Riis, Richard E.

Richard Erling Riis was born on August 4, 1914 in Lemmon, South Dakota, the second of four children born to Erling and Judith Riis. Riis' father, known as Harry, emigrated to the United States from Norway and worked as an auditor for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company and for a bank in Lemmon. Harry Riis died in 1926 when Richard was 11 years old. Richard's mother, Judith Berggren, emigrated with her mother and sister to the United States from Sweden in 1903 and married Harry Riis in Miles City, Montana on May 3, 1911. She worked as a librarian in Lemmon following the death of her husband and died in Pierre, South Dakota on July 29, 1973.

Richard grew up on a small farm in Lemmon and helped support the family by working on the farm and sweeping floors at the local schoolhouse. A year after he graduated from high school Riis moved to Minneapolis to attend the University of Minnesota. He graduated from the University in June of 1939 and began work as an apprentice at the Arlington Machine Company in St. Paul. The following autumn he married Florence Carlson whom he had met during a YMCA mixer in Minneapolis. They made their home on Sherwood Avenue in St. Paul and eventually had three children: John, born 1943; Carl, born 1946; and Ingrid, born 1948. Florence Riis died on November 17, 1989.

In 1942 Riis was drafted into the army and spent three years in the Pacific as a depot supply officer with the 410th Quartermaster Company. After his military service Riis went back to the Arlington Machine Company in St. Paul and completed his apprenticeship, then worked as a machinist at the Twin City Arsenal for two years before taking a position as a journeyman at Auto Engine Works in St. Paul. He began teaching evening machine shop classes at the St. Paul Vocational School in 1951. For eight years he continued working as a machinist by day and an instructor by evening before taking a position as a machine shop instructor at the St. Cloud Area Vocational Technical School in 1959.

Always interested in outdoor sports and the natural environment, Riis began teaching classes on conservation through the adult evening program of the St. Cloud vocational school in 1965. He was a member of the St. Cloud Community Wildlife Club and began serving as their local education chairman in 1967. For two years, 1968-1970, Riis chaired the Education Committee of the Minnesota Conservation Federation. During this time he produced a series of 26 programs that were distributed to radio stations throughout the state with the Federation's support. From 1970-1973 Riis also served on an environmental education task force for the Minnesota Education Association and served as the environmental education coordinator for the St. Cloud school district.

At the same time that he was involved in promoting environmental education, Riis also started writing feature stories for the outdoors section of the Thursday edition of the St. Cloud Daily Times that was edited by Ed Gerchy. Riis had already submitted articles to the monthly newsletter of the Minnesota Conservation Federation but under Gerchy's direction Riis worked up a regular column for the Thursday section called "Environmental Topics." On March 14 of 1974 Gerchy published the first issue of a weekly newspaper solely dedicated to outdoor recreation and Riis was on staff as a regular columnist and feature writer. Later that same year Riis suffered a heart attack that led to his decision to retire from teaching in 1976 and to expand his career as an outdoor writer. Over the next several years Riis contributed articles to a variety of publications and wrote a number of various columns and features for Gerchy's Outdoor Outlines, the Superior Evening Telegram, and the Burnett County Sentinel . Riis retired from writing at the end of 1983 at the age of 70.

From the guide to the Richard E. Riis papers., 1903-2002 (bulk 1961-1983)., (Minnesota Historical Society)