Achterhof, Roger D. & Carole (Risselada)

ACHTERHOF, RISSELADA

Posted By: Kaleigh De Vries (email)
Date: 5/21/2020 at 09:55:10

Roger Achterhof was born July 18, 1940 in Sioux Center, Iowa. He is the second child of Lawrence and Jean Achterhof.

Roger was an active member of the Scouting program. He attained the rank of Eagle Scout and he was an active member of the Order of the Arrow. Following his graduation from Sioux Center High School in 1958, he attended Hope College in Holland, Michigan, where he graduated in 1962.

On the same day he graduated from college, June 4, he married the former Carole Risselada, who also attended Hope and was a native of Holland, Michigan.

Following Roger's two years of graduate studies at the University of Iowa, the couple moved to Duluth, Minnesota, where Roger was a pharmaceutical sales representative for Lederle Laboratories, a division of American Cyanamid for four years. Carole graduated from the University of Minnesota's Duluth campus in 1965.

The couple moved to Luverne, Minnesota in 1968, where Roger was the manager of Luverne Dehydrating Products until 1983. Since that time he has owned and operated a commodities brokerage business, Farmers Grain and Livestock, in Luverne.

Carole is a secondary teacher in Spanish and English in Ellsworth and Adrian, Minnesota, in newspaper columnist and a freelance writer. She is also the editor of the Okobojian, a newspaper based in Spirit Lake, Iowa.

Roger is a private plane pilot and he also enjoys fishing and golfing. He has served as president of the Southwest Minnesota Arts and Humanities Council and on the board of directors of the Luverne Chamber of Commerce. He has also been a member of the Tri State Band Festival Committee.

Roger and Carole are members of the First Presbyterian Church in Luverne, where Roger has served as deacon, trustee and elder.

They are the parents of three daughters, Kristin, Linda and Marta. A fourth daughter, Kate, died in 1980 with cancer at the age of seven.

At this writing, Kristin had graduated from Macalester College in St. Paul, and was a second-year law student at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois. Linda was a senior at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota.

Marta was involved in a serious car accident on July 9, 1987, and after spending one year in a coma and a total of two years in hospitals, she now lives at home where she is being rehabilitated.

The entire family has been involved with Green Earth Players, a community theatre group.

by Carole R. Achterhof

A People with Convictions: A History of Sioux Center, Iowa 1870-1991
As written at time of publication - 1991