Jenna Peterson, 79, Altered Lives of Hundreds of Children

Date of story:  07/15/2072

Jenna Peterson, the founder of a thriving primary school in Honduras and a leader in the effort to make sure all families in Honduras had electricity, died at home on Sunday night at age 79 after a long history of heart complications.



Mrs. Peterson at age 17



Her death was confirmed by her husband of 54 years, Skylar Peterson.

From the very beginning of her adult life, Mrs. Peterson was not afraid to tell people her dream. “She would always come up with brilliant plans for her future and forget them a few months later,” said Alison Ramsley, Mrs. Peterson’s childhood friend. “So when she began to tell us she was going to start a school in a third-world country we all thought she was just off on another tangent.  Boy, did she prove us wrong.”

In 2020, at just 27 years old, Mrs. Peterson moved herself, her husband, and her young son, Liam, to Honduras to pursue her dream.  She was hired by Transitions Abroad to help manage an elementary school in Comayagua, the seventh largest city in Honduras.  Once established, she began to make major changes to the school, especially in the curriculum.  Mrs. Peterson worked side by side with the teachers and students to figure out the best way to accomplish the school’s goals.

The school improved markedly, but Mrs. Peterson was still not content with what she had accomplished.  She started a sister school in a more rural area so that it would be more easily accessible to students that lived outside of the city limits.  She contracted a bus to pick up students from their homes that were outside of walking distance so that they didn’t have to pay a bus fare.  Most families in the area knew who Mrs. Peterson was and why she was in Honduras; she was respected.

Jenna Brianne Long was born on April 23, 1993, to Christopher Long and the former Ona Ellingson in Littleton, Col. She was the third of four children.  Growing up, she liked to play by herself, but never rejected a playmate if one crossed her path.  In 2003, her mother, now divorced, moved the family to Buffalo Center, Iowa, where they lived for four years. After her mother remarried to Mr. Rory Knudtson, the family made a final move to Kiester, Minn.  Mrs. Peterson went to United South Central High School in Wells, Minn.  She was very involved with extracurricular activities such as yearbook, student government, band, tutoring and mentoring. She also worked as a lifeguard at the Wells community pool and worked as a student aide at The Shepherd’s Inn, an assisted living home.

Mrs. Peterson’s career was actually inspired by a two-week mission trip that she took in 2010 as a senior at United South Central High School in Wells, Minn.  The trip inspired her to major in business administration at Bemidji State University so that she would have the tools she needed to run a school in Honduras.  After five years, the young Mrs. Peterson graduated from the honor’s program offered at BSU with a bachelor of science in business administration.

The same year that she graduated college, Mr. Skylar Peterson asked for her hand in marriage.  They married on June 15, 2017.  The couple had five healthy children: Liam, Charolette, Wyatt, Oliver, and Chloe.

By 2026, her school had 170 students age 5-12 enrolled full time along with seven full-time staff; Mrs. Peterson was right in the middle of her biggest dream.  Her family, however, was struggling on the miniscule income and in the very unique culture of Honduras. In 2028, she finally admitted her family’s unhappiness and moved back to the United States, leaving her school and her students in the capable hands of Mr. Carlos Rico, her second-in-command.  “When Jenna left, I knew that it would be a struggle for the school to keep up morale and stay on track, but I also understood why she had to go.  Family always comes first. Looking back, it was a time of turmoil, but we survived and thrived even after she left,” Mr. Rico said of his companion and employer.

Even after returning to the states, Mrs. Peterson didn’t lose the determination to help the people of Honduras.  Once back in the U.S., she began to find investors to help her install solar panels at her school and at the homes of those who lived too far away from the city to get electricity.  The four-year project proved successful –the main investors of her project were GM and Shell.

Though she never got the chance to go back to Honduras, Mrs. Peterson continued to help the school and the people from afar both fiscally and by gaining American support. She spent the rest of her life on a small ranch in northern Minnesota.

Mrs. Peterson is survived by her husband; children, Liam (Mary) Peterson, Wyatt (Carrie) Peterson, Oliver (Hattie) Peterson, Charolette (Richard) Smith and Chloe (Daniel) Fisher and fifteen grandchildren.  She is preceded in death by her siblings Corey Roof, Megan (Roof) Graham and Connor Long; her mother and her step-father Rory Knudtson. 

TO THE EDITOR

Re “Educators Tackling Problems in Two Crucial Age Groups” (Sept. 9) 

Whenever a school is composed of students from different areas where each has been taught in a different style, at a different pace, and by a different teacher, getting everybody on an equal level of understanding is going to be a challenge.

