Ordell R. Pederson Sr.

Ordell R. Pederson Sr., age 85, of Mayville, ND, died on Friday, October 5, 2012, in Emmanuel Nursing Home, Detroit Lakes, MN, after an extended illness. Ordell Robert Pederson Sr. was born on June 23, 1927, to Robert and Josie Hanson Pederson in Mayville, ND. He grew up and attended country school in rural Mayville, graduating from Mayville High School in 1935. Ordell then attended the Dakota Business School in Fargo for a short time, and worked as an inspector in MN dairies; later traveling to California. He used to say he learned how to train horses in Florida, from someone wintering there with a circus. He returned to Mayville in his late twenties, and obtained a degree in Natural Sciences from Mayville State University in 1960. On December 31, 1960, he married Myrna E. Pederson. They both took teaching positions, and raised a family. Ordell taught H.S. Science in Mandaree ND, Argyle MN, and then Exira IA, where together they moved to Iowa on a NASA grant where he taught science during the height of the Cold War, and earned grants for summer school studies through them as well. Ordell and family then moved to Minnesota where he taught at the high school on Red Lake Indian Reservation, and he was the primary architect of an alternative Middle School, set up in Ponemah MN, on the Reservation. In the early 1980's, he taught in Fort Yates ND before accepting a teaching position at the American School, in Guatemala City, Guatemala for two years. Ordell then returned to northern Minnesota for a short time, teaching at the Bug-O-Nay-Shig School near Cass Lake, before moving to Brownsville, TX where he taught for 17 years until his retirement in 1995. Throughout his life, he loved photography, farming, and thoroughly enjoyed breeding appaloosa horses, because of the horses themselves, and the wonder of genetics, while in Minnesota, in Texas, and finally on his hobby farm near Hallock, MN. He is survived by four children, Cheryl Pederson of Fargo, ND, Jinann Beth Allen Stebe of Mayville, ND, Daniel Susan Pederson of Glyndon, MN and Ordell Pederson Jr. of Dilworth, MN and their mother, Myrna Pederson of Fargo, ND; a stepson, Jeremy Geller, and his mother, Mary Stebe Geller Pederson, and his siblings, Alma Wayne, Janice Elroy Lindaas, Art Caroline Pederson, Clark Meiko Pederson, Ida Mae Craig Rypkema and Leroy Clemy Pederson; three grandchildren, Zachary, Robert and Ashley, and three great-grandchildren, and numerous nieces and nephews, and their extended families. He was preceded in death by his parents and grandparents, a nephew, Jimmy Peterson, his brother-in-laws, Carrol Holmen, Gerald Nankivel, and Russell Wayne, one brother, Curtis Peterson and two sisters, Natalie Nankivel and Beverly Holmen Nees.