Judy Wee Rickbeil Hometown: Lakefield, MN Current Home: Breezy Point, MN Major: Music Education Email: weebeil@hotmail.com
I grew up in Lakefield, Minnesota, but moved to Worthington, Minnesota, after graduating from high school. I attended Worthington Junior College 19631965, transferring to Concordia in the fall of 1965. I graduated from Concordia with a degree in music education. In May 1967, Dick Rickbeil and I were married. I taught elementary music in Fulda, Minnesota, until we started a family in 1969. I substitute taught in grades K-12 in Worthington for several years. Additionally, I was elementary band instructor at St. Mary’s School (Worthington) as well as teaching music classes there at different times. I directed the choir at Minnesota West in Worthington for a few years, directed children’s and adult choirs at St. Matthew’s Lutheran until 1990 when we became members of American Lutheran Church where I was organist and bell choir director. It’s called putting my music education degree to work, I believe. Dick and I raised seven children, five of whom attended Concordia with four of them being graduates of Concordia. We lived in Worthington until 2011 when we moved to Breezy Point, Minnesota, where we now live. We are members at Lutheran Church of the Cross in Nissawa, Minnesota, where I play organ on occasion and am bell choir director. I am, as my kids call it, “rent-an-organist” in the Brainerd Lakes Area. Our kids live in Stillwater and Mankato, Minnesota; Billings and Red Lodge, Montana; Big Bear, California, and Evanston, Wyoming. Most of our travels take us in those directions to visit and be a part of our grandchildren’s activities. We have 17 grandchildren, the oldest being 18 and the youngest four months (1 year in August). When our kids were all home and in school I had a magnet that said, “If a mother’s place is in the home, why am I always in the car?! It was hockey, swimming, piano lessons, etc., etc. etc. I volunteer at the Brainerd Lakes Area food shelf and keep busy with many other activities in church and in the community. I enjoy biking and snowshoeing.
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