Running and track are helping Nebraska rancher Kevan Hueftle of Eustice to live the kind of story that few people get to tell. He rose from the depths of a 2005 hunting accident that cost him his foot, as well as the resulting depression and subsequent battle with alcohol to become a champion Paralympic runner after recently competing.
“I was shot in the left foot during a hunting accident,” he recalled. “Six months later, I decided to amputate it right above the ankle. I was only 20 years old at the time. I was a successful track athlete and actually tried to go and run again at the University of Nebraska-Kearney. However, I hadn’t finished healing yet.”
Track and running helped Nebraska rancher Kevan Hueftle recover from the trauma of losing a foot and the results battle with depression and alcohol. (Contributed Photo)
In his words, Hueftle said he was “taking pills to get through the day” and “drinking more and more” at that time. He transferred out of UNK and went to Southeast Community College in Beatrice to get his Ag Degree in 2009. Between 2007 and 2015, Hueftle called himself a “full-blown alcoholic.” On August 7, 2015, he took control of his life and gave up alcohol. “I hit my four-year sobriety mark on August 7 of this year,” he said proudly.
In January of 2017, he started looking back at his track
career, remembering how fast he could run in his prime. “I started taking a
look at some of the Paralympic times,” he recalled. “I went to a prosthetic
maker in Kearney and switched the old prosthetic leg over to a new one. Then, I
started running again.
“My times were pretty crappy back then,” Hueftle said. “They
were good when you remember I had just started running for the first time in
fifteen years. As I got further into training, I went to a prosthetist in
Washington that put me on a brand-new leg. I was training every single day and
my times kept getting faster. Two-and-a-half years of training led to me
getting a bid to the Para Pan-American Games in Peru, which were held only a
month ago.”
He said it was a very emotional experience when he finally received his Team USA gear and became a part of the organization. While traveling to Peru he didn’t carry a lot of expectations with him. After all, Hueftle had never traveled internationally before. He was also running while being a full-time rancher with a couple of “side-businesses.” Plus, Hueftle was a 34-year-old runner competing against kids in their 20s.
“I think the cards were stacked against me,” he recalled.
“However, I ended up placing second in the 200-Meter Dash and won the 100-Meter
Dash. That was a great feeling. I was actually pretty mad at myself after the
200 because I thought I should have won it. I just didn’t quite run my best 200
of the year though.
“I wasn’t a 100 or 200 runner in college during my track
days,” Hueftle said. “I was more of a 400 and 800M runner, which is a
completely different style of running than the sprints. I had to learn some new
running techniques and (starting) blockwork.”
Hueftle has a running coach who lives in Florida. His coach
came to watch him run in Peru and it was actually the first time the two had
been face-to-face. “I had five days on the track with him, which was amazing,”
he said. “And having the national anthem played because you won a race was even
more amazing. It was all Team USA members on the podium in first, second, and
third, in both events.”
Hueftle met his coach during a trip to Arizona for competition. He does his training through videos and workouts that are sent from Florida. “My coach also works with Team USA,” he said. “He sought me out after the meet in Arizona and told me I had the skills and the mindset to do well in the competitions. I just didn’t quite have the running technique yet.”
With his win at the Para Pan-American Games in Peru, Hueftle is off to Dubai and running in the World Championship Meet at the end of the month. He leaves on October 31 for 17 days in Dubai. He has a lot of training to do between now and then, but Hueftle’s workouts can be difficult to fit into his hectic personal and professional schedule.
“I usually try to work out at 5 am,” he said, “but if that doesn’t work out, I usually head up to the high school in the evenings with my kids to do my running. I can also leave Eustice to drive to Cozad and use their track but that takes 1.5 hours or longer. If that doesn’t work out, I’ve trained in cornfields or ran on highways. With the caliber of athletes I’m trying to compete against, I can’t skip workouts. The ones that have faster times than I do are sponsored athletes, so training is their full-time job.”
He’s looking forward to being able to reflect on his
accomplishments when his athletic career comes to a close. “Peru was nothing
but a business trip for me,” he said. “The best thing about it was Peru is on
central time, so I got to keep myself on a routine. When I’m done running, I
think I’ll have more time to enjoy it.”
