By Sarah Nigbor

ELLSWORTH – As Principal Oran Nehls reflects on his first weeks at the helm of Ellsworth High School, he is pleased at how seamless the transition has been. He began in his new role July 5.

“The community is great, the students are awesome,” Nehls said. “I feel like my wife and I fit right in. We don’t feel like outsiders. I can’t say enough about being in Ellsworth. It’s like an old shoe, and I don’t mean that in a negative way. I mean it in a very comfortable, positive way.”

Nehls wife is originally from Red Wing, Minn., where her parents still reside, so when the opening at Ellsworth became available, he jumped at the chance to move to western Wisconsin. Time with their family is “precious and well-spent,” Nehls said. They’ve had his in-laws over for supper and his wife pops in on them often, helping her mother with things around the house.

Their daughter Jennifer just completed graduate school for biology and is trying to get into medical school. She hopes to pursue a career as a rural practitioner. Son David has one semester left at UW-Platteville, where he studied construction management. He already has employment secured upon graduation.

As Nehls walked down memory lane reflecting on a career begun as an animal nutritionist and leading to the principal’s desk at EHS, he knows that things happen as they are supposed to.

“You look through life and you see how things work out,” he said. “I agree it was probably meant to be.”

The road to here

Nehls (pronounced “nails’) comes from a long line of agriculture. The Nehls name is well-known in Dodge County, where his family homestead is located. His great-great grandfather settled in the area and had 12 boys, all of whom received a chunk of land from their father. Nehls’ great-grandfather was one of those dozen boys, and the farm is still in the family today.

“There are Nehls’ farms spread all over,” Nehls said.

His dad (one of four boys) left the farm, which his uncle and cousin now run, north of Watertown and south of Hustisford. Although he didn’t live full-time on the family farm, Nehls spent many summers there. He and his wife actually lived there for a time when they were first married. Nehls’ father moved them around quite a bit, though they always stayed tied to agriculture. He graduated from Pardeeville High School, while his two younger brothers graduated from Reedsburg and Oconto Falls. Nehls graduated from UW-River Falls, where he met his wife, with a degree in animal science.

“Another reason why I’m not a stranger to this area,” he laughed. “The fun thing about being back here is I loved going to college there. I played football there. I would have stayed there forever. A lot of guys I played with live in the area and I’ve reconnected with people I haven’t connected with in 30 years.”

Nehls’ first job was as a livestock nutritionist for Land ‘O Lakes. He worked for two co-ops: One in Valders and one in Denmark, Wis. After a feed mill manager retired in Mishicot, Nehls took the over the position, because he still had a farming itch that had never fully dissipated. But there was another, stronger urge that soon took hold: He wanted to be a teacher.

“Deep down, ever since I was a kid I wanted to be a teacher,” Nehls said.

At the parochial school he attended as a child, his grades 1-3 teacher, Mrs. Stueber, made a big impression on him. Then while working as a nutritionist, a customer he knew bought horses even though she knew nothing about them.

“I was teaching her how to feed them,” he recalled. “And she said, you know, you really taught me something here. Have you ever thought about being a teacher?”

That was enough to relight the fire, the satisfaction he received from helping her and having her acknowledge it.

“I kept thinking about it,” he said. “My roommate from college was an ag teacher. I made the decision that I really wanted to be a teacher and got a Master’s in ag education (from UW-River Falls). I haven’t regretted that decision once.”

He student taught at River Falls High School and once that ended, he began his career the next day as an ag teacher at Campbellsport High School, a position he held from 1997-2007. He also served as an assistant football and basketball coach. He made the leap to administration in 2008 as the assistant principal at Denmark High School, followed by becoming principal in 2010.

“My first admin job was in Denmark, where I had worked as a nutritionist,” Nehls said. “Many of the farmers I had called on or worked with still remembered me, so in a sense it was another homecoming.”

When he became principal at Portage High School, where he worked for two years before coming to the Cheese Curd Capital, he was close to Pardeeville, where he graduated high school. That too was a homecoming, because many of his friends from his school days were still in the area. He also liked the challenge of manning a larger high school.

Nehls loves being a principal because he gets to wear many different hats; no two days are the same.

“The interacting with students, working with the community and businesses,” he said. “We’re all working to help make the school better.”

He also has a message he shares with others frequently: Students are the same today as they always have been. The transformation from a goofy 14-year-old to an adult is amazing to see.

“It’s not the students who change, it’s the environment that changes,” Nehls said. “We watch them grow up from freshman year to senior year, when they leave here as fullgrown adults. It’s pretty special that we had the privilege of watching them grow. I’m just happy that I was along to enjoy the process.”

As for the year ahead, Nehls is looking forward to seeing what each new day brings.

“The beauty about students is you never know what they’re going to bring to school,” he said. “Each day is just a brand new day and that’s the fun part.”

Another intriguing thought to ponder: Any student could be the next Albert Einstein, the next person to cure cancer, the next artist, the next person to solve a global problem. All famous people, great inventors, scientists, and presidents were once 14-year-old freshmen too.

“I take it (his job) very seriously because I don’t want to be that person that someday someone says told them ‘I couldn’t do it, I went down this path because of something that my teacher said or my principal said.’ How many great songs haven’t been written because of someone’s comments. How many times could we have cured cancer by now? What can we do to encourage them, help them and provide opportunities so they can become the next great person?”