When I arranged to meet Emily Leeb and Hanna Wood, I knew they were recently hired as conservation officers with the Minn. Department of Natural Resources (DNR). And I knew that they were living and working in Stevens and Traverse County – Morris and Wheaton, respectively.
New residents of small towns in west central Minnesota? I was on it!
They agreed to share their story. We met over lunch at the Viking Café in downtown Fergus Falls as they had to make a trip to their district agency headquarters in town. But what I didn’t expect was their friendship and parallel career paths.
And honestly, I probably didn’t expect to be sitting with two uniformed officers!
After graduating from Forest Lake High School, a northern Twin Cities suburb, Hanna Wood enrolled at the University of Minnesota-Morris where she earned her bachelor’s degree. In 2017, she made a career choice and enrolled in the Alexandria Tech Law Enforcement Career Transition program. “I’ve always been interested in the outdoors,” Hanna said. She started volunteering with the Fish & Wildlife service while still in college and then one day rode along with a MN DNR officer out of Glenwood. It must have made quite an impression!
Emily graduated from Mora High School, a more rural setting in central Minnesota, and also earned a biology degree at Morris. Emily and Hanna even graduated together. She said she grew up in the outdoors and worked one summer inspecting watercraft, the same type of job Hanna had during a different summer.
“I grew up in a small town,” Emily said. “There’s something special about it, about the friendships that develop.”
So by now, you know that Hanna and Emily decided together to pursue a job with the DNR, right?
Wrong.
Unbeknownst to the other, they applied and showed up to take a test as part of the DNR job application process. And when they walked into the testing room…you can imagine their surprise! They passed the exam, completed the hiring process and as fate would have it, ended up working in neighboring counties.
Hanna and her husband Aaron live in Wheaton. “Being from the cities and going to a small town, I realized I liked the small town feel a lot better,” Hanna said. “There is an awesome sense of community.”
Emily resides in Morris. “The bonds you make seem stronger in small towns,” she says and she gets involved in activities such as dart league. Hanna says young people from small towns want to experience city life “but then they come back.”
Both say they do miss some big city amenities, although they are within an easy drive of home. “We just have to make our own fun,” Hanna smiles.