University-Moorhead. “I served on the DL Early Childhood Family Education Advisory board during the 2013-14 school year, and would like to grow along with my children,” she said. “If elected, Johnson added, “I will represent young families, support public education, and bring a new perspective to current issues.” David Langworthy [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"1188399","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"400","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"274"}}]] David Langworthy, 50, is a Minnesota native who grew up in Mapleton, a small town in the southern part of the state. After receiving his education at Mankato State University and the University of Minnesota-Morris, where he graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in community health education and an associate of arts degree in paramedicine, he started his career with Gold Cross Ambulance in Mankato. In 1999, he moved with his family to Detroit Lakes, where he became the manager of St. Mary’s EMS. He continued in that position until April 2013, when he left to start his own business, the DL Bike Shop. Langworthy was first elected to the school board nine years ago; due to changes in the state’s election laws, his first term was for five years. He was re-elected in 2010, and said he would like to have one more term in office before he steps down. “This is my last go-round,” he said. If he’s elected, “That’s 13 years, which means I will have followed one class through from kindergarten to graduation.” Langworthy said that when he first started on the board, all three of his children were still in school - “one in the elementary, one in the middle school, and one in high school.” Now, all three of them have graduated. The oldest, Ben, who will be 24 on Nov. 1, works for Solar Connections as a project manager; daughter Joelle, 21, is a senior at the University of Minnesota-Morris; and youngest daughter Dana, 19, is a freshman at Winona State. His wife Tammy - to whom he has been married for the past 26 years - is a Title I/Reading Recovery teacher at Roosevelt Elementary School. This gives him a unique perspective on the staffing at Detroit Lakes Public Schools. “I think the continued development of our professional staff and professional learning communities is an ongoing priority for the district,” he said. “They’ve done a great job, and the alignment and development of our curriculum has gone really well, which reflects well on our staff, and the fact that they have come so far, so quickly, says a lot about them.” As for the district’s critical space needs, Langworthy said it’s actually a good problem to have. “Our enrollment continues to rise, and that’s a good thing,” he said. “As Detroit Lakes grows, so does our school district.” At the same time, he added, “We do need more space, and soon. Somewhere in this district, we need to add some space to accommodate the crunch, especially at the grade school level.” Like the other candidates, Langworthy is concerned about the state-mandated addition of preschool classes to the district’s curriculum. “That will make us fully pre-kindergarten through 12th grade,” he said. “That will lead to the need for more space, and the staff for providing the services.” Langworthy said he feels his experience on the board and continued desire to serve the school district are strong reasons for residents to vote for him on Nov. 4. “I still have the energy, and the drive to continue doing this,” he said. “There’s no one single thing that I want to see done (while in office). This isn’t a job that you can complete, it’s just a job where you can contribute, and then move on.” Brenda Muckenhirn [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"1188400","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"400","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"273"}}]] While she is a Mahnomen native, Brenda Muckenhirn has been a resident of Detroit Lakes since 1982, when she and husband Paul moved to the community to raise their three children. Now grown, oldest son Craig, 27, works for Wells Fargo and is completing graduate school in Raleigh, N.C. Son Kyle, 23, just started medical school at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, while youngest daughter Kayli, 20, is a junior at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks (where Muckenhirn herself earned an undergraduate degree in physical therapy). When she first moved to Detroit Lakes, Muckenhirn, 55, was employed as a therapist at St. Mary’s (now Essentia Health-St. Mary’s). Since 1996, she has been employed at Sanford Health (formerly Meritcare), where she is currently the supervisor of the physical and occupational therapy department as well as the athletic training program. She ran for the Detroit Lakes School Board back in 2010, and started her first term on the board in January 2011. “They were looking for candidates, and I looked on it as part of giving back (to the district),” she said, adding, “All three of my kids had an excellent education here, and have done well since.” With her youngest child in the process of completing high school, Muckenhirn felt she finally had the time to devote the attention necessary to serve on the school board. “I found it very interesting, and I’ve learned a lot,” she said. “I’ve been able to learn so much more about education, and I feel like there’s a lot of unfinished business.” Muckenhirn said she’d like to be a part of the process of finally figuring out what to do about the district’s space needs. “Everyone knows something needs to be done,” she said. “I want to see that through. “Right now, we have three options that we’re having our architects put designs and numbers to, so we can see what we’re getting,” she said. “We will bring those back to the table in October, but we’re still very open to suggestions if someone finds something better. “We have such significant space needs now, however, that we want to put something out there the voters will support. I would hate to see a referendum fail again.” Muckenhirn said she also “feels bad” for the staff and students who are working under such cramped conditions. “For the sake of our kids we have to do something in a timely manner,” she added. In addition to seeing the referendum project through to completion, Muckenhirn said another reason she decided to seek another term was that “there have been a lot of administrative changes this year, so having some consistency on the board would be helpful during that transition.” Follow Vicki Gerdes on Twitter at @VickiLGerdes.There are three seats up for grabs on the Detroit Lakes School Board come Nov. 4, with two incumbents and two challengers vying for the honor of serving the district for the next four years. Incumbents David Langworthy and Brenda Muckenhirn will face a strong challenge from Kylie Johnson and Brett Bridgeman, who are both seeking their first term in public office. Brett Bridgeman [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"1188397","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"400","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"274"}}]] Though he isn’t a Detroit Lakes native, Bridgeman, 33, moved to the community with his family in 1990, and graduated from DLHS before moving to Florida and eventually, to Greeley, Colo., where he spent two years with State Farm Insurance (2004-06). In 2006, he got a job with Wells Fargo in Des Moines, Iowa, where his future wife, Heather Harris, was also employed. Later that year, on June 30, 2006, they were married, and the couple moved back to Detroit Lakes in 2007. (Heather is the daughter of the late Bob and Michelle Harris, who were longtime residents of the community.) “I left Wells Fargo in 2009, and I’ve been with U.S. Bank for the past five years,” Bridgeman said. (Heather is now a full-time mom, he added.) As the father of two young children - Nash, 4, and Jordyne, 1½ (20 months) - he decided that the time was now to run for a school board position. “I had thought about it eight years ago, when we had just moved back to the community, but it was a little too soon,” he said, noting that he wasn’t as familiar with the district and its needs as he would have liked at that time. “I started paying attention to what was going on in the schools,” Bridgeman said. “After my youngest sister graduated (from DLHS) in 2012, I thought that would be the year I’d run.” Instead, however, he opted to stay in the background, following the school board meetings and gathering information about the district. “I decided I didn’t want to just voice my concerns, I wanted to be a part of the decision making process, be more directly involved,” he said - especially after his oldest son started attending preschool. Bridgeman readily acknowledges that “the district’s space issues are obviously at the forefront, “and we need to deal with that as quickly as possible… after two years of discussion, it’s time to put something together.” However, he added, “I don’t want us to do just a ‘band-aid’ fix.” While it is important to come up with a solution that voters will understand and support, and to minimize the tax impact on residents where possible, it is equally important to make sure that the solution takes future growth into account, he explained. “If we see more growth 5-10 years into the future, it will be tough to come back to the voters and ask for more money,” Bridgeman said. “It’s important to ensure that we utilize any money we’re given wisely, to maximize the resources we have.” Bridgeman is particularly interested in the recent state legislative mandate that will require all public school districts to provide preschool education as a regular part of their curriculum, and said the district will need to take that into account when planning for its future space needs. “It (early childhood education) is something both my wife and I have been getting more involved in,” he said. “It’s such a great program… my kids love it. If my 1-year-old could go to preschool every day, she’d do it.” Kylie Johnson
