Senior & Nutrition Director retires after 55 years
Director of Senior and Nutrition Services Marilyn Ocepek going over financials in her corner office at AEOA offices in Virginia on July 10, 2026 (left) and seated at her desk circa 1980s (right). Ocepek will retire after 55 years with the agency on July 31, 2026.
By Crystal Dey AEOA Planning Department
Her children thought she was a celebrity. While she may not be famous, her work is well-known across Minnesota’s Arrowhead region.
Friday, July 31, Marilyn Ocepek will walk out the front doors of the Arrowhead Economic Opportunity Agency building downtown Virginia for the last time – as an employee. The current Director of Senior and Nutrition Services is retiring after 55 years working for the agency.
But, that embarkment into retirement has fierce competition for the most remarkable steps so far in her life. Marilyn was born with hip dysplasia. She spent four years of her early childhood in a cast that covered much of her body.
She learned it was a genetic condition; her great aunt in Yugoslavia was also born without hip sockets. She never walked. That wasn’t even a consideration for Marilyn.
“Don’t tell me I can’t,” Marilyn said, as she told her story.
Marilyn was a “St. Louis River kid,” growing up on a 100-acre family farm off Bodas Road with her five siblings.
“It was a great place to grow up,” she said, reminiscing about running through fields, after she no longer needed a body cast, and summers splashing in a shallow river. And when she was in a cast, or couldn’t keep up, her brothers and sister put her in a wagon or wheelbarrow and brought her along.
“They never left me behind,” Marilyn said.
That sense of inclusion carries through Marilyn’s work in community action – providing opportunities and assisting others. She and her siblings helped at their neighbor’s chicken farm tending to thousands of chickens. After a fire consumed the chicken farm, the kids dug, washed and bagged potatoes.
Yet, while she was just one of the kids, Marilyn had adventures that were hers alone.
“It’s your background, how do you get here and why do you have the personality you have,” Marilyn said. “My childhood was pretty important to my background.”
Marilyn spoke of frequent trips to see doctors in Duluth. Her uncle, John, would accompany her and her mother on the trip from rural Gilbert. Marilyn, thankful for the Rambler Station Wagon her parents were able to afford – one with reclining seats, a necessity with the cast. She was in awe of how her uncle, with one arm, could carry her to appointments.
“I keep thinking, how did he do it?” she said.
He lost his other arm in a logging accident. Marilyn learned early that people help when they can, even when it’s challenging.
From the nurses who guided her atrophied body into hot tubs, to the teacher who traveled to her family farm to homeschool her during second grade, and her neighbor who designed a special highchair with a bicycle seat to help lift some of the pressure off her small body, Marilyn had been surrounded by people in her community who helped one another.
CAREER IN COMMUNITY ACTION
It was numerous phone calls Marilyn’s uncle Lawrence made to Bill Sandstrom the summer she graduated from Gilbert High School that would set the scene for the years ahead in her life – the five plus decades building the history, becoming her story in the making.
Sandstrom worked at AEOA, he recommended Marilyn for the agency’s youth worker program. She qualified based on income.
The summer of 1971, Marilyn stepped into the old John A. Johnson School, AEOA’s Administration building, a youth worker. Two years later, she became an official employee, a secretary in the nutrition department. She was soon promoted to program coordinator and now, Marilyn has been Director of Senior and Nutrition Services for more than 40 years. Always doing financials in room 101.
“I have always been in this office,” Marilyn said. “I’ve been coming to this building for 55 years.”
Marilyn Ocepek, Director of Senior and Nutrition Services at AEOA, has been with the agency for 55 years. Here she is seated at her desk during the early years.
Starting at a desk greeting visitors at the entrance. Marilyn witnessed, she lived, the transition to the digital age. She saw computers replace typewriters and once essential secretary and office manager positions become extinct.
