Running with the Remigers

WOOD LAKE, Minn. — The Remiger family takes busy to another level come spring and fall.

Fieldwork and daily chores are a given for the farm family, but for the family matriarch, Becky Remiger, athletic events are also woven into the daily agenda. Becky is the assistant track and field coach at Lakeview High School in Cottonwood in the spring and head coach for the boys and girls’ cross-country teams in the fall. She competed in both sports when she was in high school.

“I try to make it fun and I try to push them,” Becky said.

Becky and her husband, Pat, milk 100 cows and farm 800 acres with the assistance of their three kids in Yellow Medicine County. Pat’s mom, Jane, helps feed calves and his dad, Steve, helps with feeding. A few extra hired hands fill in milking times as well.

This past fall was memorable for the Remigers as Becky got to coach all three of her kids, including Cole, who graduated this spring; Tate, who was a sophomore; and Shelby, who competed as a seventh grader.

“It came full circle this year,” Becky said. “They all found their thing, and it just so happens it was my thing.”

Becky, a full-time teacher at the school, started coaching cross-country for the Lakers in fall 2011. She started with six athletes and has grown the team to about 20 students today. She began assisting the track coach in the spring of 2021.

“The kids want to be there, they make it fun,” Becky said.

For home meets, Pat set his busy farm life aside to cheer on the rest of the family.

“Luckily, I still farm with my parents, and I get enough chores done where my mom and dad can finish up chores, and I go watch,” Pat said. “Sometimes I do chores and they go watch. It works out.”

Cole and Tate provided the Remigers with special memories this year as the duo were the top two runners for Lakeview.

“This year was really fun for me to have all three of them come in, be competitive and enjoy it,” Becky said.

As a couch, Becky works with students on their goals and what they want to accomplish throughout the year. As soon as they get results from one race, they sit down and make a plan for the next race.

It is not uncommon for Becky to liven up practices with an alternate route to run. There are gravel roads around their farm and some hills by the Yellow Medicine River they use for hill workout training. The route from their dairy farm to the river and back is about 6 miles round-trip.

The children’s running prowess is useful when Pat needs to get everything in position for harvest.

“It was always handy when I needed a pickup in a different field, (our kids) can take it out there and run home,” Pat said.

Competing in cross-country takes self-discipline and determination, which Becky said she feels has a direct correlation to the characteristics of dairy farmers.

“To be good at cross-country and working on the farm, kids need to be hard working and (be) out there on their own running or doing chores,” she said. “The kids need to be able get their work done. I cannot force them to do it. You have to want to do it, you have to be independent. You see that more in farm kids than you do in other kids.”

On the weekends and during the summer, every member of the Remiger trio is asked to do their share on the farm. Tate and Cole help milk cows on the weekends. All three kids take turns feeding calves morning and night during the summer.

“Hard work, responsibility and independence translate from farm chores to cross country and track practice,” Becky said. “It’s all about work ethic; it really is.”

Becky got her job with the track team when she was approached by the head coach, who sought her assistance with pole vaulters. Though she had pole vaulted a few times in high school, she honed her skills competing in college.

While Becky is not originally from a farm, she said she always hoped she would eventually land there because she grew up in Plainview, a strong dairy community. The daughter of two teachers, she visited her farming relatives and wanted to be part of that community be-cause of the opportunities she saw farm kids had growing up.

Little did she know, she would eventually combine her passions of coaching and farming.

“She pushes them hard,” Pat said. “It gives her a sense of doing something for herself that she loves and has been doing since she was a kid.”