Though she has only been a resident of Detroit Lakes since 2005, Kylie Johnson’s roots in public education go way back. “My dad, Larry Mischke, is still the K-12 principal at Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley,” she said, noting that he was a teacher for several years as well. “I have a strong belief in public education. It can work, and it does work, but it needs parental involvement, too.” Johnson, 31, said she had “three small motivators” - her children Brenna, 5, Wyatt, 3, and Jake, 21 months - behind her decision to run for school board. “I think that as the parent of a kindergartner, a parent who is involved in this school district, I have a first-hand view of what’s going on in the schools,” she added. When bringing her daughter in to Rossman Elementary for the first time, Johnson said she learned just how bad the space issues in that building were when she discovered that the students were using the same space for both lunchroom and gymnasium. “When you’re there and you’re involved, you see things you might not otherwise,” Johnson added. Though she feels that whatever solution the school board chooses to put before the voters would be decided before she would even take office, Johnson said she would “put faith in them to present the best option for the district.” “I would hope that whatever option they choose, they are considering district growth in the future,” she added. Like Bridgeman, she is particularly concerned with the addition of daily pre-kindergarten classes to the district, which will bring with it an additional 200-plus kids that will need to be housed within its already overcrowded facilities. “Audubon and Ogema (elementary schools) already have pre-kindergarten as part of their district offerings… Holy Rosary already has a full-day (prekindergarten) program,” she said. “It’s the one area where Detroit Lakes is lagging behind other districts in the area.” Kylie, who is married to Frazee High School graduate Eric Johnson (a 14-year veteran of BTD Manufacturing), has been the housing manager at Lamplighter Manor (part of the Ecumen-Detroit Lakes campus) for the past seven years. A graduate of Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley High School, she has a bachelor of science degree in business management, with a minor in marketing, from Minnesota State University-Moorhead. “I served on the DL Early Childhood Family Education Advisory board during the 2013-14 school year, and would like to grow along with my children,” she said. “If elected, Johnson added, “I will represent young families, support public education, and bring a new perspective to current issues.” David Langworthy [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"1188399","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"400","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"274"}}]] David Langworthy, 50, is a Minnesota native who grew up in Mapleton, a small town in the southern part of the state. After receiving his education at Mankato State University and the University of Minnesota-Morris, where he graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in community health education and an associate of arts degree in paramedicine, he started his career with Gold Cross Ambulance in Mankato. In 1999, he moved with his family to Detroit Lakes, where he became the manager of St. Mary’s EMS. He continued in that position until April 2013, when he left to start his own business, the DL Bike Shop. Langworthy was first elected to the school board nine years ago; due to changes in the state’s election laws, his first term was for five years. He was re-elected in 2010, and said he would like to have one more term in office before he steps down. “This is my last go-round,” he said. If he’s elected, “That’s 13 years, which means I will have followed one class through from kindergarten to graduation.” Langworthy said that when he first started on the board, all three of his children were still in school - “one in the elementary, one in the middle school, and one in high school.” Now, all three of them have graduated. The oldest, Ben, who will be 24 on Nov. 1, works for Solar Connections as a project manager; daughter Joelle, 21, is a senior at the University of Minnesota-Morris; and youngest daughter Dana, 19, is a freshman at Winona State. His wife Tammy - to whom he has been married for the past 26 years - is a Title I/Reading Recovery teacher at Roosevelt Elementary School. This gives him a unique perspective on the staffing at Detroit Lakes Public Schools. “I think the continued development of our professional staff and professional learning communities is an ongoing priority for the district,” he said. “They’ve done a great job, and the alignment and development of our curriculum has gone really well, which reflects well on our staff, and the fact that they have come so far, so quickly, says a lot about them.” As for the district’s critical space needs, Langworthy said it’s actually a good problem to have. “Our enrollment continues to rise, and that’s a good thing,” he said. “As Detroit Lakes grows, so does our school district.” At the same time, he added, “We do need more space, and soon. Somewhere in this district, we need to add some space to accommodate the crunch, especially at the grade school level.” Like the other candidates, Langworthy is concerned about the state-mandated addition of preschool classes to the district’s curriculum. “That will make us fully pre-kindergarten through 12th grade,” he said. “That will lead to the need for more space, and the staff for providing the services.” Langworthy said he feels his experience on the board and continued desire to serve the school district are strong reasons for residents to vote for him on Nov. 4. “I still have the energy, and the drive to continue doing this,” he said. “There’s no one single thing that I want to see done (while in office). This isn’t a job that you can complete, it’s just a job where you can contribute, and then move on.” Brenda Muckenhirn [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"1188400","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"400","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"273"}}]] While she is a Mahnomen native, Brenda Muckenhirn has been a resident of Detroit Lakes since 1982, when she and husband Paul moved to the community to raise their three children. Now grown, oldest son Craig, 27, works for Wells Fargo and is completing graduate school in Raleigh, N.C. Son Kyle, 23, just started medical school at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, while youngest daughter Kayli, 20, is a junior at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks (where Muckenhirn herself earned an undergraduate degree in physical therapy). When she first moved to Detroit Lakes, Muckenhirn, 55, was employed as a therapist at St. Mary’s (now Essentia Health-St. Mary’s). Since 1996, she has been employed at Sanford Health (formerly Meritcare), where she is currently the supervisor of the physical and occupational therapy department as well as the athletic training program. She ran for the Detroit Lakes School Board back in 2010, and started her first term on the board in January 2011. “They were looking for candidates, and I looked on it as part of giving back (to the district),” she said, adding, “All three of my kids had an excellent education here, and have done well since.” With her youngest child in the process of completing high school, Muckenhirn felt she finally had the time to devote the attention necessary to serve on the school board. “I found it very interesting, and I’ve learned a lot,” she said. “I’ve been able to learn so much more about education, and I feel like there’s a lot of unfinished business.” Muckenhirn said she’d like to be a part of the process of finally figuring out what to do about the district’s space needs. “Everyone knows something needs to be done,” she said. “I want to see that through. “Right now, we have three options that we’re having our architects put designs and numbers to, so we can see what we’re getting,” she said. “We will bring those back to the table in October, but we’re still very open to suggestions if someone finds something better. “We have such significant space needs now, however, that we want to put something out there the voters will support. I would hate to see a referendum fail again.” Muckenhirn said she also “feels bad” for the staff and students who are working under such cramped conditions. “For the sake of our kids we have to do something in a timely manner,” she added. In addition to seeing the referendum project through to completion, Muckenhirn said another reason she decided to seek another term was that “there have been a lot of administrative changes this year, so having some consistency on the board would be helpful during that transition.” Follow Vicki Gerdes on Twitter at @VickiLGerdes.There are three seats up for grabs on the Detroit Lakes School Board come Nov. 4, with two incumbents and two challengers vying for the honor of serving the district for the next four years. Incumbents David Langworthy and Brenda Muckenhirn will face a strong challenge from Kylie Johnson and Brett Bridgeman, who are both seeking their first term in public office. Brett Bridgeman [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"1188397","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"400","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"274"}}]] Though he isn’t a Detroit Lakes native, Bridgeman, 33, moved to the community with his family in 1990, and graduated from DLHS before moving to Florida and eventually, to Greeley, Colo., where he spent two years with State Farm Insurance (2004-06). In 2006, he got a job with Wells Fargo in Des Moines, Iowa, where his future wife, Heather Harris, was also employed. Later that year, on June 30, 2006, they were married, and the couple moved back to Detroit Lakes in 2007. (Heather is the daughter of the late Bob and Michelle Harris, who were longtime residents of the community.) “I left Wells Fargo in 2009, and I’ve been with U.S. Bank for the past five years,” Bridgeman said. (Heather is now a full-time mom, he added.) As the father of two young children - Nash, 4, and Jordyne, 1½ (20 months) - he decided that the time was now to run for a school board position. “I had thought about it eight years ago, when we had just moved back to the community, but it was a little too soon,” he said, noting that he wasn’t as familiar with the district and its needs as he would have liked at that time. “I started paying attention to what was going on in the schools,” Bridgeman said. “After my youngest sister graduated (from DLHS) in 2012, I thought that would be the year I’d run.” Instead, however, he opted to stay in the background, following the school board meetings and gathering information about the district. “I decided I didn’t want to just voice my concerns, I wanted to be a part of the decision making process, be more directly involved,” he said - especially after his oldest son started attending preschool. Bridgeman readily acknowledges that “the district’s space issues are obviously at the forefront, “and we need to deal with that as quickly as possible… after two years of discussion, it’s time to put something together.” However, he added, “I don’t want us to do just a ‘band-aid’ fix.” While it is important to come up with a solution that voters will understand and support, and to minimize the tax impact on residents where possible, it is equally important to make sure that the solution takes future growth into account, he explained. “If we see more growth 5-10 years into the future, it will be tough to come back to the voters and ask for more money,” Bridgeman said. “It’s important to ensure that we utilize any money we’re given wisely, to maximize the resources we have.” Bridgeman is particularly interested in the recent state legislative mandate that will require all public school districts to provide preschool education as a regular part of their curriculum, and said the district will need to take that into account when planning for its future space needs. “It (early childhood education) is something both my wife and I have been getting more involved in,” he said. “It’s such a great program… my kids love it. If my 1-year-old could go to preschool every day, she’d do it.” Kylie Johnson [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"1188398","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"400","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"274"}}]] Though she has only been a resident of Detroit Lakes since 2005, Kylie Johnson’s roots in public education go way back. “My dad, Larry Mischke, is still the K-12 principal at Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley,” she said, noting that he was a teacher for several years as well. “I have a strong belief in public education. It can work, and it does work, but it needs parental involvement, too.” Johnson, 31, said she had “three small motivators” - her children Brenna, 5, Wyatt, 3, and Jake, 21 months - behind her decision to run for school board. “I think that as the parent of a kindergartner, a parent