“It was a close-knit group of people because all the offices were here. We did have outreach workers that went into the field and talked about our different services, worked one-on-one with folks. Due to funding, those positions went by the wayside,” Marilyn explained. She saw many organizational changes during her years at AEOA. She adapted and kept promoting services to help seniors and food security.
FAMILY FIRST
In 1973, Marilyn worked part-time at AEOA while attending college at UMD. She earned her bachelor’s degree in business administration. She also studied for a certificate in geriatrics at St. Scholastica. In 1987, she took time away from the certificate program following her father’s death to be with family.
In 1990, Marilyn was the national nutrition association program chair heading up the first Minnesota conference. She said planning that event, before common use of computers, was a huge undertaking. That year, AEOA almost lost Marilyn to another community action agency in St. Paul, but she declined the position. She was expecting her first child and wanted to stay close to family on the Iron Range.
A few months after her son, Gian, was born, Marilyn needed her first hip replacement. Two years later her daughter Anna joined the family; followed by another hip operation. Marilyn was reliant on crutches to walk for three months after operations while bone grew into prosthesis.
“I had close friends who had come and stayed with me to help out. My niece lived with me for several months,” Marilyn said.
Eight and 10 years later she required additional hip replacements.
Marilyn Ocepek and daughter Anna at an AEOA summer event in 2002.
Community support and family dedication are values Marilyn’s children learned early in life. Gian recalled when he was young his class was to write a paper about their “hero” in school. He wrote about his mom.
“She’s one of the hardest working people I know and the most selfless,” Gian said. “She would do anything for my sister and I as well as her family.”
Gian and Anna grew up part of the AEOA family. The two visited Marilyn at her office often and helped their mom deliver Meals on Wheels and volunteer with various programs.
“She always knew someone no matter where we went so we always thought she was famous. She also had the only office in her department with a door, so we knew she had to be important,” Anna said.
Anna was so inspired by her mother, she also studied geriatric studies and earned her P.A. in the specialty field.
“My mom is fearless. When she sets her mind on something she will find a way to get it done,” Anna shared. “She is a jack of all trades, not afraid to get her hands dirty. She has a strong work ethic and very disciplined.”
Marilyn was recognized for her years of hard work and dedication in community action with the Steve Chadwick Advocacy Award in 2024. The award, named in honor and memory of the former executive director of Duluth Community Action, honors those who have had a meaningful impact in their communities.
Nominees of the award must demonstrate a persistent commitment to reducing poverty, effective advocacy in addressing the root causes of poverty, be a leader in the local or larger community and connection to a Community Action Agency as a member of the Board, staff or program participant.
AEOA Director of Planning, Emily Simonson, nominated Marilyn for the Chadwick award. Simonson has worked alongside Marilyn at the agency for five years and has known her since she was a child.
Simonson arranged for Gian, Anna and her siblings to attend the award ceremony in secret. Unaware her family was part of the surprise, Marilyn bumped into her brother Rod at the event and he had to improv a reason as to why he was at the venue.
It seems everyone who knows Marilyn, knows family is of pinnacle importance and it was pertinent for them to share in her celebration. Afterall, her siblings never left her behind.
Marilyn Ocepek, Arrowhead Economic Opportunity Agency (AEOA) Director of Senior and Nutrition Services, (center) was presented with the Steve Chadwick Advocacy Award at the Minnesota Community Action Partnership (MinnCAP) conference in Duluth on July 31, 2024. Pictured here (left to right) with event emcee Lori Schwartz, Executive Director of Lakes & Prairies Community Action Partnership, Lori Schultz, Executive Director of MinnCAP, Emily Simonson, AEOA Director of Planning and Scott Zahorik AEOA Executive Director.
NUDGING NUTRITION NEEDS
Throughout the decades, the scenery outside her corner office window overlooking the old school yard has changed. Mature birch trees once casting shade across the lawn have been removed. Cars now considered “classic” once cruised Third Avenue South commonplace.
The view may be different, but Marilyn’s vision for the future of her programs remains.