You don’t have to be a farmer if you go to secondary education for an Agriculture Degree. American agriculture has been fighting that perception as long as anyone can remember. The Ag umbrella has more jobs underneath it than most people realize, and most of which have nothing to do with growing crops. Mahtomedi, Minnesota native Emma Persoon is the perfect example of how valuable and versatile an ag education can be.
“I’m a sophomore at Iowa State University and studying
Animal Science,” she said. “The Animal Science Degree falls under the College
of Agriculture and Life Sciences. I’m there because I love working with
animals.
“I grew up showing rabbits around the country,” she
recalled. “I also showed a llama during my time in the 4H program, which is where
I really got my start in working with animals. As a sophomore in high school, I
got a job at a dog kennel in Lake Elmo, Minnesota. I really enjoyed that job as
well, so I knew I wanted to do something with animals for a living.”
Persoon wasn’t quite sure just what that would be at that
point. At the end of her senior year in high school, she’d chosen to attend
Iowa State University and major in Animal Science. At that time, she was
considering a career as a large-animal veterinarian. After working through her
freshman year and returning home for the summer, her career path took an
unexpected turn.
“I had returned to working at the dog kennel in Lake Elmo when my mom asked me an interesting question,” she said. “My mom said, ‘do you want to foster a dog for a service animal organization?’ My first reaction was ‘yeah, sign me up!’”
Emma teaching a new service dog-in-training all the tricks of the trade. She says “it takes a lot of patience.” (contributed photo)Emma teaching a new service dog-in-training all the tricks of the trade. She says “it takes a lot of patience.” (contributed photo)
Through peals of laughter, she said, “I think I was filling
out the online application before we’d finished the conversation.”
Just a week after filling out the paperwork and going
through volunteer orientation, her life would change as she got their first
puppy. He was just ten weeks old and it was up to Persoon to show him the
service-dog ropes.
“I’d already had public-access training through the
organization,” she recalled. “When we receive the dogs, they come with a vest
that says ‘Service Dog in Training’ on it. Even when they’re just 10 weeks old,
the organization wants you to take them out in public. The training teaches the
volunteers how to interact with people out in public, and how to interact with
store managers who might not be comfortable with the dog in there.”
While walking a dog might sound like fun, it’s important to remember the dog was still a puppy, and puppies can be a challenge. “He went to the bathroom in stores,” she said. “As I kept working with him through the summer, I asked the organization (who wishes to remain anonymous) if I could take him back to school with me. I’d only had him for six weeks, but they said no, they didn’t want him that far away, which I understood. Once I got back to school, I kept getting their emails, saying they really needed volunteers.”
She called them back a month later and told them she was
still willing to take a dog. Her apartment was on the second floor, so she didn’t
have front door access to potty train a young dog. Persoon requested one that
might be a little older. After emailing back and forth for a while, they sent
her a dog to work with while at school.
There’s more to an agriculture degree than just farming. Animal Science major Emma Persoon found her life calling in training service dogs.
“I’m what’s known as a puppy raiser in the program,” she
said. “Puppy raisers have the dog from the time they’re ten weeks old to when
the dogs go in for final training at 18 months. It’s a two-year long process
from start to finish training as a service dog.”
Persoon said giving up dogs after working with them for
weeks on end was tough. “Yeah, I cried even after just six weeks with the first
puppy I had. I cried all day.”
Training a service dog happens in two parts. Part of it is
what the public might think of as typical dog-obedience training. The other part
is training them to be in public as service dogs. They go out in public two or
three times a week to get them used to different situations.
“The dog I’m working with knows all the basic obedience commands,” she said. “He knows how to grab something off the floor and bring it to your hand. He also knows how to open and close cupboards
Emma spends a lot of time out in public teaching service dogs how to react when they’re “on the job.” It’s important for the public to know not to approach or talk to service dogs when they have their vest on. (Contributed photo)
“What we do is put a braided rope-type of a toy on the
handle of the cupboard,” she said. “Then, we teach the dog to pull it open.
That means you need to have some things set up in your house to do that type of
training. Once you get the setup in place, it’s actually not difficult to teach
them that skill.”
She said the service dogs that go into training are typically super-smart. That doesn’t mean you don’t need a ton of patience to do the job well. Persoon said her dog is very smart but gets frustrated very easily.