who is involved in this school district, I have a first-hand view of what’s going on in the schools,” she added. When bringing her daughter in to Rossman Elementary for the first time, Johnson said she learned just how bad the space issues in that building were when she discovered that the students were using the same space for both lunchroom and gymnasium. “When you’re there and you’re involved, you see things you might not otherwise,” Johnson added. Though she feels that whatever solution the school board chooses to put before the voters would be decided before she would even take office, Johnson said she would “put faith in them to present the best option for the district.” “I would hope that whatever option they choose, they are considering district growth in the future,” she added. Like Bridgeman, she is particularly concerned with the addition of daily pre-kindergarten classes to the district, which will bring with it an additional 200-plus kids that will need to be housed within its already overcrowded facilities. “Audubon and Ogema (elementary schools) already have pre-kindergarten as part of their district offerings… Holy Rosary already has a full-day (prekindergarten) program,” she said. “It’s the one area where Detroit Lakes is lagging behind other districts in the area.” Kylie, who is married to Frazee High School graduate Eric Johnson (a 14-year veteran of BTD Manufacturing), has been the housing manager at Lamplighter Manor (part of the Ecumen-Detroit Lakes campus) for the past seven years. A graduate of Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley High School, she has a bachelor of science degree in business management, with a minor in marketing, from Minnesota State University-Moorhead. “I served on the DL Early Childhood Family Education Advisory board during the 2013-14 school year, and would like to grow along with my children,” she said. “If elected, Johnson added, “I will represent young families, support public education, and bring a new perspective to current issues.” David Langworthy
David Langworthy, 50, is a Minnesota native who grew up in Mapleton, a small town in the southern part of the state. After receiving his education at Mankato State University and the University of Minnesota-Morris, where he graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in community health education and an associate of arts degree in paramedicine, he started his career with Gold Cross Ambulance in Mankato. In 1999, he moved with his family to Detroit Lakes, where he became the manager of St. Mary’s EMS. He continued in that position until April 2013, when he left to start his own business, the DL Bike Shop. Langworthy was first elected to the school board nine years ago; due to changes in the state’s election laws, his first term was for five years. He was re-elected in 2010, and said he would like to have one more term in office before he steps down. “This is my last go-round,” he said. If he’s elected, “That’s 13 years, which means I will have followed one class through from kindergarten to graduation.” Langworthy said that when he first started on the board, all three of his children were still in school - “one in the elementary, one in the middle school, and one in high school.” Now, all three of them have graduated. The oldest, Ben, who will be 24 on Nov. 1, works for Solar Connections as a project manager; daughter Joelle, 21, is a senior at the University of Minnesota-Morris; and youngest daughter Dana, 19, is a freshman at Winona State. His wife Tammy - to whom he has been married for the past 26 years - is a Title I/Reading Recovery teacher at Roosevelt Elementary School. This gives him a unique perspective on the staffing at Detroit Lakes Public Schools. “I think the continued development of our professional staff and professional learning communities is an ongoing priority for the district,” he said. “They’ve done a great job, and the alignment and development of our curriculum has gone really well, which reflects well on our staff, and the fact that they have come so far, so quickly, says a lot about them.” As for the district’s critical space needs, Langworthy said it’s actually a good problem to have. “Our enrollment continues to rise, and that’s a good thing,” he said. “As Detroit Lakes grows, so does our school district.” At the same time, he added, “We do need more space, and soon. Somewhere in this district, we need to add some space to accommodate the crunch, especially at the grade school level.” Like the other candidates, Langworthy is concerned about the state-mandated addition of preschool classes to the district’s curriculum. “That will make us fully pre-kindergarten through 12th grade,” he said. “That will lead to the need for more space, and the staff for providing the services.” Langworthy said he feels his experience on the board and continued desire to serve the school district are strong reasons for residents to vote for him on Nov. 4. “I still have the energy, and the drive to continue doing this,” he said. “There’s no one single thing that I want to see done (while in office). This isn’t a job that you can complete, it’s just a job where you can contribute, and then move on.” Brenda Muckenhirn [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"1188400","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"400","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"273"}}]] While she is a Mahnomen native, Brenda Muckenhirn has been a resident of Detroit Lakes since 1982, when she and husband Paul moved to the community to raise their three children. Now grown, oldest son Craig, 27, works for Wells Fargo and is completing graduate school in Raleigh, N.C. Son Kyle, 23, just started medical school at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, while youngest daughter Kayli, 20, is a junior at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks (where Muckenhirn herself earned an undergraduate degree in physical therapy). When she first moved to Detroit Lakes, Muckenhirn, 55, was employed as a therapist at St. Mary’s (now Essentia Health-St. Mary’s). Since 1996, she has been employed at Sanford Health (formerly Meritcare), where she is currently the supervisor of the physical and occupational therapy department as well as the athletic training program. She ran for the Detroit Lakes School Board back in 2010, and started her first term on the board in January 2011. “They were looking for candidates, and I looked on it as part of giving back (to the district),” she said, adding, “All three of my kids had an excellent education here, and have done well since.” With her youngest child in the process of completing high school, Muckenhirn felt she finally had the time to devote the attention necessary to serve on the school board. “I found it very interesting, and I’ve learned a lot,” she said. “I’ve been able to learn so much more about education, and I feel like there’s a lot of unfinished business.” Muckenhirn said she’d like to be a part of the process of finally figuring out what to do about the district’s space needs. “Everyone knows something needs to be done,” she said. “I want to see that through. “Right now, we have three options that we’re having our architects put designs and numbers to, so we can see what we’re getting,” she said. “We will bring those back to the table in October, but we’re still very open to suggestions if someone finds something better. “We have such significant space needs now, however, that we want to put something out there the voters will support. I would hate to see a referendum fail again.” Muckenhirn said she also “feels bad” for the staff and students who are working under such cramped conditions. “For the sake of our kids we have to do something in a timely manner,” she added. In addition to seeing the referendum project through to completion, Muckenhirn said another reason she decided to seek another term was that “there have been a lot of administrative changes this year, so having some consistency on the board would be helpful during that transition.” Follow Vicki Gerdes on Twitter at @VickiLGerdes.There are three seats up for grabs on the Detroit Lakes School Board come Nov. 4, with two incumbents and two challengers vying for the honor of serving the district for the next four years. Incumbents David Langworthy and Brenda Muckenhirn will face a strong challenge from Kylie Johnson and Brett Bridgeman, who are both seeking their first term in public office. Brett Bridgeman [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"1188397","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"400","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"274"}}]] Though he isn’t a Detroit Lakes native, Bridgeman, 33, moved to the community with his family in 1990, and graduated from DLHS before moving to Florida and eventually, to Greeley, Colo., where he spent two years with State Farm Insurance (2004-06). In 2006, he got a job with Wells Fargo in Des Moines, Iowa, where his future wife, Heather Harris, was also employed. Later that year, on June 30, 2006, they were married, and the couple moved back to Detroit Lakes in 2007. (Heather is the daughter of the late Bob and Michelle Harris, who were longtime residents of the community.) “I left Wells Fargo in 2009, and I’ve been with U.S. Bank for the past five years,” Bridgeman said. (Heather is now a full-time mom, he added.) As the father of two young children - Nash, 4, and Jordyne, 1½ (20 months) - he decided that the time was now to run for a school board position. “I had thought about it eight years ago, when we had just moved back to the community, but it was a little too soon,” he said, noting that he wasn’t as familiar with the district and its needs as he would have liked at that time. “I started paying attention to what was going on in the schools,” Bridgeman said. “After my youngest sister graduated (from DLHS) in 2012, I thought that would be the year I’d run.” Instead, however, he opted to stay in the background, following the school board meetings and gathering information about the district. “I decided I didn’t want to just voice my concerns, I wanted to be a part of the decision making process, be more directly involved,” he said - especially after his oldest son started attending preschool. Bridgeman readily acknowledges that “the district’s space issues are obviously at the forefront, “and we need to deal with that as quickly as possible… after two years of discussion, it’s time to put something together.” However, he added, “I don’t want us to do just a ‘band-aid’ fix.” While it is important to come up with a solution that voters will understand and support, and to minimize the tax impact on residents where possible, it is equally important to make sure that the solution takes future growth into account, he explained. “If we see more growth 5-10 years into the future, it will be tough to come back to the voters and ask for more money,” Bridgeman said. “It’s important to ensure that we utilize any money we’re given wisely, to maximize the resources we have.” Bridgeman is particularly interested in the recent state legislative mandate that will require all public school districts to provide preschool education as a regular part of their curriculum, and said the district will need to take that into account when planning for its future space needs. “It (early childhood education) is something both my wife and I have been getting more involved in,” he said. “It’s such a great program… my kids love it. If my 1-year-old could go to preschool every day, she’d do it.” Kylie Johnson [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"1188398","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"400","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"274"}}]] Though she has only been a resident of Detroit Lakes since 2005, Kylie Johnson’s roots in public education go way back. “My dad, Larry Mischke, is still the K-12 principal at Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley,” she said, noting that he was a teacher for several years as well. “I have a strong belief in public education. It can work, and it does work, but it needs parental involvement, too.” Johnson, 31, said she had “three small motivators” - her children Brenna, 5, Wyatt, 3, and Jake, 21 months - behind her decision to run for school board. “I think that as the parent of a kindergartner, a parent who is involved in this school district, I have a first-hand view of what’s going on in the schools,” she added. When bringing her daughter in to Rossman Elementary for the first time, Johnson said she learned just how bad the space issues in that building were when she discovered that the students were using the same space for both lunchroom and gymnasium. “When you’re there and you’re involved, you see things you might not otherwise,” Johnson added. Though she feels that whatever solution the school board chooses to put before the voters would be decided before she would even take office, Johnson said she would “put faith in them to present the best option for the district.” “I would hope that whatever option they choose, they are considering district growth in the future,” she added. Like Bridgeman, she is particularly concerned with the addition of daily pre-kindergarten classes to the district, which will bring with it an additional 200-plus kids that will need to be housed within its already overcrowded facilities. “Audubon and Ogema (elementary schools) already have pre-kindergarten as part of their district offerings… Holy Rosary already has a full-day (prekindergarten) program,” she said. “It’s the one area where Detroit Lakes is lagging behind other districts in the area.” Kylie, who is married to Frazee High School graduate Eric Johnson (a 14-year veteran of BTD Manufacturing), has been the housing manager at Lamplighter Manor (part of the Ecumen-Detroit Lakes campus) for the past seven years. A graduate of Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley High School, she has a bachelor of science degree in business management, with a minor in marketing, from Minnesota State University-Moorhead. “I served on the DL Early Childhood Family Education Advisory board during the 2013-14 school year, and would like to grow along with my children,” she said. “If elected, Johnson added, “I will represent young families, support public education, and bring a new perspective to current issues.” David Langworthy [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"1188399","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"400","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"274"}}]] David Langworthy, 50, is a Minnesota native who grew up in Mapleton, a small town in the southern part of the state. After receiving his education at Mankato State University and the University of Minnesota-Morris, where he graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in community health education and an associate of arts degree in paramedicine, he started his career with Gold Cross Ambulance in Mankato. In 1999, he moved with his family to Detroit Lakes, where he became the manager of St. Mary’s EMS. He continued in that position until April 2013, when he left to start his own business, the DL Bike Shop. Langworthy was first elected to the school board nine years ago; due to changes in the state’s election laws, his first term was for five years. He was re-elected in 2010, and said he would like to have one more term in office before he steps down. “This is my last go-round,” he said. If he’s elected, “That’s 13 years, which means I will have followed one class through from kindergarten to graduation.” Langworthy said that when he first started on the board, all three of his children were still in school - “one in the elementary, one in the middle school, and one in high school.” Now, all three of them have graduated. The oldest, Ben, who will be 24 on Nov. 1, works for Solar Connections as a project manager; daughter Joelle, 21, is a senior at the University of Minnesota-Morris; and youngest daughter Dana, 19, is a freshman at Winona State. His wife Tammy - to whom he has been married for the past 26 years - is a Title I/Reading Recovery teacher at Roosevelt Elementary School. This gives him a unique perspective on the staffing at Detroit Lakes Public Schools. “I think the continued development of our professional staff and professional learning communities is an ongoing priority for the district,” he said. “They’ve done a great job, and the alignment and development of our curriculum has gone really well, which reflects well on our staff, and the fact that they have come so far, so quickly, says a lot about them.” As for the district’s critical space needs, Langworthy said it’s actually a good problem to have. “Our enrollment continues to rise, and that’s a good thing,” he said. “As Detroit Lakes grows, so does our school district.” At the same time, he added, “We do need more space, and soon. Somewhere in this district, we need to add some space to accommodate the crunch, especially at the grade school level.” Like the other candidates, Langworthy is concerned about the state-mandated addition of preschool classes to the district’s curriculum. “That will make us fully pre-kindergarten through 12th grade,” he said. “That will lead to the need for more space, and the staff for providing the services.” Langworthy said he feels his experience on the board and continued desire to serve the school district are strong reasons for residents to vote for him on Nov. 4. “I still have the energy, and the drive to continue doing this,” he said. “There’s no one single thing that I want to see done (while in office). This isn’t a job that you can complete, it’s just a job where you can contribute, and then move on.” Brenda Muckenhirn
While she is a Mahnomen native, Brenda Muckenhirn has been a resident of Detroit Lakes since 1982, when she and husband Paul moved to the community to raise their three children. Now grown, oldest son Craig, 27, works for Wells Fargo and is completing graduate school in Raleigh, N.C. Son Kyle, 23, just started medical school at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, while youngest daughter Kayli, 20, is a junior at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks (where Muckenhirn herself earned an undergraduate degree in physical therapy). When she first moved to Detroit Lakes, Muckenhirn, 55, was employed as a therapist at St. Mary’s (now Essentia Health-St. Mary’s). Since 1996, she has been employed at Sanford Health (formerly Meritcare), where she is currently the supervisor of the physical and occupational therapy department as well as the athletic training program. She ran for the Detroit Lakes School Board back in 2010, and started her first term on the board in January 2011. “They were looking for candidates, and I looked on it as part of giving back (to the district),” she said, adding, “All three of my kids had an excellent education here, and have done well since.” With her youngest child in the process of completing high school, Muckenhirn felt she finally had the time to devote the attention necessary to serve on the school board. “I found it very interesting, and I’ve learned a lot,” she said. “I’ve been able to learn so much more about education, and I feel like there’s a lot of unfinished business.” Muckenhirn said she’d like to be a part of the process of finally figuring out what to do about the district’s space needs. “Everyone knows something needs to be done,” she said. “I want to see that through. “Right now, we have three options that we’re having our architects put designs and numbers to, so we can see what we’re getting,” she said. “We will bring those back to the table in October, but we’re still very open to suggestions if someone finds something better. “We have such significant space needs now, however, that we want to put something out there the voters will support. I would hate to see a referendum fail again.” Muckenhirn said she also “feels bad” for the staff and students who are working under such cramped conditions. “For the sake of our kids we have to do something in a timely manner,” she added. In addition to seeing the referendum project through to completion, Muckenhirn said another reason she decided to seek another term was that “there have been a lot of administrative changes this year, so having some consistency on the board would be helpful during that transition.” Follow Vicki Gerdes on Twitter at @VickiLGerdes.There are three seats up for grabs on the Detroit Lakes School Board come Nov. 4, with two incumbents and two challengers vying for the honor of serving the district for the next four years.Incumbents David Langworthy and Brenda Muckenhirn will face a strong challenge from Kylie Johnson and Brett Bridgeman, who are both seeking their first term in public office.Brett Bridgeman
Though he isn’t a Detroit Lakes native, Bridgeman, 33, moved to the community with his family in 1990, and graduated from DLHS before moving to Florida and eventually, to Greeley, Colo., where he spent two years with State Farm Insurance (2004-06).In 2006, he got a job with Wells Fargo in Des Moines, Iowa, where his future wife, Heather Harris, was also employed. Later that year, on June 30, 2006, they were married, and the couple moved back to Detroit Lakes in 2007. (Heather is the daughter of the late Bob and Michelle Harris, who were longtime residents of the community.)“I left Wells Fargo in 2009, and I’ve been with U.S. Bank for the past five years,” Bridgeman said. (Heather is now a full-time mom, he added.)As the father of two young children - Nash, 4, and Jordyne, 1½ (20 months) - he decided that the time was now to run for a school board position.“I had thought about it eight years ago, when we had just moved back to the community, but it was a little too soon,” he said, noting that he wasn’t as familiar with the district and its needs as he would have liked at that time.“I started paying attention to what was going on in the schools,” Bridgeman said. “After my youngest sister graduated (from DLHS) in 2012, I thought that would be the year I’d run.”Instead, however, he opted to stay in the background, following the school board meetings and gathering information about the district.“I decided I didn’t want to just voice my concerns, I wanted to be a part of the decision making process, be more directly involved,” he said - especially after his oldest son started attending preschool.Bridgeman readily acknowledges that “the district’s space issues are obviously at the forefront, “and we need to deal with that as quickly as possible… after two years of discussion, it’s time to put something together.”However, he added, “I don’t want us to do just a ‘band-aid’ fix.”While it is important to come up with a solution that voters will understand and support, and to minimize the tax impact on residents where possible, it is equally important to make sure that the solution takes future growth into account, he explained.