Bob Marzolf was an evangelist for agricultural education.

Everything a person needs to survive – food, clothing, medicine, shelter – is connected to agriculture, Marzolf told students at Forest Lake Area High School.

Bob Marzolf, a longtime agriculture education teacher at Forest Lake Area High School, died Dec. 2, 2023, at his house in Le Sueur, Minn. He was 75. (Courtesy of Jim Marzolf)

“He felt strongly about that,” said Mike Miron, a former student who is now the career and tech education/work-based learning coordinator at Forest Lake Area High School. “Agriculture is a core building block of our society – of feeding and clothing and providing for the world. Whether or not it was going to be their career, students needed to be aware of these things.”

Marzolf, who taught agriculture education at Forest Lake for 27 years, died in his sleep on Dec. 2 at his house in Le Sueur. He was 75.

Marzolf, who also served as the school’s FFA adviser, loved his job so much that he encouraged others to follow in his footsteps. Marzolf is credited with launching the careers of many agriculture educators in Minnesota, Miron said.

“He certainly left his mark in this world,” he said. “He was constantly recruiting us because he felt so strongly about what he did. In a world where people often talk negatively about what they do, he was always talking positively about it.”

Marzolf stopped Miron at school one day and told him he knew what his career path would be. “He said, ‘You’re an agriculture teacher; you just don’t know it yet,’” he said. “He would plant seeds, and he would give them time to let them grow. Here in our agriculture program, if you include myself, there are five of us in the department. Four of us are former students of Bob’s.”

‘Beloved by students and colleagues’

Marzolf, who was president of the Minnesota Association of Agricultural Educators from 200 to 2005, started teaching in Forest Lake in 1984 and retired in 2011. In 2010, he received the Minnesota Outstanding Teacher Award from the National Association of Agricultural Educators. Three years earlier, he was named FFA Adviser of the Year by the Minnesota Farm Bureau Foundation.

Marzolf was the “quintessential teacher and leader who was beloved by students and colleagues alike,” said Superintendent Steve Massey, who was principal of Forest Lake Area High School for 14 years prior to becoming superintendent.

“He was a visionary,” Massey said. “He made connections. He was a leader and a great educator. He was a natural. He walked it. He was a farmer, but he was an educator. He knew kids. He was firm and clear about expectations, but he loved kids, and kids loved him. Kids who had zero background in traditional farming, or agriculture more broadly … just wanted to be a part of it.”

Marzolf believed in “measuring people by their character, not their accomplishments,” said Jim Marzolf, his son. “He had a heart of gold. He was forever advocating for his students, especially the kids who don’t go to college. He was always trying to give those kids a chance to be successful in life.”

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Marzolf would show up at school at 5 a.m., and he wouldn’t leave until 5 p.m., Jim Marzolf said. “He poured his life into his teaching – that was a hobby,” he said. “He was not the type of teacher who shows up, teaches and leaves. That was not him. He was enormously passionate about it. It was a calling.”

Marzolf “wholeheartedly believed in every one of his students,” one of his former students posted on Facebook. “He’s one of the few teachers that students hoped would be proud of them later in life once they’d settled after college and into a career. I took every course I could with him and looked forward to seeing him every day.”

Marzolf believed students were “going to learn more by doing and getting involved,” Miron said. “He enjoyed what he did, and he made it fun – and he made it fun for kids.”

Always innovative

Marzolf spent his free time reading about and researching advances in agriculture; touring farms and other agricultural enterprises and developing new courses at the high school, Miron said.

Among the classes now taught at Forest Lake: agricultural economics, biotechnology in agriscience, animal science, youth leadership, alternative energy-engineering for our future, natural resource science, fish and wildlife management, plant science, landscape design and construction, greenhouse technology, and floral design.

“He was always looking to be innovative. What’s the new technology?” Miron said. “He formed a partnership with Mayo Clinic and that opened the door to a class on biotechnology. He had a lot of knowledge, but he never quit learning.”

Marzolf had a simple formula for success in the classroom: choose your battles. The fewer rules you have, the better, Marzolf told the Pioneer Press in a 2005 interview. “Just make sure you always enforce the few you have,” he added.

Dairy farm to hobby farm

Marzolf spent his early childhood on a dairy farm in Preston, Minn., but his family later moved to White Bear Lake and Belvidere, Ill. They moved to Glencoe, Minn., in 1962, and Marzolf graduated from Glencoe High School in 1966.

He started his higher education at Waldorf College in Forest City, Iowa, in 1966 and received a certificate of completion in 1968. While at Waldorf, he met Deborah Varner. The couple married in 1969 and had two children; they divorced in 1993. He later married Pam Hughes; the couple divorced in 2008, but remained close friends, Jim Marzolf said.

Marzolf served in the Navy from 1972 to 1976 and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in agriculture and horticulture education from the University of Minnesota in 1978. He got a master’s in education from the University of Illinois in 1981.

His first agriculture teaching job was in Woodstock, Ill., from 1978 to 1984. In 1984, he took the job in Forest Lake.

The Marzolfs lived on a six-acre hobby farm in Scandia where they raised a small herd of registered Simmental beef cattle and had a Morgan horse named Joy.

In 2017, Marzolf sold the farm in Scandia and moved to Le Sueur to be closer to his daughter, Sarah Christensen, who lives in Chanhassen, and son, Jim.

Marzolf continued to work as a mentor with the Minnesota Teacher Induction Program for Agricultural Educators and as the assistant superintendent in FFA overseeing landscape design and construction at the Minnesota State Fair even after he moved.

“He was signed up to work at the Fair again next year,” Jim Marzolf said. “That’s what gave him purpose after he retired. It was something to do to give back. He loved the Fair.”

Marzolf worked at the Minnesota State Fair for seven years. In addition to his work as an assistant superintendent, he served as the liaison between the Fair’s competition department and the numerous departments that make up the Agriculture Horticulture Building, said Marie LeFebvre, competition manager at the Minnesota State Fair.

“Bob will be missed by all of us at the Minnesota State Fair,” LeFebvre said. “We were so lucky to have worked with him for the past seven years. We can honestly say that we have never worked with someone who was as enthusiastic about agriculture, education and the State Fair as Bob was. He will always be a part of our Fair family.”

Jim Marzolf said he and his family have been touched by the hundreds of tributes he has received from former students.

“One wrote, ‘He always told me to keep my chin high, but not too high.’ That needs to be everybody’s motto in life.”

Marzolf is survived by his two children and five grandchildren.

A funeral service will be held at 10 a.m. Dec. 18 at First Lutheran Church in Le Sueur. Visitation will be 3-6 p.m. Dec. 16 at the Kolden Funeral Service in Le Sueur.

Kolden Funeral Service is in charge of arrangements.

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