Riekena will not seek re-election in 2018

Grundy County’s most candid and idiosyncratic supervisor has officially announced that he will not seek re-election in 2018, and in typical fashion, 78-year-old Harlyn Riekena offered anything but a sentimental explanation for the decision.
           
“I’m just getting too old,” he said. “I’m not going south. My grandkids are all grown, and my wife would just as soon I wasn’t around. I can’t use any of those (reasons) that people use.”
           
Riekena, a retired farmer from rural Wellsburg, first joined the board in 2001 and will leave it with 18 years of service under his belt. He’s made friends and enemies along the way, but he’s always attempted to abide by an overriding philosophy of less government and not more.
           
“I don’t think we should overregulate and tell people what to do unless it’s absolutely necessary,” he said.
 
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