“If we see more growth 5-10 years into the future, it will be tough to come back to the voters and ask for more money,” Bridgeman said. “It’s important to ensure that we utilize any money we’re given wisely, to maximize the resources we have.”Bridgeman is particularly interested in the recent state legislative mandate that will require all public school districts to provide preschool education as a regular part of their curriculum, and said the district will need to take that into account when planning for its future space needs.“It (early childhood education) is something both my wife and I have been getting more involved in,” he said. “It’s such a great program… my kids love it. If my 1-year-old could go to preschool every day, she’d do it.”Kylie Johnson[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"1188398","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"400","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"274"}}]]Though she has only been a resident of Detroit Lakes since 2005, Kylie Johnson’s roots in public education go way back.“My dad, Larry Mischke, is still the K-12 principal at Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley,” she said, noting that he was a teacher for several years as well.“I have a strong belief in public education. It can work, and it does work, but it needs parental involvement, too.”Johnson, 31, said she had “three small motivators” - her children Brenna, 5, Wyatt, 3, and Jake, 21 months - behind her decision to run for school board.“I think that as the parent of a kindergartner, a parent who is involved in this school district, I have a first-hand view of what’s going on in the schools,” she added.When bringing her daughter in to Rossman Elementary for the first time, Johnson said she learned just how bad the space issues in that building were when she discovered that the students were using the same space for both lunchroom and gymnasium.“When you’re there and you’re involved, you see things you might not otherwise,” Johnson added.Though she feels that whatever solution the school board chooses to put before the voters would be decided before she would even take office, Johnson said she would “put faith in them to present the best option for the district.”“I would hope that whatever option they choose, they are considering district growth in the future,” she added.Like Bridgeman, she is particularly concerned with the addition of daily pre-kindergarten classes to the district, which will bring with it an additional 200-plus kids that will need to be housed within its already overcrowded facilities.“Audubon and Ogema (elementary schools) already have pre-kindergarten as part of their district offerings… Holy Rosary already has a full-day (prekindergarten) program,” she said. “It’s the one area where Detroit Lakes is lagging behind other districts in the area.”Kylie, who is married to Frazee High School graduate Eric Johnson (a 14-year veteran of BTD Manufacturing), has been the housing manager at Lamplighter Manor (part of the Ecumen-Detroit Lakes campus) for the past seven years.A graduate of Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley High School, she has a bachelor of science degree in business management, with a minor in marketing, from Minnesota State University-Moorhead.“I served on the DL Early Childhood Family Education Advisory board during the 2013-14 school year, and would like to grow along with my children,” she said.“If elected, Johnson added, “I will represent young families, support public education, and bring a new perspective to current issues.”David Langworthy[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"1188399","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"400","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"274"}}]]David Langworthy, 50, is a Minnesota native who grew up in Mapleton, a small town in the southern part of the state.After receiving his education at Mankato State University and the University of Minnesota-Morris, where he graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in community health education and an associate of arts degree in paramedicine, he started his career with Gold Cross Ambulance in Mankato.In 1999, he moved with his family to Detroit Lakes, where he became the manager of St. Mary’s EMS. He continued in that position until April 2013, when he left to start his own business, the DL Bike Shop.Langworthy was first elected to the school board nine years ago; due to changes in the state’s election laws, his first term was for five years.He was re-elected in 2010, and said he would like to have one more term in office before he steps down.“This is my last go-round,” he said. If he’s elected, “That’s 13 years, which means I will have followed one class through from kindergarten to graduation.”Langworthy said that when he first started on the board, all three of his children were still in school - “one in the elementary, one in the middle school, and one in high school.”Now, all three of them have graduated. The oldest, Ben, who will be 24 on Nov. 1, works for Solar Connections as a project manager; daughter Joelle, 21, is a senior at the University of Minnesota-Morris; and youngest daughter Dana, 19, is a freshman at Winona State.His wife Tammy - to whom he has been married for the past 26 years - is a Title I/Reading Recovery teacher at Roosevelt Elementary School.This gives him a unique perspective on the staffing at Detroit Lakes Public Schools.“I think the continued development of our professional staff and professional learning communities is an ongoing priority for the district,” he said. “They’ve done a great job, and the alignment and development of our curriculum has gone really well, which reflects well on our staff, and the fact that they have come so far, so quickly, says a lot about them.”As for the district’s critical space needs, Langworthy said it’s actually a good problem to have.“Our enrollment continues to rise, and that’s a good thing,” he said. “As Detroit Lakes grows, so does our school district.”At the same time, he added, “We do need more space, and soon. Somewhere in this district, we need to add some space to accommodate the crunch, especially at the grade school level.”Like the other candidates, Langworthy is concerned about the state-mandated addition of preschool classes to the district’s curriculum.“That will make us fully pre-kindergarten through 12th grade,” he said. “That will lead to the need for more space, and the staff for providing the services.”Langworthy said he feels his experience on the board and continued desire to serve the school district are strong reasons for residents to vote for him on Nov. 4.“I still have the energy, and the drive to continue doing this,” he said. “There’s no one single thing that I want to see done (while in office). This isn’t a job that you can complete, it’s just a job where you can contribute, and then move on.”Brenda Muckenhirn[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"1188400","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"400","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"273"}}]]While she is a Mahnomen native, Brenda Muckenhirn has been a resident of Detroit Lakes since 1982, when she and husband Paul moved to the community to raise their three children.Now grown, oldest son Craig, 27, works for Wells Fargo and is completing graduate school in Raleigh, N.C. Son Kyle, 23, just started medical school at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, while youngest daughter Kayli, 20, is a junior at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks (where Muckenhirn herself earned an undergraduate degree in physical therapy).When she first moved to Detroit Lakes, Muckenhirn, 55, was employed as a therapist at St. Mary’s (now Essentia Health-St. Mary’s). Since 1996, she has been employed at Sanford Health (formerly Meritcare), where she is currently the supervisor of the physical and occupational therapy department as well as the athletic training program.She ran for the Detroit Lakes School Board back in 2010, and started her first term on the board in January 2011.“They were looking for candidates, and I looked on it as part of giving back (to the district),” she said, adding, “All three of my kids had an excellent education here, and have done well since.”With her youngest child in the process of completing high school, Muckenhirn felt she finally had the time to devote the attention necessary to serve on the school board.“I found it very interesting, and I’ve learned a lot,” she said. “I’ve been able to learn so much more about education, and I feel like there’s a lot of unfinished business.”Muckenhirn said she’d like to be a part of the process of finally figuring out what to do about the district’s space needs.“Everyone knows something needs to be done,” she said. “I want to see that through.“Right now, we have three options that we’re having our architects put designs and numbers to, so we can see what we’re getting,” she said. “We will bring those back to the table in October, but we’re still very open to suggestions if someone finds something better.“We have such significant space needs now, however, that we want to put something out there the voters will support. I would hate to see a referendum fail again.”Muckenhirn said she also “feels bad” for the staff and students who are working under such cramped conditions.“For the sake of our kids we have to do something in a timely manner,” she added.In addition to seeing the referendum project through to completion, Muckenhirn said another reason she decided to seek another term was that “there have been a lot of administrative changes this year, so having some consistency on the board would be helpful during that transition.”Follow Vicki Gerdes on Twitter at @VickiLGerdes.There are three seats up for grabs on the Detroit Lakes School Board come Nov. 4, with two incumbents and two challengers vying for the honor of serving the district for the next four years.Incumbents David Langworthy and Brenda Muckenhirn will face a strong challenge from Kylie Johnson and Brett Bridgeman, who are both seeking their first term in public office.Brett Bridgeman[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"1188397","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"400","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"274"}}]]Though he isn’t a Detroit Lakes native, Bridgeman, 33, moved to the community with his family in 1990, and graduated from DLHS before moving to Florida and eventually, to Greeley, Colo., where he spent two years with State Farm Insurance (2004-06).In 2006, he got a job with Wells Fargo in Des Moines, Iowa, where his future wife, Heather Harris, was also employed. Later that year, on June 30, 2006, they were married, and the couple moved back to Detroit Lakes in 2007. (Heather is the daughter of the late Bob and Michelle Harris, who were longtime residents of the community.)“I left Wells Fargo in 2009, and I’ve been with U.S. Bank for the past five years,” Bridgeman said. (Heather is now a full-time mom, he added.)As the father of two young children - Nash, 4, and Jordyne, 1½ (20 months) - he decided that the time was now to run for a school board position.“I had thought about it eight years ago, when we had just moved back to the community, but it was a little too soon,” he said, noting that he wasn’t as familiar with the district and its needs as he would have liked at that time.“I started paying attention to what was going on in the schools,” Bridgeman said. “After my youngest sister graduated (from DLHS) in 2012, I thought that would be the year I’d run.”Instead, however, he opted to stay in the background, following the school board meetings and gathering information about the district.“I decided I didn’t want to just voice my concerns, I wanted to be a part of the decision making process, be more directly involved,” he said - especially after his oldest son started attending preschool.Bridgeman readily acknowledges that “the district’s space issues are obviously at the forefront, “and we need to deal with that as quickly as possible… after two years of discussion, it’s time to put something together.”However, he added, “I don’t want us to do just a ‘band-aid’ fix.”While it is important to come up with a solution that voters will understand and support, and to minimize the tax impact on residents where possible, it is equally important to make sure that the solution takes future growth into account, he explained.“If we see more growth 5-10 years into the future, it will be tough to come back to the voters and ask for more money,” Bridgeman said. “It’s important to ensure that we utilize any money we’re given wisely, to maximize the resources we have.”Bridgeman is particularly interested in the recent state legislative mandate that will require all public school districts to provide preschool education as a regular part of their curriculum, and said the district will need to take that into account when planning for its future space needs.“It (early childhood education) is something both my wife and I have been getting more involved in,” he said. “It’s such a great program… my kids love it. If my 1-year-old could go to preschool every day, she’d do it.”Kylie Johnson
