Hometown Hillsdale: Connie Erholtz Continues to Contribute to Her Community
Written by Doug Goodnough
She is known to many in the Hillsdale community as “Miss Connie.” Although she retired years ago after a 30-year teaching career at Hillsdale Community Schools, Connie Copp Erholtz, ’63, is still making a big impact on her local community.
The 82-year-old continues to lead the Hillsdale Junior Garden Club, a group she started in 1998. The club has more than 30 fourth-graders involved in the after-school program. And she remains active in her local garden club, going to Stock’s Park each Thursday to care meticulously for the gardens of one of Hillsdale’s iconic locations.
However, the Hillsdale native said the classroom was always her calling.
“I’ve always wanted to be a teacher,” Erholtz said. “I put myself through college so I could be one.”
After graduating from Hillsdale, she and her husband moved away from the area for a couple of years. She taught one year in Alaska, then another year in Detroit before returning to Hillsdale to teach and be closer to family.
She spent three decades in the classroom teaching students from kindergarten through the third grade. “I love being with kids,” she said. Erholtz also worked in the gifted and talented program as well as the remedial reading program.
Hillsdale College has always been a central part of her life. It’s more like a part of the family. Her grandmother, who lived nearby on Park Street, worked as a morning cook for the College at the former East Hall.
“When I would go visit her in the summer for a week, I would sit on the steps while she worked. And she would bring me out some sticky buns,” Erholtz said.
Her father was the maintenance manager at the newly constructed Dow Center, while her mother bought and eventually ran the College’s laundry service.
Erholtz continued to work when she attended Hillsdale College. At first, she had some trouble adjusting to her busy schedule.
“My first year wasn’t my best because I was working and taking 18 credit hours,” she said. “It was really a struggle.”
However, she eventually adjusted, and was able to join the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority on campus. She also met and married her future husband, Arvid, who passed away in 2012. Their two children, Shelley Reynolds, ’88, and Doug, are grown and live out-of-state.
Erholtz said living in Hillsdale and experiencing everything the College offers is a blessing.
“I take advantage of all the fine arts here,” said Erholtz, who is also a longtime Woman Commissioner. “I just can’t believe how good they are. They are just as good as Ann Arbor or anywhere.”
Erholtz calls her local church her “second family,” and said people who live nearby should come back to the College when they can.
“I’ve grown up with it, but some of these people don’t know what we have here,” said Erholtz, who recently came back to campus to celebrate her 60-year reunion. “We have a little gem. If they live close, they should come to all of the things the College provides.”
Doug Goodnough, ’90, is Hillsdale’s director of Alumni Marketing. He enjoys connecting with fellow alumni in new and wonderful ways.
Published in May 2023