1. Long-time third grader teacher Hartington Public will miss the little
things about her job
By Jacob Snyder
Cedar County News
Teachers are often remembered for touching the lives of the students in ways
that stay with them for a long time.
Hartington Public third grade teacher Kelli Grube has certainly found joy in
knowing she has impacted many throughout the past 22 years and hopes to continue
doing so in Lincoln, where her husband Steve has taken a new position.
Currently, he is a district conservationist for the United States Department of Ag-
riculture. His new position will be an area conservationist for the same company. The
couple will be moving the first week of June.
“We get that satisfaction of kids doing things like going into teaching and they'll
come back and say, 'It was because of you,'” she said. “We get that satisfaction where as a
lot of other professions don't.”
Kelli grew in Trenton Missouri, which has a population of about 6,000. She went
to grade and high school there and graduated in 1978.
She went on to earn her bachelor of science degree in education from Northwest
Missouri State in Maryville. There Kelli met Steve through a mutual friend and it was
love at first sight.
The pair graduated in May 1982 and married two months later.
They spent the first two years of marriage in Bartlett, Neb. where she was a Title
I teacher for the school there then moved to Hartington for the first time from 1984-
1988. Their son Adam was born shortly after their arrival. Ashley was born two years
later.
Kelli worked for the Farm Service Agency helping people get agriculture loans for
their corn and bean crops.
In order for Steve to move up in the company though, they had to move. So their
next stop was Neely. There she worked as a secretary for Heckert Insurance.
Three years later in 1991, they moved back to Hartington for good. Kelli said it
was a great feeling to be back.
“It was like we came back home,” she said.
Kelli did not start here as a third grade teacher, though. She was first a teacher's
aide for Hartington Public kindergarten teacher Nancy Sudbeck. She then taught the kin-
dergarten from 1993-1998.
Finally, she started teaching third grade in 1998 and has remained there the past
15 years. For Grube, educating students is not a job, it is a passion and rewarding in so
many little ways, like when a students shows her they have actually been listening and
retaining information.
Grube said one example of this was one year they were doing a study on the diff-
erent types of rocks and minerals. After the unit is completed, the students took a trip to
the planetarium in Wayne.
During one point of this trip while a doctor at the planetarium was giving a lec-
ture about volcanoes and their cooling process, a student made a keen observation
showing that he had retained something from class.

2. “This one student leans over and whispers and asked, 'Mrs. Grube, that would be
igneous rock wouldn't it if it came from lava?'” she said. “I was just beeming after he told
me that.”
Grube said she will certainly miss having these moments with the students and
the people she worked with, not to mention seeing the students continue to develop.
“I am going to miss seeing what these kids grow up to be like,” she said.
But, like her husband, she is happy to be moving closer to both of their parents so
they can spend more time with them.
Kelli and Steve have been married for almost 31 years. They have two children.
Adam is a correctional officer for the South Dakota state penitentiary and Ashley is a sur-
gical technologist in Florida.