“The organization I work with has a breeding program,” she
said. “The Labrador retrievers are bred for their smarts, but they still do go
through adolescent phases where they get frustrated. I’ve brought my dog with
me to class and he doesn’t like having to sit still for 50 minutes at a
time.
“I try to take him for a half-hour walk before class to tire
him out a little,” Persoon said. “I also bring a mat for him to sleep on
because the floors are a little slippery. I try to set him up with the most
comfortable experience as possible. I even bring in a chew-toy for him.
“He’s a vocal dog, which makes it more of a challenge,” she
said. “I wish he was quieter so I could ignore him, but I can’t. He’s very
vocal and I can’t have him interrupting class. All my professors know they’re
going to have a service dog-in-training in their classroom. They’re obligated
to let them be there. However, if the dog becomes disruptive enough to
interfere with the teaching, then they are absolutely able to ask me to leave.
However, none of my professors have gotten to that point yet. I do get looks
occasionally but they try to be patient.”
“it takes a lot of patience,” says Emma. But it’s so rewarding when you realize this dog will be able to help someone function in society who might otherwise not be able to (Contributed photo)
Persoon said working with service dogs has given her a path she’d like to follow in her professional life. Again, she was considering a career as a large-animal veterinarian. However, the first service dog she worked with changed that path completely. Working with a dog for hours at a time on skills “relaxes” her.
“It’s really rewarding to see their brain work for me,” she
said with a smile visible through a phone call. I’m looking into different
internship opportunities with service dog organizations this summer. I would
love to go into service dog training, but I’m also considering canine nutrition
as well, which I’m interested in.
“That’s the most rewarding thing about service dog
training,” she added. “I’ve found my career path.”
She’s a living, breathing example of the fact that an
Agriculture degree doesn’t mean you have to be involved in production
agriculture.
“I know for a fact there are some people (including her
professors) that think choosing the service dog training as a career path isn’t
as valuable as working on a hog farm, a dairy farm, or any other large-animal
production fields.
“For me, it’s all about knowing that someone who normally
can’t go out in public on their own, can now be out in public because of the
dog I’m training,” Persoon added. “That to me is just as valuable as putting
food on the table is for someone else.”
The organization she works for trains five different types
of service dogs. They train mobility-assist dogs for people in wheelchairs or
on walkers; hearing assist dogs, which can alert someone on things like a smoke
alarm going off, if an oven bell dings, or the doorbell rings; diabetic alert
dogs for people with Type 1 Diabetes. If someone goes into a diabetic low, the
dog will alert to that; there are seizure-assist dogs, which lick the face of
their handler to help them come around, go get help if it’s needed, or actually
push a button to call 911; they also train dogs for autistic people.
Persoon is looking into a possible internship involving
service dog training for people with autism. It’s near-and-dear to her heart as
she has a brother with autism. “it’s amazing to think that we can train a dog
to help someone with autism just because there’s a wide range on the whole
autism spectrum.”
“We see dogs from the organization I work for out with their
people all the time, which is neat to see,” Persoon said. “We were in a mall
the other day and I had the dog with me. We were doing some training when a
woman approached me to talk about her autistic daughter’s service dog. The
woman said the dog helps her out so much. It’s neat when we have our service
dogs out in public and we meet people who’ve been doing well with the dogs our
organization trains.”
She wanted to let those in the public who don’t know that
it’s important to not approach service dogs when they’re in public and
working/training. The dogs are supposed to pretend that other people don’t
exist. Persoon said that’s one of the hardest lessons for the new puppies to
learn. It’s not surprising that people want to pet or talk to a dog in a place
where they don’t normally see one. Again, it’s important to leave the service
dogs alone when they’re wearing a vest.
“The dog I’ve got right now really recognizes the difference
between off-duty and working,” she said. “When the vest goes on, he’s really
good at ignoring people. Once in a while, he gets kind of excited when someone
talks to him, but for the most part, he’s all business. When his vest comes off
and we go for a walk, he’s like a typical dog.
“Any breed of dog can be service dogs,” she added, “but most of the training organizations use labs or golden retrievers. The dogs have to be intelligent but those two breeds in particular love working with and want to please their people.”
