Continued from 2024 SLA Newsletter
Joan Schultz, seasonal resident since 1971
My children are Richard Schulz and Susan Huff. Susan is a five/state District Sales Manager for the medical channel of the Enfamil brand of infant formula. She has a BS from U of WI, Madison, and an M Ed and MBA from Bethel University. Away from work she plays tennis and coordinates fundraisers for school and dance activities.
Richard Schulz has a BS in Business with a minor in Aviation from the U of ND. After eight years as a Naval aviator, he is now a commercial pilot for American Airlines. He composes music, plays guitar in a band, and restores antique cars and motorcycles in his spare time out at Sky Harbor, an airport community near Webster, MN.
Son-in-law Bob Huff earned a BA from Northwestern University and an MA from Teachers College, Colombia University. He works for Cargill, currently as a Global Senior Learning and Development Manager serving the company’s commercial-facing employees including sales, marketing, and pricing teams. His team assesses learning needs, designs programs, delivers and facilitates courses, and measures impact for about 10,000 commercial-focused employees worldwide.
Elder grandchild Emma Huff , a freshman at Edina High School, performs with the Varsity Dance Team, which earned fifth at State in Jazz and High Kick this year. She is also an outstanding dancer with the private studio, Project 52 Productions. She recently won a trip to dance in California. She loves to go tubing with friends on Sugar Lake.
Younger grandchild Bennett Huff , an eighth grader at Valley View Middle School in Edina, is a talented soccer player in several leagues as well as an enthusiastic tuba musician at VV and in other select bands. Bennett enjoys swimming and introducing the family golden doodle, Buddy, to lake activities.
How and when did you become an owner on Sugar Lake?
My brother- in - law is John Otis, whose parents, Art and Eleanor, founded what is now Sugar Lake Lodge. Ron and I would visit my sister Maxine and John at the Lodge in the sixties. I fondly recall “Ellie” serving meals and then playing her organ for dinner guests as Art hobnobbed with the clientele. We fell in love with the lake then. When the Mathiason Resort on the east side of Sugar came up for sale in 1971, John called us right away. « Do you want to buy one of the cabins? » he asked. We were thrilled to be able to purchase two, which in 2003 we converted into a year around house and a guest cabin. So now we enjoy Sugar Lake in every season. We snow skied when that was an option at the Hills, and now we snowshoe, hike, swim, kayak, and fish, thanking our lucky stars to be sharing these pristine waters with our wonderful neighbors and fellow members of the SLA. As a bonus, since my three older sister all have places on Sugar, too, we walk together every morning that we can and have family get togethers where the cousins grow close and, we hope, learn lake stewardship. Ron passed away in 2010, but I continue to love my time here, looking forward this summer to launching my own pontoon boat and floating quietly past pairs of loons.
What did you do as a living?
I grew up on a family dairy farm along the Sheyenne River near Fargo in the lovely Red River Valley of North Dakota. I attended a one room country school where my pioneer grandmother had once taught, attended Kindred High School, and graduated with a BA degree from Hamline University in St. Paul in 1960. I taught high school English classes at Mounds View for two years and then taught creative writing, composition, speech, and literature at Edina High School for 36 years. Those were exciting times, with eager students, dedicated colleagues, and supportive parents. I earned an M ED at Macalester in 1963, at a time when I could bring a new baby, Richard, to class in a basket. I like to think he “helped” me write my thesis on novels by William Faulkner and Robert Penn Warren. Ron, in the meantime, earned an elementary teaching degree from the U of WI, River Falls, and taught at Eagle Point Elementary in North St. Paul for 34 years. Besides the usual subjects , Ron fostered ham radio, magic tricks, and photography as popular asides. With summers fairly open because of our jobs, we were able to spend many happy days at the lake.
What are your hobbies/interests?
For many years horseback riding in various disciplines was my all-consuming focus, from showing a Saddlebred at the Red River Valley Fair to leading halters winners in Pony of the Americas classes to acquiring rudimentary dressage skills to piloting several horses on the American Quarter Horse circuit to riding Warmbloods in A-rated Hunter-Jumper shows, i immersed myself in the equine world. A trip to Europe in the summer of 1959 connected me with the Lipizzaner stallions at the famous Spanish Riding School in Vienna. Definitely a highlight was qualifying and placing, in 2016, at the age of 78, at the AQHA Select World Show in Amarillo, Texas, in three over fences classes. Stewarding at shows and serving in various positions in breed associations brought me many new friends and responsibilities like directorships on the Minnesota Horse Council and also the Minnesota Hunter Jumper Association. For 35 years I’ve served on the MHC scholarship committee, helping to award worthy young recipients who plan to enter the horse industry. Many have 4-H backgrounds, as do I. Their credentials renew one’s faith in our younger generation.
Photography is another passion, with a concentration on wild flowers and birds. My interest begin when Ron and I spotted a huge female American Bald Eagle high in a pine tree along County Road 17 near Sherry‘s Arm. I borrowed his Nikon, got a nice shot, and was hooked, thereafter hunting with camera rather than gun.
At 85, I don’t hike as vigorously as I used to, but I do walk every morning before sitting down with a cup of coffee to solve the crossword puzzles and sudoku. Always reading, I’m currently enjoying the stories and cuisine of the Bruno, Chief of Police series, by Martin Walker.
Outings with family members, horse friends, school friends, and lake friends also keep me delightfully occupied. Life is rich. Life is good.
Fond memory of Sugar Lake:
My son Richard was inspired to become a flyer in part by John Otis, a former Navy pilot who flew off carriers and who, like his father, Art, kept a small private plane at the Lodge when it still supported both a golf course and an airport. I love to recall the days when we would hear John rev up his Cessna. Little Dickie would burst out of our cabin and run down the beach toward the Lodge, shouting, UncleJohn, Uncle John!! Wait for me, wait for me!!