Monticello High School Activities Director Gary Revenig has been at it for a long time. Revenig graduated from St. Cloud State University in 1990 with a degree in elementary education with a minor in coaching.
Gary met his wife, Melissa, at SCSU and they have three children, Michael (28), Alex (26) and Tyler (23).
In 1993, Revenig was hired as a third-grade teacher in Monticello. After teaching this grade for three years, Revenig taught sixth grade for 10 more years. In 2006, He was hired as the assistant principal and activities director at Princeton Middle School. He returned to Monticello in 2008 as the AD and assistant principal at the middle school. In 2010, he made the jump to AD for the high school, where he’d held that position ever since.
It’s an incredible run for Revenig. Not many people stay on the job as long as Revenig. On average, most activity directors only spend three years at one school. Gary is currently in his 14th with Monticello High School.
At the Minnesota Interscholastic Activities Administrators Association Awards and Recognition Banquet, Revenig was voted the winner of the MNIAAA Distinguished Service Award for his time spent with Monticello.
“It’s pretty cool to be honored by my peers,” Revenig told the Monticello Times. “It’s also kind of bittersweet because it means your career is kind of coming to an end. They have a national level now and one of the first questions they asked me was when did you retire? I haven’t retired yet.”
As the activities director for Monticello High School, Revenig takes a lot of pride in providing the best experience possible for his student-athletes. There is a lot of work that goes into making sure every activity runs smoothly.
Of course, there are a lot of challenges behind closed doors that Revenig has to work through to keep events running smoothly. Every Sunday for the past 14 years, Gary goes into the school to ensure every event for the week is taken care of.
“I write out everything for the week to make sure we have enough workers, that we have officials, that the bus times are all scheduled and everything is set to go for the week,” mentioned Gary.
Even though Revenig has been fundamental for MHS, he has had some great help, “I was fortunate to start with Sherry Holmgren as my administrative assistant. She was outstanding. And then Janice Holthaus, who just retired. I absolutely loved working with her. She and I made quite the team. And now, Morgan Lanners has started and Morgan is going to be outstanding too,” said Revenig.
Over the years, Revenig has held 14 golf tournaments that raised over $300,000 for MHS athletics. He also purchased new scoreboards and a video board for the MHS stadium by selling advertising to cover costs.
Revenig isn’t known just around Monticello. In June, he will complete a four-year term on the Minnesota State High School League Officials Advisory Committee. During that time, Revenig has spent two years as the chair of the Eligibility Committee and four years as the chair of Region 8AA. He has also served as the president of the Mississippi 8 Conference.
Gary shows off Monticello’s facilities by hosting various conference, section and state tournament events. Monticello has been the site for the state soccer and football tournament games.
If that wasn’t enough, Gary also has spent 35 years as an MSHSL official and the past 11 seasons volunteering as the head coach for the Monticello Polecats, the local amateur baseball team.
He enjoys going to other schools, interacting with his peers and seeing how they run things. He believes that it’s important to give back and help out wherever he can.
It’s been a long and fruitful career for Revenig, who is going to continue what he does best until he calls it quits, “I don’t know how many years I have left but I’m going to enjoy my remaining years. I’ve been fortunate to work with great people. I love the Monticello community and our school district. I’m just honored to be in the position that I’m in so that I can hopefully have a positive impact on our students and community,” Revenig said.
After winning the award at the state level, Revenig became Minnesota’s representative at the national level. After spending the last 33 years in education, Revenig hopes that all Monticello students look back on their time spent here and feel like they were a part of something special.
Most Popular
Comments / 0