Though she has only been a resident of Detroit Lakes since 2005, Kylie Johnson’s roots in public education go way back.“My dad, Larry Mischke, is still the K-12 principal at Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley,” she said, noting that he was a teacher for several years as well.“I have a strong belief in public education. It can work, and it does work, but it needs parental involvement, too.”Johnson, 31, said she had “three small motivators” - her children Brenna, 5, Wyatt, 3, and Jake, 21 months - behind her decision to run for school board.“I think that as the parent of a kindergartner, a parent who is involved in this school district, I have a first-hand view of what’s going on in the schools,” she added.When bringing her daughter in to Rossman Elementary for the first time, Johnson said she learned just how bad the space issues in that building were when she discovered that the students were using the same space for both lunchroom and gymnasium.“When you’re there and you’re involved, you see things you might not otherwise,” Johnson added.Though she feels that whatever solution the school board chooses to put before the voters would be decided before she would even take office, Johnson said she would “put faith in them to present the best option for the district.”“I would hope that whatever option they choose, they are considering district growth in the future,” she added.Like Bridgeman, she is particularly concerned with the addition of daily pre-kindergarten classes to the district, which will bring with it an additional 200-plus kids that will need to be housed within its already overcrowded facilities.“Audubon and Ogema (elementary schools) already have pre-kindergarten as part of their district offerings… Holy Rosary already has a full-day (prekindergarten) program,” she said. “It’s the one area where Detroit Lakes is lagging behind other districts in the area.”Kylie, who is married to Frazee High School graduate Eric Johnson (a 14-year veteran of BTD Manufacturing), has been the housing manager at Lamplighter Manor (part of the Ecumen-Detroit Lakes campus) for the past seven years.A graduate of Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley High School, she has a bachelor of science degree in business management, with a minor in marketing, from Minnesota State University-Moorhead.“I served on the DL Early Childhood Family Education Advisory board during the 2013-14 school year, and would like to grow along with my children,” she said.“If elected, Johnson added, “I will represent young families, support public education, and bring a new perspective to current issues.”David Langworthy[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"1188399","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"400","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"274"}}]]David Langworthy, 50, is a Minnesota native who grew up in Mapleton, a small town in the southern part of the state.After receiving his education at Mankato State University and the University of Minnesota-Morris, where he graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in community health education and an associate of arts degree in paramedicine, he started his career with Gold Cross Ambulance in Mankato.In 1999, he moved with his family to Detroit Lakes, where he became the manager of St. Mary’s EMS. He continued in that position until April 2013, when he left to start his own business, the DL Bike Shop.Langworthy was first elected to the school board nine years ago; due to changes in the state’s election laws, his first term was for five years.He was re-elected in 2010, and said he would like to have one more term in office before he steps down.“This is my last go-round,” he said. If he’s elected, “That’s 13 years, which means I will have followed one class through from kindergarten to graduation.”Langworthy said that when he first started on the board, all three of his children were still in school - “one in the elementary, one in the middle school, and one in high school.”Now, all three of them have graduated. The oldest, Ben, who will be 24 on Nov. 1, works for Solar Connections as a project manager; daughter Joelle, 21, is a senior at the University of Minnesota-Morris; and youngest daughter Dana, 19, is a freshman at Winona State.His wife Tammy - to whom he has been married for the past 26 years - is a Title I/Reading Recovery teacher at Roosevelt Elementary School.This gives him a unique perspective on the staffing at Detroit Lakes Public Schools.“I think the continued development of our professional staff and professional learning communities is an ongoing priority for the district,” he said. “They’ve done a great job, and the alignment and development of our curriculum has gone really well, which reflects well on our staff, and the fact that they have come so far, so quickly, says a lot about them.”As for the district’s critical space needs, Langworthy said it’s actually a good problem to have.“Our enrollment continues to rise, and that’s a good thing,” he said. “As Detroit Lakes grows, so does our school district.”At the same time, he added, “We do need more space, and soon. Somewhere in this district, we need to add some space to accommodate the crunch, especially at the grade school level.”Like the other candidates, Langworthy is concerned about the state-mandated addition of preschool classes to the district’s curriculum.“That will make us fully pre-kindergarten through 12th grade,” he said. “That will lead to the need for more space, and the staff for providing the services.”Langworthy said he feels his experience on the board and continued desire to serve the school district are strong reasons for residents to vote for him on Nov. 4.“I still have the energy, and the drive to continue doing this,” he said. “There’s no one single thing that I want to see done (while in office). This isn’t a job that you can complete, it’s just a job where you can contribute, and then move on.”Brenda Muckenhirn[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"1188400","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"400","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"273"}}]]While she is a Mahnomen native, Brenda Muckenhirn has been a resident of Detroit Lakes since 1982, when she and husband Paul moved to the community to raise their three children.Now grown, oldest son Craig, 27, works for Wells Fargo and is completing graduate school in Raleigh, N.C. Son Kyle, 23, just started medical school at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, while youngest daughter Kayli, 20, is a junior at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks (where Muckenhirn herself earned an undergraduate degree in physical therapy).When she first moved to Detroit Lakes, Muckenhirn, 55, was employed as a therapist at St. Mary’s (now Essentia Health-St. Mary’s). Since 1996, she has been employed at Sanford Health (formerly Meritcare), where she is currently the supervisor of the physical and occupational therapy department as well as the athletic training program.She ran for the Detroit Lakes School Board back in 2010, and started her first term on the board in January 2011.“They were looking for candidates, and I looked on it as part of giving back (to the district),” she said, adding, “All three of my kids had an excellent education here, and have done well since.”With her youngest child in the process of completing high school, Muckenhirn felt she finally had the time to devote the attention necessary to serve on the school board.“I found it very interesting, and I’ve learned a lot,” she said. “I’ve been able to learn so much more about education, and I feel like there’s a lot of unfinished business.”Muckenhirn said she’d like to be a part of the process of finally figuring out what to do about the district’s space needs.“Everyone knows something needs to be done,” she said. “I want to see that through.“Right now, we have three options that we’re having our architects put designs and numbers to, so we can see what we’re getting,” she said. “We will bring those back to the table in October, but we’re still very open to suggestions if someone finds something better.“We have such significant space needs now, however, that we want to put something out there the voters will support. I would hate to see a referendum fail again.”Muckenhirn said she also “feels bad” for the staff and students who are working under such cramped conditions.“For the sake of our kids we have to do something in a timely manner,” she added.In addition to seeing the referendum project through to completion, Muckenhirn said another reason she decided to seek another term was that “there have been a lot of administrative changes this year, so having some consistency on the board would be helpful during that transition.”Follow Vicki Gerdes on Twitter at @VickiLGerdes.There are three seats up for grabs on the Detroit Lakes School Board come Nov. 4, with two incumbents and two challengers vying for the honor of serving the district for the next four years.Incumbents David Langworthy and Brenda Muckenhirn will face a strong challenge from Kylie Johnson and Brett Bridgeman, who are both seeking their first term in public office.Brett Bridgeman[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"1188397","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"400","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"274"}}]]Though he isn’t a Detroit Lakes native, Bridgeman, 33, moved to the community with his family in 1990, and graduated from DLHS before moving to Florida and eventually, to Greeley, Colo., where he spent two years with State Farm Insurance (2004-06).In 2006, he got a job with Wells Fargo in Des Moines, Iowa, where his future wife, Heather Harris, was also employed. Later that year, on June 30, 2006, they were married, and the couple moved back to Detroit Lakes in 2007. (Heather is the daughter of the late Bob and Michelle Harris, who were longtime residents of the community.)“I left Wells Fargo in 2009, and I’ve been with U.S. Bank for the past five years,” Bridgeman said. (Heather is now a full-time mom, he added.)As the father of two young children - Nash, 4, and Jordyne, 1½ (20 months) - he decided that the time was now to run for a school board position.