Rodney Joseph Kupsc
Rodney Joseph Kupsc, age 87, passed away on Friday, July 22nd, 2022, at Rainy Lake Medical Center in International Falls, MN, due to complications after a short battle with cancer. He was born April 25th, 1935, in Cloquet, MN, the first child of Joseph and Anne Katherine (Piikarinen) Kupsc. He was later joined by his sister, Beverly (1941) and his brother, Terry (1944). Rodney–or “Rock”, as he was known in his youth for his penchant of throwing rocksgrew up in Cloquet, where he learned to fish in the meandering trout streams of Carlton County that flow into Lake Superior. He instilled in his own father a love of fishing that consequently cemented their relationship as lifelong fishing partners.
Rod was very active in sports in his childhood, and lettered in hockey and baseball in high school. He played in the American Legion baseball league during his summers. He was a starting pitcher known for his stamina, earning him the nickname “Iron Horse Kupsc” from a sportswriter in an article about his prowess in the Duluth News Tribune. He played third base during the games he did not pitch, and batted cleanup. He bought his first two cars from money he saved from his newspaper route (one a brand new Volkswagen Beetle), and graduated from Cloquet High School in 1953. He attended UMD for two years, and transferred to the University of Minnesota in 1955. He worked for Patterson’s Bait Company during the summers, setting and checking minnow traps and delivering bait shipments as far north as Lake Kabetogama. The minnows were transported in cream cans at that time, and mortality was a major ongoing issue on the longer runs. Rodney had read an article about tropical fish importers who were beginning to use oxygenated bags to address the issue, and he applied the innovation to great success. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in fisheries biology from the University of Minnesota in 1957. He worked for the state of Minnesota as a fisheries biologist around the varied water bodies of central and southern Minnesota, conducting many surveys and creel counts. In 1960 he accepted a teaching position in Sebeka, MN, where he taught biology and coached baseball.
He met the woman who would become the love of his life, Karen Lou Chatfield, while attending a movie at the Park Theater in Park Rapids. Ever the consummate fisherman, they were married on the shores of Bluewater Lake near Grand Rapids, Minnesota on June 12, 1961. He accepted a teaching position with School District 361 in International Falls to teach 8th grade math and biology in 1962 He began teaching 9th grade chemistry in the mid-1960s, a position he would retain in three different schools in International Falls for the remainder of his 32 year career locally. He began making frequent fishing trips into remote Canadian lakes with his father and fellow teachers, often portaging his canoe up to 11 times to reach the desired destination. After considerable complications with years of previous pregnancies, Rod and Karen welcomed into the world two “miracle babies”son Anthony Alan in December of 1966, and daughter Kimberly Renee in July of 1968. Rod worked in the wood room at Boise Cascade from 1968 to 1970, teaching during the day and laboring during the overnight shift at Boise. He commuted to Bemidji to pursue his master’s degree in teaching at Bemidji State University from during the early 1970s. He started the Summer Science program at Backus Junior High School, a non-remedial six-week chemistry class that allowed incoming 9th grade students to get ahead. It was well-attended over the years. He later said that he really liked teaching the summer class because the students were more serious and they tended to get better grades.
His customary fishing trips into Canada now frequently included the whole family. He studied the art of rod building, and painstakingly created beautiful custom fishing rods for all of his family members (Karen made the rod cases). He made a variety of different wines and brewed his own beer. He was always a great cook a fact that was sometimes lost in the minds of his children when they were young. He finally consented to get a dog at Kim and Tony’s insistence, an English Springer Spaniel, and it was a breed that evidently suited him very well. Rodney would have at least one and as many as three Springers continually for the remaining 46-plus years of his life, a total of eight altogether. He always took very good care of them, and he loved them as much as life itself. His dogged preference for Springers would eventually spread to more than a few members of his and his sister’s families.
