BROOKINGS – Harry Mansheim isn’t a Brookings native. But with 50 years of living and working here as a State Farm Insurance agent, he pretty much qualifies as a lifetime resident.
He and Connie, his wife of 53 years, will continue to call Brookings home after Aug. 31, his last day on the job.
Mansheim grew up on a farm in Colome. Through the eighth grade, he attended a country grade school three miles from home. Next came high school in Colome, where he graduated in 1959. And then he was off to pursue bachelor’s and master’s degrees and a career in physical education.
“I went to Huron College with the idea of being a coach,” Mansheim said. During his senior year there, he excelled at cross-country, earning honors as the leading runner in the Dakotas. He graduated in 1963 with a B.S. in physical education.
Following graduation, he attended South Dakota State University, also earning a master’s degree in physical education in 1964.
Mansheim’s first job in coaching was at Huron High School, where he stayed for three years. He started a cross-country program and laid out a course, part of which is still used today. He also served as assistant coach for basketball and track. Coaching was a job that he liked. But change was coming.
My own boss
“I didn’t have any discomfort with what I was doing,” Mansheim said. “I enjoyed what I was doing, working with people and kids.” Then he had his first hint of what a career in insurance might offer.
“Connie and I had bought life insurance policies from a fellow teacher for our two oldest daughters,” Mansheim explained. “With that particular company, you could sell insurance part-time, and I had a good feeling about what insurance could do for people because my mom and dad started policies for us kids when we were young.”
He could sell insurance while he continued working as a teacher. He considered doing that for a company out of Rapid City. However, State Farm Insurance got the word and made Mansheim an offer he couldn’t refuse.
Come Sept. 1, 1967, Harry, Connie and their two daughters were in Brookings and his life’s work in insurance was underway. They soon realized they had found their niche in Brookings.
“I started and during that initial period, I became aware of State Farm and the State Farm administration became aware of me,” he said. “They realized that I had my master’s degree and had given me some indication that I’d have an opportunity to move on.
“Well, this was the opportunity in Brookings to be somewhere that’s home. I grew up that way that you learn to be happy at what you are doing and what you chose to do. You learn to be happy with that and accept it and do well with it.” As a State Farm agent, Mansheim found all those things.
“I like the accomplishment of getting things done for yourself,” he said. “And being an old distance runner, you know you get out of your efforts what you put into them. I was aware that this was something I could enjoy being my own boss at, having that liberty to take care of people, being able to come and go and still be responsible.”
During his half-century as an insurance agent, Mansheim said he has sold “most everything except airplane insurance, essentially: personal lines insurance, from home to autos to boats to life insurance. State Farm is very renowned, worldwide.”
Any job that one excels at usually brings with it challenges and rewards. Mansheim found ample evidence of both with State Farm.
Caring and comfort
“If you care enough about what you’re doing, it’s relatively easy to share with someone else that you care about them,” Mansheim said, noting one of his job’s challenges.
“To see someone receive the benefit of their planning is very wholesome, comforting, and of value. That helps lead one to want to help others make sure that they have planned and prepared; because things do happen, we just don’t know when.”
As to the rewards of being an insurance agent, he cited “the sense of comfort in seeing people take care of those responsibilities that they have to take care of to avoid potential financial loss. And there’s that peace of mind that you see them get from that and then in the event of an outcome to see the relief they have from having done prior planning.”
Mansheim appreciated being able to stay in Brookings to meet those challenges with his clients and share with them the rewards of responsible prior planning. While he appreciates the value of management, at the same time he appreciates owning his own business and the flexibility that goes with that.
“I had told State Farm I wasn’t interested in going on into management within the company,” he said.
Community, family, church
Mansheim and his family have always been active in the community, especially where sports and church are concerned.
“I coached our kids through Little League and followed the local athletes because of interest in them and seeing others perform to their best potential: whether it’s skating, hockey, baseball or soccer,” he said.
At one time or another, all seven Mansheim children were on the swim team. They learned what he sees as valuable life lessons: the disciplines of time, getting up in the morning and getting to practice.
“All those things are values that have to be learned and inherited a little bit for the future potential comfort in life,” he said.
One sport for which Mansheim has a special affinity is hockey. When the old ice arena on 22nd Avenue was leased to the city of Brookings in 1981 by Dale Larson, CEO and president of Larson Manufacturing, there was enough space in the building for the installation of a hockey rink; but improvements were considered.
“The first two years we were in the facility we had no refrigerated ice,” Mansheim said. “We were subject to God and Mother Nature’s weather. Soon there was discussion that we needed a refrigeration system, so that we could maintain a steady ice and have a dependable season.” Mansheim got a committee together and took on the task.
“I hand-picked some individuals and within about a year we had a refrigerated ice system unit in the first hockey arena in Brookings,” he said. “That was a stepping-stone to the next ice arena.” That came in 2002; today Brookings proudly boasts of the Larson Ice Center, one of the best venues for hockey and skating in South Dakota, Mansheim said.
In retirement, he and Connie will spend more time on the Mansheim family farm, “the home place at Colome.”
Additionally, Harry will devote more time to St. Thomas More Catholic Parish, where he, Connie and their children have been active over the years. Connie serves as treasurer of the Court of St. Agnes, No. 618, Catholic Daughters of the Americas. He is a Fourth Degree Knight of Columbus. In 1988, the Mansheims were honored by the Knights as the State of South Dakota Family of the Year.
“I consider that as a compliment to me, Connie and our family,” he said.
The Mansheims have seven children, 12 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Contact John Kubal at jkubal@brookingsregister.com.
