It’s a fact: Charles “Charley” Luthe is retiring.

It’s about time.

No man who has worked as long and as hard as Luthe has been able to call it quits and retire.

He’s 71 years old and a full-time mechanic and metal fabricator in the Mower County Highway Department.

“I liked my job, plus the guys I work with. That’s why I stayed,” Luthe said.

“I kind of hate to leave, but I think it’s time,” he said.

His last day of employment with Mower County will be Thursday, July 31, although his friends and co-workers — Duane Distad, Joe Schechinger and Keith Johnson — say he has “talked about retirement” before, but always returned.

Today, Luthe will be honored by the Mower County Board of Commissioners on the occasion of his announced retirement.

Another county employee, Judy Nelson, who worked in the Mower County Department of Human Services, will also be honored on her retirement.

Nelson started work for Mower County March 25, 1985. Her 23 years is a long time, but Luthe’s 40 years is the longest.

Lifetime of

mechanic’s work

He started work for Mower County June 3, 1968.

Before that date, Luthe worked for local garages, including Usem’s, a Spring Valley auto dealership and Ulland Bros. Inc., among other places.

Luthe, a native of Lansing, and his wife, Barb, live east of town near Nicolville.

The couple has six children: two sons and four daughters.

“When I started to work for the county, that was the time everybody was going to work for Hormel’s,” he said of his first day on the job 40 years ago with Mower County. “If it wasn’t for everybody going over to Hormel’s, they wouldn’t have needed me.”

That statement is hard to believe.

If there was a rating system for mechanics and metal fabricators, Luthe would be a master. A genuine craftsman, who could fix anything, and he’s especially adroit at metal frabricating and welding, too.

Most of Luthe’s work was done in his “office,” a corner of the Highway Department garage built in 1975.

A welder’s mask and welder’s torch set him apart from others.

The sight was always the same: Welder’s mask pulled down over his face, flaring torch in hand, oblivious to everything going on around, intent on doing a good job.

Luthe learned from experience; all those years working on vehicles in garages all over southeastern Minnesota and at home, where he restores and collects tractors.

“Allis-Chalmers is the one I collect. The WD-45 is my favorite tractor,” he said.

His love of engine work, in part, is useful in pursuing his favorite hobby: flying.

Before he can talk about flying, his co-workers and friends take their turn.

“He didn’t tell you about that?” Distad registered disbelief.

“He owns his own plane and flies it himself,” said Schechinger.

“Charley and I have flown up north to my brother’s resort,” said Keith Johnson, assistant maintenance supervisor to Dick Miller.

Luthe’s co-workers have taken over the interview and turned Luthe into a smiling listener.

“He flies by water towers — no radio,” said Distad.

“The only instrument he has in the plane is a tennis ball hanging from the ceiling in the cockpit,” said Schechinger. “If it’s hanging down, he’s the right side up.”

Everyone laughs, including Luthe, who then supplies some detail.

“I flew in 1958 for the first time when I got my pilot’s license,” he said. “Barb and I visit the kids and go places whenever we want. I fly by the seat of my pants.”

Fabricating metal … memories, too

“When I started work here, the county engineer was Everett Carlson,” Luthe said. “I’ve worked for five of them through the years. Five general foreman and six top mechanics.”

Fortunately, count commissioners haven’t interrupted his work too often through the decades.

Working on trucks — once orange and now yellow — motorgraders, bulldozers and other vehicles needed by the highway department to maintain county roads and bridges changed over the years, particularly when vehicles went to the high technology of computer chips.

Luthe repaired them all, saying only, “They got tougher.”

One part of his job description he has enjoyed more than others.

“My end of it has been metal frabircating most of the time,” he said. “I can come into my corner and make my mess and dust and have chips flying and it don’t bother anyone.”

When Luthe started work for the county 40 years ago, he was paid $2.62 per hour.

“When I started work for Mower County 10 years ago, Charlie said he was going to retire, but he didn’t,” said Al Cords, Mower County Human Resources director. “Forty years is a long time in this day and age.”

After all those years of labor, there’s no time clock to punch, no orders to take — just life at his own pace.

Luthe may surprise everyone with his personal retirement plan.

“I ain’t doing nothing when I leave here. I’m all done,” Luthe said. “I already told everyone around here: don’t send anybody out to have anything fixed and don’t bring anything out to be fixed.

“Just come out to visit,” Luthe said.