I grew up in the small town of Gary, SD--home to the first Blind School of SD which has now been renovated into the Buffalo Ridge Resort and Campground. My mom has 10 siblings and one of those siblings was my 8th grade/JV basketball coach, Dane Stone. Uncle Dane coached me when he was a senior in high school and we went undefeated that year. Dane is an assistant football coach for Dell Rapids Public. I hold the most assists record in girls basketball at GHS and no other lady Gary Tiger will ever be able to break the record because unfortunately, Gary High School closed the summer before my senior year -- that experience led me to becoming a school counselor.  This experience is chronicled in Blog entry #1.
 
I earned my teaching certificate in secondary social sciences; a bachelors of science in sociology; and a masters in School Counseling all at SDSU. In 2013, I earned my  K-12 Principal's License from St. Mary's University. In 2016, I finished my National School Climate certification. While working at a cooperative education service agency, I was a school improvement specialist and a MN PBIS State coordinator. We trained over 40 teams in PBIS in 4 years. I was a walk-on fastpitch softball player for SDSU one year but quit after finding out I was selected to be an RA for SDSU.  I played in the over 50 games in softball but have switched to playing more golf and pickleball now. I also umpire youth fastpitch and women's slowpitch during the summers.
 
I married my Kindergarten sweetheart (I taught him how to tie his shoes in Kindergarten...true story). We have 3 beautiful kids together, Jacoby, Jamison, & Cassidy. They have all now graduated high school. We lived on a SD farm with 65 head of cattle, 5 horses and 200 chickens (without modern day plucking equipment) until 2005, when addiction took hold of our loved one. For the next 15 years I raised the 3 kids, who were choir and 3 sport athletes, in a MN town across the border. In 2010, we actually moved to Pipestone, MN to start fresh but returned to Canby, MN in 2015. The picture above was the last family picture we took before our move in 2010. In the fall of 2016, my middle son's best friend from Pipestone committed suicide during their senior year. This strife has had a huge impact on our family and also on how I look at stressors in students in the 21st Century. I feel we need to provide more mindful, mental health supports for all students.
 
I have been working at Tri-Valley since 2021. In the 2022-2023 school year,  I became the Intermediate School Counselor for grades 5-8. I am excited to be in my new role as the Intermediate School Counselor and look forward to working with the Mustang community.