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The rural Avalanche man, who is to turn 65 in September, said all it took to reinvigorate his life was moving to Vernon County for a stab at semi-retirement.
“I had a desire to be in a new place, where I personally thought there was a chance for reinvention,” Strickler said. “Sure, my wife, Joya, and I could have gotten a condo in Florida, but what was I gonna do, play golf all day? That’s not for us.
“We fell in love with Vernon County when we came here,” Strickler, who retired from the UW-Madison Department of University Communications, continued. “The area had such incredible fly fishing -- that sealed the deal.”
Strickler is one of a good number of Vernon County’s retired residents who have decided to make this slice of God’s Country home. He and his wife travel often to see family, and he runs a consulting firm out of his home, but you’re also likely to see him fishing any number of the county’s Class I trout streams.
Strickler isn’t the only person attracted to Vernon County because of its natural beauty.
With Southern Style
Hank Deutsch and his wife, Judy, of Viroqua, moved to this area to be closer to one of their sons operating a dairy farm near Westby.
The outdoor opportunities for Deutsch made him feel like a kid in a candy store.
“I can bicycle here, I can paddle my kayak on the Kickapoo, Lower Wisconsin or the Mississippi Rive. I also love to swim and Viroqua has a wonderful asset in the Bigley Pool. On top of that, we just loved the pastoral beauty of the region. It is beautiful.”
Deutsch, 70, is a retired forester, who worked for 35 years in six states, mainly for the U.S. Forest Service. He has a long past history of public service, once serving as the President of the Jaycees for the State of Kansas. He keeps up his volunteer connections through the Viroqua Rotary Club.
Deutsch isn’t a year-around Wisconsin resident, preferring to spend his winters in the south, but like so many snowbirds, he likes flying back in spring.
“What really made this our home was how people treated us,” Deutsch said. “Everyone was so gracious and welcoming from the moment we arrived. We’ve found this place to be unique in our travels.”
An appreciated homecoming
Hillsboro’s Betty Havlik spent 22 years in her home town before moving away and raising a family on the east coast.
After 25 years away from home, she decided to return to Hillsboro and live with her mother in 1990.
“I had seven wonderful years with mother before she passed away,” Havlik said. “After she died, I had already established friendships here and I wanted to stay.”
Havlik has immersed herself in volunteer work. She’s the President of the Hillsboro Historical Society, on the board of the Vernon County Historical Society and President of the Wiconsin Council for Local Historians. Havlik even took a stab at running for State Assembly four years ago.
After Hillsboro’s Cesky Den earlier this month, she can add another title to her resume -- Queen.
Havlik was crowned queen of Cesky Den, Hillsboro’s Czech celebration, held June 13-15.
Havlik said she loves all the activity she has in her life.
“I sing in the church choir, help at the senior meal site -- I’m really on the go,” Havlik said. “I’m really having a good time.”
And no better example of that is each morning when Havlik visits Holvy’s Cafe for breakfast.
“Some mornings there are a dozen or 15 of us in there, all friends,” Havlik said. “We joke, laugh and talk smart. They’re wonderful people. I don’t have to go there every day, but I want to go there every day I can and spend time with these wonderful people.”
Some just can’t believe it
Strickler grew up in South Bend, Ind., and spent his career in journalism and communications.
When looking for a place to call home in Vernon County, he and Joya were driving near Avalanche.
“We came over a hill and looked at a little hollow,” Strickler said. “There was a Norwegian-style log home and 40 acres. We looked at each other and said, “Yep, we found it.’ Man, were we right.”
Strickler turned a shed in back of the home into the office for his communications consulting firm The Blue Waters Group. He has a high-speed internet hook-up and everything he needs to do his consulting, which he said has been a unqualified success.
Even so, half of his office space is devoted to fly fishing.
Although Strickler said with the lay of the land he can’t see his neighbors, “we’re near the best neighbors we’ve had, even when we lived in big cities.”
Driving into Viroqua one day, he introduced himself to Ingrid Mahan, the Executive Director of the Viroqua Partners.
“I just told her I wanted to do something to help out,” Strickler said.
Strickler became involved in the Partners’ Tourism Committee and before long he had developed an idea. Why not share Vernon County with the world?
So, he developed the Viroqua Writer’s Workshop of 2007, which invited about 35 writers from throughout the midwest to learn about the “Viroqua Story.”
That event developed considerable positive response in both its execution and results. Strickler is planning a different, parallel event for the fall of this year.
Recently, Strickler was consulting for a university and got to talking about living in Vernon County. Three people from the university had to come see for themselves what he was talking about.
“I showed them around, took them trout fishing and they fell in love with the place immediately -- they’re planning to come back,” he said.
Living the dream
Strickler, Deutsch and Havlik all have their reasons for enjoying their retirement in Vernon County. Deutsch’s life experience perhaps brings it all into perspective.
He was born in Austria in 1938 and shortly after he was born, his parents fled the impending Nazi invasion, taking their family with them to the United States.
“My parents had to flee and as a result I had a very American childhood, for which I’m thankful every day,” Deutsch said.
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness abound in Vernon County.
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