Constance “Connie” Mae Bickel was born on May 5th, 1952 to Charles “Chuck” and Ida Bickel in Northfield Minnesota. She grew up on a dairy farm just outside Northfield with her older sissy Kathy and younger brother Tom. Despite being told by her school counselor that she should not go to college, she went on to get not only her degree in home economics and child development from Mankato State (1979), after a stop at Bemidji State College, but also her master’s degree in Education Administration from St. Cloud State. After teaching students in Hutchinson and Litchfield, she found her work home coordinating Early Childhood Family Education in Alexandria, which she did from 1985 until 2017. She cultivated that program from one room at Lincoln Elementary School into what we know today as the Early Education Center at Woodland Elementary. After a year of retirement, she returned to her passion as the director of the Calvary Preschool, leading it through a transition, remodel, and e