“I had thought about it eight years ago, when we had just moved back to the community, but it was a little too soon,” he said, noting that he wasn’t as familiar with the district and its needs as he would have liked at that time.“I started paying attention to what was going on in the schools,” Bridgeman said. “After my youngest sister graduated (from DLHS) in 2012, I thought that would be the year I’d run.”Instead, however, he opted to stay in the background, following the school board meetings and gathering information about the district.“I decided I didn’t want to just voice my concerns, I wanted to be a part of the decision making process, be more directly involved,” he said - especially after his oldest son started attending preschool.Bridgeman readily acknowledges that “the district’s space issues are obviously at the forefront, “and we need to deal with that as quickly as possible… after two years of discussion, it’s time to put something together.”However, he added, “I don’t want us to do just a ‘band-aid’ fix.”While it is important to come up with a solution that voters will understand and support, and to minimize the tax impact on residents where possible, it is equally important to make sure that the solution takes future growth into account, he explained.“If we see more growth 5-10 years into the future, it will be tough to come back to the voters and ask for more money,” Bridgeman said. “It’s important to ensure that we utilize any money we’re given wisely, to maximize the resources we have.”Bridgeman is particularly interested in the recent state legislative mandate that will require all public school districts to provide preschool education as a regular part of their curriculum, and said the district will need to take that into account when planning for its future space needs.“It (early childhood education) is something both my wife and I have been getting more involved in,” he said. “It’s such a great program… my kids love it. If my 1-year-old could go to preschool every day, she’d do it.”Kylie Johnson[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"1188398","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"400","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"274"}}]]Though she has only been a resident of Detroit Lakes since 2005, Kylie Johnson’s roots in public education go way back.“My dad, Larry Mischke, is still the K-12 principal at Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley,” she said, noting that he was a teacher for several years as well.“I have a strong belief in public education. It can work, and it does work, but it needs parental involvement, too.”Johnson, 31, said she had “three small motivators” - her children Brenna, 5, Wyatt, 3, and Jake, 21 months - behind her decision to run for school board.“I think that as the parent of a kindergartner, a parent who is involved in this school district, I have a first-hand view of what’s going on in the schools,” she added.When bringing her daughter in to Rossman Elementary for the first time, Johnson said she learned just how bad the space issues in that building were when she discovered that the students were using the same space for both lunchroom and gymnasium.“When you’re there and you’re involved, you see things you might not otherwise,” Johnson added.Though she feels that whatever solution the school board chooses to put before the voters would be decided before she would even take office, Johnson said she would “put faith in them to present the best option for the district.”“I would hope that whatever option they choose, they are considering district growth in the future,” she added.Like Bridgeman, she is particularly concerned with the addition of daily pre-kindergarten classes to the district, which will bring with it an additional 200-plus kids that will need to be housed within its already overcrowded facilities.“Audubon and Ogema (elementary schools) already have pre-kindergarten as part of their district offerings… Holy Rosary already has a full-day (prekindergarten) program,” she said. “It’s the one area where Detroit Lakes is lagging behind other districts in the area.”Kylie, who is married to Frazee High School graduate Eric Johnson (a 14-year veteran of BTD Manufacturing), has been the housing manager at Lamplighter Manor (part of the Ecumen-Detroit Lakes campus) for the past seven years.A graduate of Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley High School, she has a bachelor of science degree in business management, with a minor in marketing, from Minnesota State University-Moorhead.“I served on the DL Early Childhood Family Education Advisory board during the 2013-14 school year, and would like to grow along with my children,” she said.“If elected, Johnson added, “I will represent young families, support public education, and bring a new perspective to current issues.”David Langworthy
David Langworthy, 50, is a Minnesota native who grew up in Mapleton, a small town in the southern part of the state.After receiving his education at Mankato State University and the University of Minnesota-Morris, where he graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in community health education and an associate of arts degree in paramedicine, he started his career with Gold Cross Ambulance in Mankato.In 1999, he moved with his family to Detroit Lakes, where he became the manager of St. Mary’s EMS. He continued in that position until April 2013, when he left to start his own business, the DL Bike Shop.Langworthy was first elected to the school board nine years ago; due to changes in the state’s election laws, his first term was for five years.He was re-elected in 2010, and said he would like to have one more term in office before he steps down.“This is my last go-round,” he said. If he’s elected, “That’s 13 years, which means I will have followed one class through from kindergarten to graduation.”Langworthy said that when he first started on the board, all three of his children were still in school - “one in the elementary, one in the middle school, and one in high school.”Now, all three of them have graduated. The oldest, Ben, who will be 24 on Nov. 1, works for Solar Connections as a project manager; daughter Joelle, 21, is a senior at the University of Minnesota-Morris; and youngest daughter Dana, 19, is a freshman at Winona State.His wife Tammy - to whom he has been married for the past 26 years - is a Title I/Reading Recovery teacher at Roosevelt Elementary School.This gives him a unique perspective on the staffing at Detroit Lakes Public Schools.“I think the continued development of our professional staff and professional learning communities is an ongoing priority for the district,” he said. “They’ve done a great job, and the alignment and development of our curriculum has gone really well, which reflects well on our staff, and the fact that they have come so far, so quickly, says a lot about them.”As for the district’s critical space needs, Langworthy said it’s actually a good problem to have.“Our enrollment continues to rise, and that’s a good thing,” he said. “As Detroit Lakes grows, so does our school district.”At the same time, he added, “We do need more space, and soon. Somewhere in this district, we need to add some space to accommodate the crunch, especially at the grade school level.”Like the other candidates, Langworthy is concerned about the state-mandated addition of preschool classes to the district’s curriculum.“That will make us fully pre-kindergarten through 12th grade,” he said. “That will lead to the need for more space, and the staff for providing the services.”Langworthy said he feels his experience on the board and continued desire to serve the school district are strong reasons for residents to vote for him on Nov. 4.“I still have the energy, and the drive to continue doing this,” he said. “There’s no one single thing that I want to see done (while in office). This isn’t a job that you can complete, it’s just a job where you can contribute, and then move on.”Brenda Muckenhirn[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"1188400","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"400","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"273"}}]]While she is a Mahnomen native, Brenda Muckenhirn has been a resident of Detroit Lakes since 1982, when she and husband Paul moved to the community to raise their three children.Now grown, oldest son Craig, 27, works for Wells Fargo and is completing graduate school in Raleigh, N.C. Son Kyle, 23, just started medical school at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, while youngest daughter Kayli, 20, is a junior at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks (where Muckenhirn herself earned an undergraduate degree in physical therapy).When she first moved to Detroit Lakes, Muckenhirn, 55, was employed as a therapist at St. Mary’s (now Essentia Health-St. Mary’s). Since 1996, she has been employed at Sanford Health (formerly Meritcare), where she is currently the supervisor of the physical and occupational therapy department as well as the athletic training program.She ran for the Detroit Lakes School Board back in 2010, and started her first term on the board in January 2011.“They were looking for candidates, and I looked on it as part of giving back (to the district),” she said, adding, “All three of my kids had an excellent education here, and have done well since.”With her youngest child in the process of completing high school, Muckenhirn felt she finally had the time to devote the attention necessary to serve on the school board.“I found it very interesting, and I’ve learned a lot,” she said. “I’ve been able to learn so much more about education, and I feel like there’s a lot of unfinished business.”Muckenhirn said she’d like to be a part of the process of finally figuring out what to do about the district’s space needs.“Everyone knows something needs to be done,” she said. “I want to see that through.“Right now, we have three options that we’re having our architects put designs and numbers to, so we can see what we’re getting,” she said. “We will bring those back to the table in October, but we’re still very open to suggestions if someone finds something better.“We have such significant space needs now, however, that we want to put something out there the voters will support. I would hate to see a referendum fail again.”Muckenhirn said she also “feels bad” for the staff and students who are working under such cramped conditions.“For the sake of our kids we have to do something in a timely manner,” she added.In addition to seeing the referendum project through to completion, Muckenhirn said another reason she decided to seek another term was that “there have been a lot of administrative changes this year, so having some consistency on the board would be helpful during that transition.”Follow Vicki Gerdes on Twitter at @VickiLGerdes.There are three seats up for grabs on the Detroit Lakes School Board come Nov. 4, with two incumbents and two challengers vying for the honor of serving the district for the next four years.Incumbents David Langworthy and Brenda Muckenhirn will face a strong challenge from Kylie Johnson and Brett Bridgeman, who are both seeking their first term in public office.Brett Bridgeman[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"1188397","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"400","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"274"}}]]Though he isn’t a Detroit Lakes native, Bridgeman, 33, moved to the community with his family in 1990, and graduated from DLHS before moving to Florida and eventually, to Greeley, Colo., where he spent two years with State Farm Insurance (2004-06).In 2006, he got a job with Wells Fargo in Des Moines, Iowa, where his future wife, Heather Harris, was also employed. Later that year, on June 30, 2006, they were married, and the couple moved back to Detroit Lakes in 2007. (Heather is the daughter of the late Bob and Michelle Harris, who were longtime residents of the community.)