Pictured: Karlin Van Otterloo began working at EPS this past December as the new head custodian.

By Jill Fennema –

For the last few months, the newest addition to the staff at Edgerton Pubic School has been Karlin Van Otterloo. He began working for EPS on Dec. 19, taking over as the head custodian when Dean Fransen retired at the end of 2022. Dean had been with the school district for 28 years.

Prior to coming to the school, Karlin worked for Cleveringa Construction out of Luverne for 12 years. Most of his work for them involved building pole sheds, shops, and other agricultural type buildings.

Karlin is a son of Denny and Nelva Van Otterloo, formerly of Edgerton and now of Brandon, S.D. Karlin has a degree in animal science from South Dakota State University, but he has never pursued a career in the agricultural field. He graduated from Southwest Christian High School in 1996 and SDSU in 2000.

After college, he worked for Sas farms for a couple of years, working with their dairy herd at that time. He left there to work for Hulstein Concrete and Construction for 11 years. That work involved pouring a lot of concrete in the warm months and building sheds in the winter season.

He left Hulstein and went to Cleveringa. He made the move out of the construction field into custodial work because he setting rafters is difficult work and the older he got the more he wanted to make a change. He was also tired of having to drive at least a half hour to work each day.  Incidentally, his Dad was a custodian for 10 years at Edgerton Christian Elementary School.

Karlin and his wife, Monica (Rollag) live north of Edgerton and have three children. Their twins, Kaitlyn and Dylan will be 15 in July and their daughter Addie is 10. They are all students at EPS.

Monica is the director of nursing at the Murray County Medical Center and the family are members of the Woodstock Community Church.