By Jill Fennema –

This Wednesday, June 30, Jerry Evink will retire from De Boer Chevrolet after 49 years of working in the car business.

Jerry graduated  from Edgerton High School in 1972 and then went on to the Pipestone Vocational School (now Minnesota West Community and Technical College) and studied auto mechanics for two years.  He graduated from that program in 1974 and later that same year, he started working at De Boer Chevrolet in Edgerton.

The owners at that time were Bob and Clyde De Boer. Their father, John, was still a part of the business but his two sons were running the show.

Cars have always been a pretty big part of Jerry’s life. He knew in high school that he wanted to be a mechanic somewhere. He worked in the service department at De Boers for 30 years. He started out changing oil, and then moved up to the service manager position. That meant less time fixing cars and more time taking phone calls and handling warranty paperwork.

“That has all changed through the years. GM makes it a bit more difficult these days,” Jerry said.

He continued to do repair work when the management work was done.

In 2004, he and Stewart Kreun (Bob and Clyde’s nephew) bought the dealership from the De Boers. Jerry was a co-owner of the dealership for about 15 years. In 2016, he sold his portion to Stewart and has continued to work for the dealership as an independent contractor for the past 5 years.