“I left Wells Fargo in 2009, and I’ve been with U.S. Bank for the past five years,” Bridgeman said. (Heather is now a full-time mom, he added.)As the father of two young children - Nash, 4, and Jordyne, 1½ (20 months) - he decided that the time was now to run for a school board position.“I had thought about it eight years ago, when we had just moved back to the community, but it was a little too soon,” he said, noting that he wasn’t as familiar with the district and its needs as he would have liked at that time.“I started paying attention to what was going on in the schools,” Bridgeman said. “After my youngest sister graduated (from DLHS) in 2012, I thought that would be the year I’d run.”Instead, however, he opted to stay in the background, following the school board meetings and gathering information about the district.“I decided I didn’t want to just voice my concerns, I wanted to be a part of the decision making process, be more directly involved,” he said - especially after his oldest son started attending preschool.Bridgeman readily acknowledges that “the district’s space issues are obviously at the forefront, “and we need to deal with that as quickly as possible… after two years of discussion, it’s time to put something together.”However, he added, “I don’t want us to do just a ‘band-aid’ fix.”While it is important to come up with a solution that voters will understand and support, and to minimize the tax impact on residents where possible, it is equally important to make sure that the solution takes future growth into account, he explained.“If we see more growth 5-10 years into the future, it will be tough to come back to the voters and ask for more money,” Bridgeman said. “It’s important to ensure that we utilize any money we’re given wisely, to maximize the resources we have.”Bridgeman is particularly interested in the recent state legislative mandate that will require all public school districts to provide preschool education as a regular part of their curriculum, and said the district will need to take that into account when planning for its future space needs.“It (early childhood education) is something both my wife and I have been getting more involved in,” he said. “It’s such a great program… my kids love it. If my 1-year-old could go to preschool every day, she’d do it.”Kylie Johnson[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"1188398","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"400","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"274"}}]]Though she has only been a resident of Detroit Lakes since 2005, Kylie Johnson’s roots in public education go way back.“My dad, Larry Mischke, is still the K-12 principal at Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley,” she said, noting that he was a teacher for several years as well.“I have a strong belief in public education. It can work, and it does work, but it needs parental involvement, too.”Johnson, 31, said she had “three small motivators” - her children Brenna, 5, Wyatt, 3, and Jake, 21 months - behind her decision to run for school board.“I think that as the parent of a kindergartner, a parent who is involved in this school district, I have a first-hand view of what’s going on in the schools,” she added.When bringing her daughter in to Rossman Elementary for the first time, Johnson said she learned just how bad the space issues in that building were when she discovered that the students were using the same space for both lunchroom and gymnasium.“When you’re there and you’re involved, you see things you might not otherwise,” Johnson added.Though she feels that whatever solution the school board chooses to put before the voters would be decided before she would even take office, Johnson said she would “put faith in them to present the best option for the district.”“I would hope that whatever option they choose, they are considering district growth in the future,” she added.Like Bridgeman, she is particularly concerned with the addition of daily pre-kindergarten classes to the district, which will bring with it an additional 200-plus kids that will need to be housed within its already overcrowded facilities.“Audubon and Ogema (elementary schools) already have pre-kindergarten as part of their district offerings… Holy Rosary already has a full-day (prekindergarten) program,” she said. “It’s the one area where Detroit Lakes is lagging behind other districts in the area.”Kylie, who is married to Frazee High School graduate Eric Johnson (a 14-year veteran of BTD Manufacturing), has been the housing manager at Lamplighter Manor (part of the Ecumen-Detroit Lakes campus) for the past seven years.A graduate of Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley High School, she has a bachelor of science degree in business management, with a minor in marketing, from Minnesota State University-Moorhead.“I served on the DL Early Childhood Family Education Advisory board during the 2013-14 school year, and would like to grow along with my children,” she said.“If elected, Johnson added, “I will represent young families, support public education, and bring a new perspective to current issues.”David Langworthy[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"1188399","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"400","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"274"}}]]David Langworthy, 50, is a Minnesota native who grew up in Mapleton, a small town in the southern part of the state.After receiving his education at Mankato State University and the University of Minnesota-Morris, where he graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in community health education and an associate of arts degree in paramedicine, he started his career with Gold Cross Ambulance in Mankato.In 1999, he moved with his family to Detroit Lakes, where he became the manager of St. Mary’s EMS. He continued in that position until April 2013, when he left to start his own business, the DL Bike Shop.Langworthy was first elected to the school board nine years ago; due to changes in the state’s election laws, his first term was for five years.He was re-elected in 2010, and said he would like to have one more term in office before he steps down.“This is my last go-round,” he said. If he’s elected, “That’s 13 years, which means I will have followed one class through from kindergarten to graduation.”Langworthy said that when he first started on the board, all three of his children were still in school - “one in the elementary, one in the middle school, and one in high school.”Now, all three of them have graduated. The oldest, Ben, who will be 24 on Nov. 1, works for Solar Connections as a project manager; daughter Joelle, 21, is a senior at the University of Minnesota-Morris; and youngest daughter Dana, 19, is a freshman at Winona State.His wife Tammy - to whom he has been married for the past 26 years - is a Title I/Reading Recovery teacher at Roosevelt Elementary School.This gives him a unique perspective on the staffing at Detroit Lakes Public Schools.“I think the continued development of our professional staff and professional learning communities is an ongoing priority for the district,” he said. “They’ve done a great job, and the alignment and development of our curriculum has gone really well, which reflects well on our staff, and the fact that they have come so far, so quickly, says a lot about them.”As for the district’s critical space needs, Langworthy said it’s actually a good problem to have.“Our enrollment continues to rise, and that’s a good thing,” he said. “As Detroit Lakes grows, so does our school district.”At the same time, he added, “We do need more space, and soon. Somewhere in this district, we need to add some space to accommodate the crunch, especially at the grade school level.”Like the other candidates, Langworthy is concerned about the state-mandated addition of preschool classes to the district’s curriculum.“That will make us fully pre-kindergarten through 12th grade,” he said. “That will lead to the need for more space, and the staff for providing the services.”Langworthy said he feels his experience on the board and continued desire to serve the school district are strong reasons for residents to vote for him on Nov. 4.“I still have the energy, and the drive to continue doing this,” he said. “There’s no one single thing that I want to see done (while in office). This isn’t a job that you can complete, it’s just a job where you can contribute, and then move on.”Brenda Muckenhirn
While she is a Mahnomen native, Brenda Muckenhirn has been a resident of Detroit Lakes since 1982, when she and husband Paul moved to the community to raise their three children.Now grown, oldest son Craig, 27, works for Wells Fargo and is completing graduate school in Raleigh, N.C. Son Kyle, 23, just started medical school at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, while youngest daughter Kayli, 20, is a junior at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks (where Muckenhirn herself earned an undergraduate degree in physical therapy).When she first moved to Detroit Lakes, Muckenhirn, 55, was employed as a therapist at St. Mary’s (now Essentia Health-St. Mary’s). Since 1996, she has been employed at Sanford Health (formerly Meritcare), where she is currently the supervisor of the physical and occupational therapy department as well as the athletic training program.She ran for the Detroit Lakes School Board back in 2010, and started her first term on the board in January 2011.“They were looking for candidates, and I looked on it as part of giving back (to the district),” she said, adding, “All three of my kids had an excellent education here, and have done well since.”With her youngest child in the process of completing high school, Muckenhirn felt she finally had the time to devote the attention necessary to serve on the school board.“I found it very interesting, and I’ve learned a lot,” she said. “I’ve been able to learn so much more about education, and I feel like there’s a lot of unfinished business.”Muckenhirn said she’d like to be a part of the process of finally figuring out what to do about the district’s space needs.“Everyone knows something needs to be done,” she said. “I want to see that through.“Right now, we have three options that we’re having our architects put designs and numbers to, so we can see what we’re getting,” she said. “We will bring those back to the table in October, but we’re still very open to suggestions if someone finds something better.“We have such significant space needs now, however, that we want to put something out there the voters will support. I would hate to see a referendum fail again.”Muckenhirn said she also “feels bad” for the staff and students who are working under such cramped conditions.“For the sake of our kids we have to do something in a timely manner,” she added.In addition to seeing the referendum project through to completion, Muckenhirn said another reason she decided to seek another term was that “there have been a lot of administrative changes this year, so having some consistency on the board would be helpful during that transition.”Follow Vicki Gerdes on Twitter at @VickiLGerdes.
