Rick Rehm
Granton Area School District Superintendent Rick Rehm plans to spend his retirement spending even more time helping others through his church. Rehm, who has been the Granton Superintendent since 2005-06, will retire from that position at the end of the school year. Growing up and throughout his professional career, basketball has been one of Rehm’s interests. As a sophomore center on the UW-Oshkosh 1967-68 men’s basketball team, he helped lead the team to a third-place finish in the NAIA national tournament. Rehm played basketball his entire collegiate career.
Rehm’s father, Fred, is one of two living players – and the only living starting player – from the Wisconsin Badgers’ 1941 national championship team and was recently honored before the start of a Badgers’ home basketball game. Fred Rehm, a guard, played professional basketball for five years with teams in Flint, MI, and Oshkosh following his career with the Badgers.
Rick Rehm has had several varying careers over the years. He spent approximately 20 years in the corporate world and was a teacher and basketball coach for many years. After graduating from UW-Oshkosh in the early 1970s, Rehm became an assistant basketball coach at Auburndale High School and later was a head coach at Blair, Shawano and Stratford high schools. Rehm taught high school math-including one year of teaching both math and science – for the Neillsville School District for three years until 2004 and was a superintendent of Almond-Bancroft School district for one year. Before accepting the Granton superintendent position, Rehm spent one year managing a four-year grant at Northcentral Technical College (NTC) that benefited high school students within the college district. Rehm, who resides in Stratford, has been the superintendent at Granton since the 2005-06 school year.
Rehm lists upgrading the school’s technology and maintaining the district’s fiscal responsibility as achievements during the past three years. SMART Boards (interactive whiteboards) for students are one of many technology improvements the school has recently made, said Rehm.
Providing students with an education that will help them in the future is a priority for Rehm. “Number one is for the kids to have some better opportunities,” said Rehm. Rehm, who enjoys giving elementary students high fives, will miss the students when he retires. “I really like those kids,” said Rehm.
Rehm’s contract at Granton is a unique one; he is contracted for just 156 days per year, approximately three days per week. The 60-percent contract was one Rehm was not familiar with before he accepted the position. The Granton School Board, at a special meting held Saturday, May 3, hired Arnie Snook to be the next superintendent, said Rehm. Rehm enjoyed working with the school board, school staff and community members during his tenure at Granton.
Rehm looks forward to spending more time helping his church, Faith Fellowship in Marshfield, when he retires. Rehm has been a part of several mission trips, including ones to an orphanage in Myanmar (otherwise known as Burma) and to Mexico. Rehm plans to go on future mission trips and encourages others to consider attending mission trips. “Visiting financially impoverished nations is an eye-opener,” said Rehm.
Rehm also plans to spend more time helping Faith’s men’s ministry, a fellowship opportunity which allows the church men to spend time with each other through fun activities. Although Rehm will miss working for the Granton Area School District, many opportunities await him.