The AEOA nutrition department officially began in 1973, with Meals on Wheels joining later in 1979 as part of the Older Americans Act. Marilyn has been involved from the department’s inception.
She said nutrition was difficult to get going in the ‘70s because a lot of people were new to the concept. Agency kitchens started out with three pilot sites in Virginia, Eveleth and Duluth. At the program’s height, there were 22 kitchen sites.
“It’s kind of sad, they were all over, on-site kitchens,” Marilyn said. “Now we’re hoping we can keep five.”
Connecting community through food has been at the core of AEOA’s mission since the agency began more than 65 years ago. Meals were hosted at community buildings, places locals would get together. Marilyn has seen first-hand the importance of community meals and the impact her program has on people. In recent times, she has become disappointed in the funding guidelines put in place by the Minnesota Board on Aging.
“In community action,” Marilyn said, “you have to ride it out. We’ve been lucky since ’73 that it’s kept going.”
Marilyn said new stricter policies could impact her programs. Adding that the same policies that work in urban areas won’t work in rural towns with populations of 5,000.
“Senior dining is important for a lot of folks. If they get out a couple times to have lunch with friends and socialize, that’s important,” Marilyn said.
A few people who put a lot of work into curating the nutrition program deserve honorable mention, in Marilyn’s eyes. She spoke often of Kathie Irish, former Food Service Manager, who she worked with for 45 years. She said Kathie was largely responsible for opening new dining sites and managing the service. Recently retired, Nutrition Manager Betty Udovich, worked with Marilyn for 35 years tracking thousands of senior dining and home meal delivery clients’ service numbers – the bean counting. And she would like to thank the dietitians, Marie Moberg, Jane George and Lynn Hilde who employed nutrition analysis in development and creation of menus.
AEOA Food Service Manager Kathie Irish (left) with Director of Senior and Nutrition Services Marilyn Ocepek (center) and the International Falls kitchen staff. Irish and Ocepek worked together for 45 years before Irish retired. Ocepek dedicated another decade to community action and the agency before announcing retirement in 2026.
Marilyn’s commitment to her department is unquestionable, but it is the people she works alongside that have kept her at AEOA so long.
“Excellent people who work in the office here,” she praised.
While her staff are keeping their programs afloat, Marilyn has concerns about funding. Her love-hate relationship with financials will continue until her last day, and maybe beyond.
When asked how she will feel walking out those front doors on her last day, Marilyn replied, “I think I’ll come back a couple days just to make sure that budget gets done.”
One thing Marilyn hopes to see accomplished is electronic tracking of client service numbers for the senior dining program. Marilyn explained the agency started looking into a process and it was halted, however, she has faith a new pilot program planned to launch with Grandma’s restaurant in Virginia will be successful.
“Now 10 years have passed and we’re still doing bean counting,” she said.
MAKING MEMORIES
Marilyn has a lot of memories with AEOA. She said the agency was making its biggest impact on our community when it first started, when outreach workers were going out into the field connecting people to services. She said seeing everyone come together during COVID was like the old days, getting back to their mission.
“I think one of the best times I’ve had here, was probably during COVID,” Marilyn said. “A lot of people worked remotely, that wasn’t my cup of tea. The small group that stayed in the offices developed a camaraderie, like siblings.”
Throughout her interview, Marilyn spoke highly of many colleagues, siblings and family; always coming back to family, our first communities.
Perhaps part of Marilyn’s passion for community action is rooted in the family visits she remembers from her youth. She said friends and family would come visit the farm every weekend. She and her sister baked cookies and bars. People would chat over coffee.
“It’s just, visiting was different in those days. We don’t have visiting per se like that. I miss that. I miss the closeness we had with people,” Marilyn said.
Now, Grandma Marilyn might have more time for those visits. Afterall, her motivation for retirement this year is her three grandchildren.
It is an understatement to say we appreciate you, Marilyn. Thank you for your wisdom, your wit and your dedication.