BIOGRAPHIES:  Regina J. KOHTEN, Clinton Township, Barron County, WI

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This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by:  
Vic Gulickson <vic@indy.net>  18 June 2001	
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Regina J. Kohten, superintendent of the Barron County schools, and eldest
child of Jacob J. M. and Irene (Storch) Kohten, was born at Freeport,
Banner County, Nebr., May 9, 1888, in the sod house in which her parents
made their home immediately after their marriage. At the age of seven she
began attending school, having to walk a distance of three miles. When nine
she accompanied her parents and the other members of the family to Barron
County, Wis., riding for 40 days in a covered wagon. In Clinton Township
her education was continued up to the age of 14 years in the district
school, and after that in the Barron city schools. Having graduated from
the high school in 1907, she subsequently taught three years in the rural
schools of the county. In September, 1910, she sailed for Europe to visit
Belgium and Germany, and prolonged her visit until May, 1911, when she
returned home and resumed teaching. For several years she spent her summer
vacation periods at the normal school at Superior, Wis., except the summer
of 1913, during which she attended the University of Gainesville, Fla.,
returning to Barron in the fall of that year. In the fall of 1914 she
became a regular student in the normal school at Superior, Wis., where she
remained a full year, at the end of which time, in the fall of 1915, she
was appointed supervising teacher of the Barron County schools. After
further study in the Superior Normal School, during the summer of 1916, she
was there graduated in the teachers' training course, and continued as
supervising teacher of the Barron County schools until the summer of 1918,
which she spent as a student in the Teachers' College of Columbia
University, New York City. Her long continued and strenuous work along
pedagogic lines was now beginning to bear fruit, and in the fall of 1918
she became assistant in the Barron County Teachers' Training School at Rice
Lake. In April, 1919, she was elected to the office of superintendent of
the Barron County schools, but continued her duties at Rice Lake until June
of that year, assuming those of county, superintendent thereafter. In this
latter position, which she retains and which places over 200 teachers under
her control, she has shown ample capacity, and the schools of the county
are flourishing under her direction. As herein shown, her success has been
self-achieved by hard and continuous work accompanied by self-denial, and
is therefore the more meritorious. Her ambitions have been directed toward
a high sphere of usefulness, which, having now entered, she is not one to
let her talents fall into desuetude, but rather to exercise them for still
more effective work in the future. Miss Kohten is a member of the Catholic
Church, and is widely known and esteemed throughout Barron County for her
energy, ability and personal character.

--Taken from: History of Barron Co., Wisconsin, H. C. Cooper, Jr., & Co.,
1922, pg. 561.