Where Are They Now?

Don Kirklen grew up on a farm that had been in his family since the 1880s. Now, after a long career that took him to Texas, Iowa and North Dakota, he’s back on the farm with his family and enjoying life.

Kirklen graduated from Dublin High School in 1958, and went on to study education at Tarleton, which was then a two-year college. After his two years he transferred to Howard Payne in Brownwood, and graduated in 1963 with a degree in secondary education.

Once he graduated, he started teaching high school American History in Ranger, Texas, where he stayed for a year before moving to Brady to teach World History and English.

After a year in Brady, Kirklen took some time off to get his masters degree in education from Abilene Christian University. “I called that a ‘year of air,’” he said.

When he graduated he wasn’t sure he wanted to go straight back to teaching, so he came home for a while to help his dad out on the farm.

During his time off he met Betty Hodges, who would later become his wife. After they married, Kirklen began teaching again, this time in Irving, Texas at Crockett Junior High.

After five years in Irving, “I felt a need to come back to the farm,” Kirklen said. “So we decided to move back. In the meantime, our son Benjamin was born.”

They stayed in Dublin for nine years while Benjamin was young, and Kirklen and his wife both became active in Faith Lutheran Church in Stephenville, which is affiliated with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. (where was your church located?)

“This was right after they had a doctrinal dispute, and many of the pastors walked out,” Kirklen said. “Our church became vacant, so I filled in as a layman for a while there, and had several activities going.”

Some of the other church members mentioned to Kirklen that they’d provide him with financial aid to go to seminary school if he could come back to their congregation once he finished. He decided to go for it, and in 1981 he enrolled in Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO.

When he finished, there was no longer a vacancy at his former church, but Kirklen embraced the change of career and began looking for jobs. His first position as a preacher was in Osage, Iowa, a small town near the Minnesota borders, at St. John Lutheran Church.

He stayed there for a year, then moved back to Texas, where Kirklen served several churches over the next ten years in small towns including Eola, Ballenger, Friona and Hereford.

“After that, I felt like maybe I’d done about all that I needed to do in Texas,” Kirklen said. “To do God’s will I felt like I needed to move somewhere else, so I had my name put on a call list for the Lutheran Missouri-Synod churches, and a church in Rolla, North Dakota saw my name on the list and called me.”

Kirklen accepted the call, and he and his family moved to Rolla, a small town 15 miles south of Canada, in 1996. “We enjoyed living in Rolla immensely,” Kirklen said. “We did have to learn a lot of things about temperatures — the coldest it got while we were there was 51 degrees below zero.”

The Kirklens enjoyed the culture there as well, often traveling to Canada or enjoying events at Peace Garden in Dunseth, ND.

The Kirklens moved back to the family farm in Dublin in 2006. They leased out the farm, and now the land is used to grow small grain and hay crops. Betty passed away in 2016, but Kirklen’s son and his wife live on the farm as well. “I really enjoy my son and grandson and daughter-in-law living here,” he said. “They have been very good to me.”

For a while, Kirklen helped out at local churches, all within driving distance. Recently, however, he’s stuck closer to home, spending his time working on projects around the farm, such as building fences and restoring antique tractors.

He also enjoys his long-time hobby collecting and tinkering with antique radios. “I don’t remember when I did the first one — I suppose I was in high school,” Kirklen said. “I have restored quite a few early radios. The oldest one in the collection was manufactured in 1924.”

In addition to collecting radios, Kirklen has his amateur radio operator’s license, and likes tuning in to various stations and having conversations with other operators. “There’s a range of conversations,” he said. “Sometimes we try to get acquainted with other people, other times there is a network that you can get into with people that have specific ideas and things they like to talk about.”

Throughout his career, Kirklen has been grateful for the chances to connect with people in different ways. “I’m a teacher at heart, but there’s closeness with people that I think you have in the ministry where you don’t have with students in public schools anymore. I’ve really grateful for all the places I’ve worked, and I’ve been immensely blessed by serving the congregations that I’ve served.”

Kirklen’s advice to Dublin graduates is to determine their career goals early so they can make plans accordingly. “Today it looks as if college may not always be the best alternative,” he said. “I’d say that while you’re still in high school start looking at something you’d like to do as a career, then make plans for that — and if it’s a trade school or something similar to that, then that is certainly an honorable and a great thing; we always need people to have a trade.”

Editor’s Note: This column chronicles what Dublin graduates have done since high school. If you have any suggestions for other graduates, email publisher@dublincitizen.com.