NEW YORK MILLS, Minn. - Kindergarten students want to be all sorts of things when they grow up.
Firefighters, astronauts, lifeguards, you name it.
When Latham Hetland was in kindergarten, he knew he wanted to be mayor of New York Mills, and dang if he didn’t just achieve his dream this week, at age 29, with his parents and a sibling and an in-law there to watch as he was sworn in and city staff began congratulating him and calling him “Mayor Hetland.”
“He’s always been able to figure out what he wants to do and then he just does it,” said his mother, Wendy Hetland, whose great-great-uncle built the store that became the New York Mills Cultural Center where the internationally known Great-American Think-Off takes place.
Hetland says his dream to serve began when he was just 5 years old.
That year, as she did every year, kindergarten teacher Barb Tumberg talked to her class about U.S. presidents. She brought official-looking grown-up clothes for the kids to wear — a blazer, white shirt and tie for the boys and a red sweater and blazer for the girls. The kids swam in the oversized clothes, adorably, and delivered a speech at a podium adorned with the presidential seal.
“The kids just thought it was very fun that they could pretend to be president,” she said.
Latham took it more seriously than most kids. As far back as he can remember, he wanted to become the mayor of New York Mills. As soon as he was old enough, he ran for student council, and during his senior year, served as student body president and the president of the local National Honor Society. He studied business at Minnesota State University Moorhead, landed a spot on the New York Mills City Council, and completed his master’s degree in business administration at Moorhead.