Posted: 2/12/03

Chet Rieck, 87, served on Wyoming City Council, started Sunrise Fiberglass Corp.

Cliff Buchan
News Editor

As a family man looking for the right place to make a living and raise kids, Chet Rieck found what he was looking for in Wyoming. That was more than 40 years ago and the result was the start of a city manufacturing business and a long civic career for Rieck.

Rieck, the founder of Sunrise Fiberglass Corporation and a former city councilman, died on Friday, Feb. 7, 2003 at Birchwood Health Care Center in Forest Lake. Rieck, who had fought kidney problems for the past three years, was 87.

ìHe was a good neighbor kind of a guy,î said a son, Barney, who remains a partner in the fiberglass business his father built in Wyoming. ìYou could always go to him for help. He took care of family first and neighbors, too.î

During his 42 years in Wyoming, Chet Rieck served on the Wyoming City Council from 1967 through 1974 and was a volunteer on the fire department. He was an elected official when the city took the initiative to build a municipal water system.

He established Sunrise Fiberglass Corp. in 1968 after buying out a partner in what had been Central Plastics. The forerunner to Sunrise Fiberglass was moved to Wyoming after fire in 1965 destroyed the plant in North St. Paul.

Nebraska native

Chester R. Rieck was born on Sept. 29, 1915 and grew up on a farm-ranch on the Platte River near Lewellen, NE, a town of 310 people in the panhandle of Nebraska.

He went to school in Lewellen and kept busy with farm work as a young man.

In the late 1930s, his son said his father worked as a trucker hauling cattle.

In 1939 he worked in Alaska on the trans-Alaskan railroad, his son said. By the early 1940s he was back in his home state working on the family farm.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, Rieck, like many young men of the time, volunteered for military service.

He entered the Marines in February of 1942 and was assigned to the 2nd Marine Division in the Pacific Theater.

He was a platoon sergeant with an amphibious tractor battalion and controlled an ìalligatorî landing boat that moved Marines from ships to shore.

He took part in several amphibious landings, including the U.S. invasions of Tarawa, Saipan, his son said.

Rieck received the Bronze Star for service on Tarawa where Marines suffered heavy losses in November of 1943. His son said his father made many trips from ship to shore while under heavy fire from Japanese forces on Tarawa during the battle.

Rieckís Marine Corps service ended in October of 1945 and he returned to hometown. On Nov. 28, 1945, he married Vera Lee of Lewellen.

The couple had dated briefly prior to the war but wrote to each other during the war years when Chet was in the South Pacific and Vera, an Army nurse, was in Europe.

After the war

In the years following the war, the young couple lived in Lewellen and Chet worked on the family farm with Chetís parents, Emil and Jeanette Rieck.

After starting their family, they later moved to a small house on the farm and eventually to the main house on the family farm as the family grew larger.

With the passing of his parents in 1958, the farming operation ended and the couple moved to a rented farm near Brule, NE, some 40 miles from Lewellen.

By 1960, the Riecks had decided on a family move to Minnesota.

ìThey really liked this area,î Barney Rieck said looking back on the period when his parents spent time checking out potential new homes.

Friends from Nebraska who had moved to the St. Paul area offered Rieck a job at the fiberglass plant and the family moved.

ìThey sold everything they had except the old stock truck,î Barney said.

A year after settling in the North St. Paul area, Chet found his current home place in Wyoming and bought the property and a poultry ranch operation.

For the next four years he continued his work with the fiberglass plant and ran the poultry business that had 4000 laying hens. Two days a week he would deliver eggs to accounts in the metro area.

When fire knocked out the plant in North St. Paul, the decision was made to locate the plant in Wyoming. The poultry business was ended and Central operated on the Rieck property. He bought out his partner in 1968 and eventually moved the plant to the Wyoming Industrial Park.

Now in its third home, the business continues today under the direction of brothers Barney and Danny Rieck.

An influence

Barney Rieck said his father was a definite influence on both sons. Barney and Danny both served in the Marines and continued on in the fiberglass business.

The brothers are both long-time firefighters in Wyoming, following their dadís lead.

Barney Rieck remembers his father as a quiet man who relied more on deeds than words.

ìI think it was what he did, not what he said,î Barney said.

Funeral details

A funeral service for Chester R. Rieck was Monday, Feb. 10 at St. Paul Lutheran Church, Wyoming. Interment will be later in the family plot at the Ash Hollow Cemetery, Lewellen.

He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Vera; four children, Byron ìBarneyî (Karen), Wyoming, Danny (Colleen), Wyoming, Suzanne (Gary) Newsome, Bumpass, VA, and Nikki (Benny Ray) Bailey, Hindman, KY; nine grandchildren and one great-grandchild; sisters Edna Brassfield and Arlene Huwaldt; and nieces, nephews and many friends.

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