Small Town News

Russ Widman retires

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With school budget and worsening health issues school bookkeeper, Russ Widman, decided it was time to call it quits

WWG--After working 28 years for Westbrook, and Westbrook Walnut Grove District as bookkeeper Russ Widman decided it was time to quit. With the district forced to make cuts to the budget his job was cut to half time. To complicate things Russ has battled a muscle disorder that has left him crippled in both legs.

Russ grew up on a farm near Brewster and took some bookkeeping in high school. When he graduated he thought about going into something with Agri Business, but then after he was diagnosed with the muscle disorder he decided to take bookkeeping at Jackson Vo Tech.

At that time computers were quite new so Russ only had about a quarter of computer before he graduated.

Russ began working for the district when Dr Quincey was superintendent. He began under the tutelage of Dorothy Peterson long time school bookkeeper. He worked with Peterson for two or three years before she retired.

"When I first started everything was done on paper," he said. "You did checks and payroll manually, I recorded everything by hand. The financial reports were also done by hand then sent to the ECSU where they would enter it all on computer then sent the print outs of the reports back to the school."

They did things that way for about 10 years then they began doing some of the work on the first Apples. It was quite limited in what they could do. Then they switched to the IBM and were able to do more things.

Russ said "the accounting codes have remained about the same, but there have been many software updates to deal with. We can do just about anything in house that we used to have to send out, like cutting checks, preparing bills, and many of the reports needed."

Russ has had a number of surgeries on his feet, knees, and back over the years, with many trips to Mayo Clinic. He had bone spurs removed from his back a few months ago to eliminate some of the pain in his back, but about three months later it started coming back.

With being cut back on his time and more frequent problems with his health Russ decided to retire and apply for disability. He has been able to get disability from PERA, but not yet from Social Security.

Russ enjoyed being with teachers and staff. "They were always good to me while I was up there," he said. "There were always new people coming in along with parents and sales people."

"The last couple of months people have said they would miss me -- it's like having a second family. The administration was always good to me," he said.



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© 2009 Sentinel Tribune Westbrook, Minnesota. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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