Jennissen passed away suddenly
The Todd County Sheriff’s Office received a report of a death at the Bertha-Hewitt School at 7:21 a.m. on Friday, March 17, outside of the school “highway/road/alley/street/sidewalk”.
Bertha-Hewitt students had a two-hour late start that day due to the weather.
Bertha-Hewitt School Superintendent Eric Koep shared in an instant alert that Head Cook Mark Jennissen passed away of health complications that morning.
“Like all our staff, Mark was a valuable part of our school family and he did an incredible job at leading our food service department over the past seven years and our staff and students will miss his big smile. Please keep Mark’s family and our school district family in your thoughts and prayers,” said Koep in the message.
“I will miss my daily conversations with Mark regarding Minnesota sports teams, wrestling, and just life in general. We are truly a family here at Bertha-Hewitt and Mark was an integral part of our school family. He was a fantastic human being and we are all going to miss his big smile in the kitchen.
“We are going to honor Mark in a couple of ways this week: first our amazing floral design class, Bears Blossoms, is going to make all the floral arrangements for the funeral—Mark would be so proud that our own students are doing that. We are also going to have an MN Sports theme dress-up day on Friday—Mark loved MN sports so we will honor him by filling the halls with MN gear! I want to take a minute to thank the neighboring school districts; several schools reached out to assist in any way possible—super appreciated!” shared Koep.