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Today's Featured Biography

 
Fay Carlson Behm

Name: Fay Carlson Behm

Current Mailing: 363 South Brandon Loop, Bismarck, ND 58503
    701-255-5005 or [email protected]

Birth Place: Williston, ND - 12-23-40

Occupation: Retired from Business Development Specialist for the US Small Business Administration Dec 2010

Education, Hobbies, Interesting places you have been and things you have done:
After graduation I attended Minot State College for two years, married Jerry Behm and shortly after .moved to Devils Lake. There we owned and operated a propane gas business. Jerry and I worked together in the business and started a family. Devils Lake provided us with a great opportunity to participate in community and to learn and grow. We worked in the Chamber of Commerce, 4-H, Boy & Girl Scouts, sports, social and political organizations and established great friendships. Devils Lake—the best part of it all--being 10 minutes from our place at the lake. The Behm clan spent many fun filled hours and created great memory for us and our “kids.”

We moved back to Minot in 1979 and again, with divine guidance, into a great neighborhood, Green Acres! Many of our neighbors were “flood transplants” with kids the same age as ours. We eventually ended up with one of the best neighborhood boys as a son-in-law, Dusty (John) Caldwell. I always thought he was a great kid, who pushed the snow out of our driveway out of the kindness of his heart! This was my golf/tennis period, which I enjoyed with great abandon…Jerry was busy working in the energy business while I kept busy playing. One by one the children grew (too fast) and left (too soon) with a highlight year when all four were in college at the same time. We refer to that as the “ no new shoes period”. However we did get to travel to Wyoming, Arizona, Minnesota, Texas to visit our dedicated students. Katherine even followed up with a couple of years in Japan where when we visited her were treated like royalty.. Her students loved her teaching style and beautiful blonde hair.

Next came love and marriage and the excitement and angst that go with big changes. We sold Behm’s Propane in 1989 and Jerry and Fay decided to have an adventure. We traveled that first year, driving everywhere in southwest US and northeast US but it became clear that we could not continue to live out of the Buick so decided it was time to find “something to do”. Jerry signed on with a Canadian Company doing an energy project in northwest US. We lived for three years in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. It was beautiful and our first venture away from the prairie. I got my real estate license and worked that very interesting, booming market. I loved looking at and showing property but really needed to be more aggressive on the financing side. I learned so much from this experience and never resorted to carrying a gun (as was recommended), I would talk Jerry into riding shotgun! A job he did not always appreciate but we kept safe.

Then things changed in the Carlson family, the most significant was the death of my sister, Ruth. She was my rock, my big sister and it was so unsettling to lose her at 57 years. This brought us back to the prairie, and eventually Bismarck where we now live. I love North Dakota and life here has been so very good to me and my family.

I have been enjoying a late in life career with the US Small Business Administration. What started as a little, part time job in 1997, has become an 11 year career. I found out early that I enjoyed working in the business environment, thanks to Jerry drafted me to run the office at Behm’s Propane. And after 10 years I don’t feel at all like a bureaucrat. My schedule of three to four days a week keeps me in the “planning to retire” stage but at some unnamed date in the future.

Being a grandmother to three darling, bright and beautiful girls is a career that I embrace with enthusiasm and I want to be a part of everything they do...the love of grandchildren is a hot romance that never seems to cool!

Family, friends, travel, work and the grace of God keep us thinking young and looking forward to the next great adventure. I feel lucky and proud to be from Williston and part of the Class of 58? Many of us wanted to graduate, get out of Williston and meet new people. Now we want to be sane and mobile enough to get back there and see our lifelong and long lost friends! Friends for life--even if you don’t want to be—we know each others history so no explanations needed-- just come and be who you are --together again.

Spouses name: Gerald (Jerry) Behm from Minot, ND (Minot Model HS-58)
And he has often told me that he thinks my reunions are “more fun” than his reunions! I think it is because he gets to hug all of my girlfriends!
Additional Information:

Four children: Who grew up in Devils Lake and Minot but always cheered for the Coyotes when they were not “our: opposition
    Andrew (Jennifer) Behm- Maurertown, VA
    Annette Behm Caldwell (Dusty)- Bismarck, ND
    Darcy Eberly (David)- Highlands Ranch, CO
    Katherine Adraktas (Dean)-Fair Oaks, CA
Three granddaughters:
    Amelea Fay (9) & Sophie Anne (5) Caldwell-Bismarck
    Ava Marie Eberly (5)-Highlands Ranch, CO
Sisters:
    Judy Carlson Rust-Portland, OR- WHS Class of 1956
    Ruth Carlson Heinz (deceased), Alexander, ND –WHS Class of 1955

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