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Diana Ouverson could have retired 10 years ago, but she liked her job so much she stayed.
“I love my job. Period. I love kids. I love people,” Ouverson said Friday, her last day with the Luverne School District. “It’s going to be very difficult leaving.”
As Luverne Middle School-High School secretary, Ouverson has come to know thousands of students and their families.
Considering an average 90 students per graduating class, that’s nearly 4,000 students over the past 41 years of her career in the school office.
And many of them she’s nurtured on their path to graduation.
“Seniors are my babies, I almost cry when I see these kids graduate,” Ouverson said. “I’ve wondered, ‘Are they going to make it, or aren’t they?’ And I’m so thrilled when I see a kid who thinks he’s not going to make it and they do.”
Middle child
Diana Chapin grew up in Hardwick in a large family, the middle child among nine children of Hubert and Helen Chapin.
“I learned to work, believe me,” she said about household chores, a big garden and tending to younger siblings.
“We were a very poor family, and we never knew we were poor. We heated one room in the winter and covered doors to other rooms with blankets.”
When she was old enough, she babysat and worked at the bowling alley setting pins.
“You sit in the back and the bowling ball would come flying at you,” she said. “I did that for 10 cents a line, with my dad sitting next to me in the next line.”
She said these lessons in hard work served her well in her career, when she claimed fewer than 10 sick days in four decades.
Back to school
She graduated from Luverne High School in 1965 and returned to the district in 1981 after her two sons, Chad (LHS class of 1988) and Matthew (LHS ’93), were in school.
Gregg Gropel hired her in the Community Education office and in 1983, a position opened in the Luverne High School counselor’s office.
She first worked under superintendent Norm Miller. Other superintendents since then have included George Maurer, Vince Schafer, Gary Fisher and the current Craig Oftedahl.
The first principals she worked with were Jim Harner and John Rath (middle school and high school). “Harner and Rath, they were such a team.”
After that Harner and Fisher were middle school and high school principals.
Donna Judson was hired as both middle school and high school principal.
Ryan Johnson replaced her as both middle school and high school principal.
And most recently Jason Phelps came on as middle school principal to work with Johnson as high school principal.
Hemming gowns and running mimeographs
This spring her grandson, Matthew (son of Chad and Christine McClure) was among the graduating seniors, and she had a front row seat for the occasion, since it was her job to assist students and staff with commencement details.
“I did caps, gowns, the lineup, the seating arrangements,” she said.
“We used to use old choir gowns, and I used to hand-stitch them — hem them up or let them down or fix zippers.”
Her other duties comprise a list too long to mention.
Among other things, she answered phones, greeted visitors, entered grades, set up new families in the district, set up lockers, mailed out student handbooks, tracked purchase orders and made sure deliveries were accounted for and dispersed to teachers and staff who needed them.
Meanwhile she kept up with changing technology.
“In the beginning, teachers handed me their grades and I wrote them on a transcript,” Ouverson recalled.
“When computers started in the Harner years, it was a big deal. We used to crank the mimeograph machine for copies. … Things have changed so much.”
What hasn’t changed, she said, is the way she treats people.
“You need to treat people fair and nice, no matter what. If they have issues or whatever, you still treat them fairly,” she said.
“If a student comes through here tardy every single day, I still great him with a ‘Good morning. I’m so glad you made it to school today.’ I don’t scold them for being late.”
She said she felt like she had an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of students, and she said she’s confident her replacement, Tami (VerSteeg) Bergman, will do the same.
“She is going to be so perfect for this job,” Ouverson said. “And she and Becky (Banck) are the perfect team. … They treat kids so wonderfully. They’re friendly and nice with everyone.”
At 74, Ouverson said she looks forward to more free time for exercise, playing cards – Ma Jongh (which she just learned), bridge and pinochle — and spending time with her husband, children and grandchildren.
“I love to travel, and one of my favorite things to do is bake,” she said. “I’m looking forward to doing more of these things, too.”
And she’s going to try not to miss her job.
“It was a great career. More than I ever thought I would deserve,” she said.