Rod and Karen divorced in 1981. He had been a golfer and a downhill skier in his youth, and he resumed doing both of those activities frequently. He was always a “bomber” on the ski slopes, taking few turns and going as fast as he could on difficult runs even when he was well into his seventies. After attending an evening college art class taught by friend Jim West, he began painting watercolor landscapes. He also took up the sport of curling, and played in multiple leagues yearly until his late-seventies. Most of those teams included his good friends Dave Johnson and Dave’s son-in-law, Tom Mayer. They would play as teammates in many, many bonspiels around the region over a twenty-year span. They also became great fishing partners, frequenting the lakes of Ontario numerous times every year, and returning home with delicious fillets and fantastic tales and memories.
Though he sought to do outside activities every day of the year, autumn was Rod’s favorite season. He loved to get out into the woods with his Springers and hunt ruffed grouse. He walked hundreds of miles every fall with them, and had a seemingly instinctive knowledge in the forest. He especially enjoyed watching his dogs work as they did what skilled hunting dogs do best, and prized that over the success of the hunt itself. He also deer hunted for many years with his son and fellow teachers Herman Velsvaag and Ralph Awe and their children. Herman had been a longtime friend since the early 1960s, taking occasional family vacations together, and they had a variety of hunting shacks together over the decades.
He retired in 1995 after 34 years of teaching. He continued his sporting pursuits and began to landscape and plant what would become beautiful flower gardens around his property. He religiously went on daily excursions with his dogs no matter what the weather might be. He spent precious time with his grandchildren while vacationing near Leech Lake with Kimberly’s family. He went snowmobiling on a regular basis on the trails of Koochiching County. He also began going on yearly vacations to Arizona with Kim and Tony. Kim was always his favorite companion for shopping, and Tony was always his companion in golf. They went to Disney World in Florida in 2005, where Rod saw, waving to him from a parade float, the woman of his dreams the Little Mermaid. One can only speculate why he felt such an attraction to her; perhaps it was because she was half-fish and would have potentially made the ultimate fishing partner for him.
In his final years Rod returned to his rootsstream trout fishing. It had been many decades since he had last done it, and he had come full circle. And although they had fished together hundreds of times before, he once again taught to his son the finer points of the craft that meant so much to him. It was the finishing touch on what had become a multi-generational bond as a lifelong mentor and fishing partner, one that he had begun in his own father nearly a lifetime before. He was ever and always a teacher, and a very good one at that.
He stayed very active and independent, doing gardening and yard work, grouse hunting in the fall, and was unerringly consistent in his daily dog walks. He remained extraordinarily positive, optimistic, and proactive throughout the duration of his illness. He said to his children many times in his last years, “I’ve had a good life. But the best thing that ever happened to me was you kids.”
Though his final class has been dismissed, the teachings he gave to us will reach far beyond his own lifetime. Rodney was preceded in death by his grandmother, Theresa Kupsc, in 1961; his infant son, Paul Michael, in 1963; his infant daughter, Baby Sister, in 1965; his father, Joseph, in 1987; his mother, Anne, in 1997; and so many of his faithful Springer companions over the years. It is comforting to think of the warm reception that all of those dogs gave to him as he himself crossed the rainbow bridge.
He is survived by his beloved dogs, Kandi and Daisy; sister, Beverly Manty (Bruce) of Moose Lake, MN; brother, Terry Kupsc of Cloquet, MN; son, Tony Kupsc, of International Falls; daughter, Kimberly Ferarro (Frank), of Ham Lake, MN; grandson, Tristan Ziemann (Tiffany) of Las Vegas, NV; granddaughter, Brittni Ziemann (Tony Macho) and great-granddaughter, Jazmyn Alice Macho, of Ramsey, MN; former wife, Karen Chatfield, of Spring Lake Park, MN; niece, Ann Serbus, of Kimball, MN; niece Faith Manty (Dr Jon Sande), of Moose Lake, MN; nephew John Manty (Amanda), of Cataldo, Idaho; his longtime friends, Herman Velsvaag (Deloris), Dave Johnson (Jan), Tom Mayer (Wendy); Steve and Wendy Hanson; his good friends and neighbors Royetta Olson and Kim Larson, and Cindy Story and many other friends and acquaintances along his walking route.
A celebration of Rodney’s life will be held for family and friends, and will be announced as soon as arrangements have been confirmed.
Condolences may be left on www.greenlarsen.com Arrangements are with Green-Larsen Mortuary, Inc.
