Rollins says good-bye to friends, co-workers she has worked with over the last 29 years
By Ken Luchterhand
She’s left her mark with the Ho-Chunk Nation, not only with her accomplishments, but also in the hearts and minds that she’s touched over the last 29 years.
Carol Rollins, director of the Ho-Chunk Environmental Health Department, was honored with a retirement celebration on Friday, July 15, in the atrium of the Tribal Office Building.
“It has been an honor to work here,” Rollins said. “I have really enjoyed my time I’ve worked here for the Ho-Chunk Nation. When I started out – well, I’ll be really honest – I only thought I was going to stay a little while. I was going to get all the education and experience I could and I was going to move on. Now it’s 29 years later and now I’m going to move on.”
Rollins said that things have really changed during her employment with the Nation.
“I just can’t help but think of all the changes I’ve seen since I first started and I hardly recognize the villages when I drive through them,” she said. “There’s new homes and we have services in the villages we didn’t have when I started. I wasn’t responsible for all of that. I congratulate the Ho-Chunk Nation. I mean, you really put your money into your facilities and your infrastructure and you put money into programs we really needed and I congratulate you. You really did what you were supposed to for the tribal people.”
She said she knows she stirred the pot a few times while she was working with the Nation.
“I had more than one call from the President’s Office and I guess I’ll tell you what – one of my sayings was, ‘You can’t make the way if you don’t make waves.’ I created a few waves and they were actually kind of a typhoon at times sometimes,” she said. “They put up with me and I had programs that didn’t succeed and you stuck with me and kept me around even though I had a few failures. We turned things around and had a few successes and I was so glad to be a part of it.”
She said she felt honored to have so many people present to celebrate her retirement.
“I’m really honored to have the drums. They beat deep in my heart. I think there must be some Indian princess in me somewhere. It’s been wonderful. I hope to get back to see you all again, at a powwow maybe, and I can dance again with you,” she said. “Thank you.”
Before Rollins spoke, Ona Garvin, Health Department executive director, offered her words of praise for Rollins.
“When I got to the Health Department, it was a scary proposition because I thought we got so many things that are going on and newer divisions that were developed and so forth. But Carol was there. And the office they placed me in was furthest office from the front so I wouldn’t see what anyone else was doing,” Garvin said.
“Much to my happiness, Carol and her staff were located there. Carol and her staff were very professional. There are just a few of them. There is Scott, Randy, Kevin and Matt now, and they all work back there very quietly, but they do a tremendous amount of work that Carol has developed and a very professional crew. They are there early in the morning and they do all their work and they are out in the community, doing the work for our tribal members,” Garvin said.
Rollins graduated from the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire in 1986 with a Bachelor of Science degree in environmental and public health. She has been employed by the Ho-Chunk Nation since 1987. At the time, Carol was the only Ho-Chunk Nation environmental health employee. Because Environmental Health is such a comprehensive program, Programs developed under Carol include water quality, wastewater management, air pollution, food sanitation, Surface Water testing, wetlands, invasive species, injury prevention, preparedness, solid waste and recycling.
She has been the head of several construction projects, including two health clinics, behavioral health building, the food distribution center, and four satellite health offices.
Ho-Chunk Nation President Wilfrid Cleveland also offered words of praise to Rollins, thank her for her many years of service.
“There is a lot that could be said about Carol and what she has done for the Ho-Chunk Nation and all of the benefits all of the tribal members in the 16-county area have received from her work - her sacrifice that she made for us,” Cleveland said.
“One of the things I was thinking about and appreciative of is the consideration that she has for us Ho-Chunks as a people and our values and our culture,” he said. “Through her employment here, all these years, and what our customs are and the state and federal regulations that came that she had to work with. She managed to work around those and a lot of things that were done within the Nation that her knowledge of keeping these values in the forefront and making sure that these guidelines from the federal and the state were managed to maintain those kind of values that we have.”
She used her ingenuity and worked around those kinds of obstacles, he said.
“I think her work here, within the Ho-Chunk Nation, and all the improvements and changes that we, as a people, went through and her guidance within the Environmental Health area that she gave to us to bring us where we’re at today,” he said.
“It’s a bitter-sweet time for the Ho-Chunk Nation, but appreciative. But a lot of times employees that come to the Ho-Chunk Nation and they get a lot of education from us and then they leave and move on to other things. But the love and the feeling that I see from Carol – she stayed here and saw us through many trials as a Nation and she was steadfast in her belief and what she wanted for the Nation,” Cleveland said.
“I just want to express appreciation to Carol for the dedication that she showed that she did for the Ho-Chunk Nation, Her perseverance and putting up with us and the many people she worked with, all the different ideas that we had, but she managed to see through all that and she managed to work here for close to 30 years,” Cleveland said.
“I just want to say I really appreciate - thank you Carol - for your dedication, for your love, your good feelings that you expressed with action over the years,” he said. “Thank you.”
Home