The struggle Johnson College Prep has in trying to get all of its 9^th grade students on the same page is something most high schools, colleges and universities across the nation can relate to.  It is difficult for a student to excel in class when he never learned the information and skills the teacher or professor expects.

Regulating the information every U.S. elementary and high school feeds its pupils and at what pace could potentially fix this problem. Some may consider this restricting, but isn’t equal education worth letting the government be reasonably heavy-handed?

Jenna Long

Bemidji, Minn., Sept. 9, 2011

Baby Grapes in the Great Plains

A day I very much wish I could forget was my first day of summer, 
staring down rows and rows of grape plants.

By Jenna Long


A row of grape plants that is similar to the Iowa vineyard I worked on.  Photo taken from personal blog of Linda Engstrom, a vineyard owner from Hillsboro, Ore.  http://gardenaesthetics.blogspot.com/2010/06/stormy-weatherand-wine-tasting.html



The idea that I should have worn less clothing popped immediately into my head when I opened the door of my silver Grand Am and stepped onto the grey-graveled drive of my new job. The weatherman had reported a supposed record high for northern Iowa, and I could already feel my shirt becoming moist with sweat.  The date was June 6, 2011, exactly one day after my high school graduation, and I was about to learn a lot about my work preferences through one of the most terrible days of my eighteen years.

Standing awkwardly on the grounds of the farm I had just driven onto and under the glare of the sun, I waited for somebody to notice me; no one had given me clear direction as to what I should actually do once I reached the farm.  Nobody had really given me any directions at all except to show up at 8 a.m.  Eventually, an ATV pulled up, driven by my new boss, my sole coworker sitting next to him.

Robby Barnes, my boss

My boss, Robby, could have been type-cast as the die-hard hippie in any respectable B-rated movie.  He had a long grey beard and hair to his shoulders.  He wore cut-off jeans and tie-died shirts.  He didn’t own a car but instead walked everywhere, including the five miles from his own country home to the closest town.  He played guitar and loved to joke around.  He smoked pot and he loved to drink.  In general, he was a lot of fun.  He was also disorganized and oftentimes forgot that he held the responsibility of managing a vineyard of more than 7,000 grape plants.

When we first discussed my coming out to help him in the field, I asked him what I would be doing and he replied very matter-of-fact, “Well, taking care of the grapes, of course!”  I had no idea how much hard work that simple job description kept hidden.

Now, I am not an outside person and I don’t like to sweat or do manual labor or get dirty, so obtaining a summer job in a vineyard can definitely not be chalked up as my brightest idea.  Yet, I somehow ended up there, and it would only be a matter of minutes before I learned exactly why my new job was worth the $11 an hour I was being promised. 

After a few “how-do-you-do’s” and comments about the heat, Robby asked me to start in the far east corner of the field and pull all the weeds and ingrown branches off the plants. I walked behind the ATV to vineyard on the opposite side of the farm.  The vineyard consumed an entire two acres, and each row comprised about 200 plants.  The three year old vines had just begun to grow large leaves and exceed the allotted space each was given. The branches intertwined with wires that were strung between wooden poles, causing them to form a type of horizontal fence. Whenever I looked down the short, grassy medians between rows I felt as if I were in the stretching, never-ending hallway depicted in the 1971 film “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” It was as if I would never reach the other end.



For each plant, I had to take off the plastic tubing at the base of it, pull the weeds, pull the ingrown branches, replace the tubing, and move to the next one.  The work transpired to be tedious, very hot, and very buggy.  Each row took approximately 45 minutes to complete, and I began to measure time in relation to rows.  I would think to myself, “Oh good, I only have two more rows before I can sit down and take my lunch break.” 

The rhythm of that first day went something like this: “crouch, move, pull, pluck, move, stand, walk, crouch, move, pull, pluck, move, stand, walk. . .”  In between each movement mosquitos, flies and nearly invisible black bugs swarmed me, getting into my nose, mouth, and eyes.  I had to attempt to swat them away with each movement and I’m sure that if someone were to walk past me out in vineyard he would have thought I was attempting to create some sort of psychedelic dance move.  It was a terrible, hot, nasty six hours of work, one that I will never be able to forget.

My first day at the vineyard was also my only day.  After those first six hours, I realized that I would dread getting out of bed every day if I knew that I had to repeat that awful process over and over, so I quit and spent the rest of my summer life-guarding full-time, just as I had the previous two summers.  What I learned from my one day at the vineyard was that I am definitely not meant for hard-labor but instead am better suited for work that lets me interact with others and still be slightly lazy.