They take a lot of abuse, the members of the “Old Boys Club” do.

Verbal mostly, but it takes its emotional toll eventually.

The Mower County Board of Commissioners has gotten used to it over the decades.

It’s the price one pays for running for public office and winning.

Then, it’s life in a fish bowl with everybody watching every move.

The Mower County board literally earned the “Old Boys Club” moniker. Bob Shaw, Robert “Butch” Finbraaten (now deceased), Duane Hanson, Gary Nemitz and Richard P. Cummings were, indeed, … mature is the polite word, but old fits, too.

Now, the Old Boys Club is being dismantled, one commissioner at a time.

First, Shaw retired after 39 years (1951-1990) of public service as a Mower County commissioner (He was also an Austin City Council member.)

Then it was Finbraaten, the legendary District No. 2 county commissioner (1957-1992) who ruled the eastern two-thirds of Mower County.

Then it was Hanson (1979-1994) and Nemitz (1991-2001); Hanson, because it was the right time to do that and Nemitz, a popular Austin businessman, because Alzheimer’s Disease made him its victim.

Now, it’s Cummings’ turn to step aside, and he’s doing it as gracefully as possible.

In a rural Minnesota county such as Mower, being a neighbor is complicated by being a neighbor’s county commissioner.

It’s been that way for Cummings, who never ventured far from his family’s roots.

When 2008 becomes 2009 later this week, Cummings will be on the sidelines for the first time, both from his employer of 40 years and eight months and from public service as a county commissioner, beginning 32 years ago in January, 1977.

The month of December has been filled with “last” things for Cummings: last county board meeting, last signature on a final payment voucher from the highway department, last minutes of the last meeting.

And when he finds himself at home on the first, second and fourth Tuesdays of January, the official meeting dates of the county commissioners, maybe, it will sink in: After eight four-year terms as a participant in county government, he is a spectator.

One term, than another and

another

Cummings reflected recently on his more than three decades in the public eye and in so doing exposed how he made service over self a lifestyle.

“I was born and raised on a farm north of Lansing and other than two years away in the U.S. Army, I’ve lived in that area all my life,” Cummings said.

His father operated a diversified farm in Udolpho Township. Both parents are deceased. He has a brother and two sisters (both deceased).

He and his wife, Josie, a native of Crystal City, Texas, have two children: a son, Wayne, who is an air traffic controller at Cleveland, Ohio; and a daughter, Gina, who is a physician’s assistant at Medford, Ore.

Josie Cummings closed her hair salon six years ago and worked for a time as a hair stylist at the Our House assisted living facility in Austin.

She and her husband have family matters and careers from the start of their marriage.

“Shortly after my military service I came home, but there was not enough income on the farm to support two families, so I needed to find something else,” Cummings said.

He found it at the Austin flagship plant of Hormel Foods Corp.

At the end of his career, he was a member of Local 9 of the United Food and Commercial Workers local union, working in the shipping department.

He didn’t pursue a county commissioner’s job — it came to him.

Cliff Christianson, the First District commissioner, announced his retirement, Cummings said. “Several individuals contacted me and said I should put my name in the hat,” he said. “They felt I would be capable of doing the job.”

He won election in 1976 and took office in January 1977.

The Mower County board at that time included Shaw, Finbraaten, Dick Buechner and Art Vogel as well as the “rookie” politician, Cummings.

In all eight of his runs for District No. 1 commissioner, he had competition at the polls in November. Each time he won.

He also had opposition in five primary elections.

Encouragement to run again came inside the Cummings household.

“After four years I said ‘I won’t to run again,’” he recalled, but that changed after his children were born.

“We had the two kids then and I said ‘I’d like to run one more time,’” Cummings recalled. “Josie said ‘OK, one more time and then that’s it.’”

Four more years passed and the couple’s son and daughter grew older and his wife had more advice, according to Cummings.

“She said, ‘You’re going to run again, aren’t you?’” he said. “She saw how it enriched my life. She knew at that point I was in the union and she could see how the hum-drum of doing the same thing all day long — I’m not knocking Hormel — was not good for me and that this kept my mind stimulated.”

State law protects local office-holders from losing their jobs due to public service, but Cummings’ work schedule — second shift, for example — also allowed him to juggle official meetings and work.

“It worked well I feel for both of us,” he said.

Changing of the guard

Cummings’ decision not to seek re-election signals a possible end to the long history of lengthy service on the Mower County board.

If he is the last of his ilk, what kind of county commissioner was he? How would he like to be remembered?

Cummings admitted he was known as the most fiscally conservative member of the county board, but he refused to submit to the criticism that the county commissioners “all think alike.”

He said the majority — 5-0 or 4-1 — decisions of the county board frequently attracted attention; not all of it warranted.

“When I was first elected there were an inordinate number of 5-0 votes,” he said. “In fact, one constituent asked me once ‘Don’t you people ever disagree?’”

More recently, there have been many non-unanimous votes, including nail-biting 3-2 decision over the new jail and justice center.

“We have all said we may disagree in the board room, but once the door closes behind us we are friends,” he said.

To ensure fairness, the Mower County board routinely rotates the county board chairman’s duties among the five commissioners.

“Rotating the chair’s duties has worked very well,” he said. “It serves the board and the constituents well.”

Cummings’ “commissioner-style” of governing is founded on the principle “All people deserve our respect,” he said. “The opinions of the board and the constituents may not always concur, but as my parents and grandparents always stressed, you get farther by applying sugar rather than vinegar.”

Cummings has not always “won” every issue to come before the Mower County board. He voted for building the new jail and justice center at a green field site outside of Austin only to lose that battle (a 3-2 decision).

“The board made a decision to put it downtown and once those kind of decisions are made, unless some new information comes forward, there is nothing to be gained by fighting it,” he said.

Cummings also said he grew in the role of county commissioner; learning as he went along.

His wife, Josie, saw that growth up close and personal.

The easy-going, amiable public figure was much like the man his wife knew at home.

“There were very few issues or problems that he brought home to the family,” the wife said. “He took his work very seriously all those years, but didn’t let it interfere with family life. I can remember only two times, maybe, that he ever woke up in the middle of the night when something bothered him.”

“If there was anything he was known for as a commissioner, it was being a fiscal conservative,” she added. “I know he felt he has a responsibility to look after the taxpayers’ money very carefully.”

One thing the public couldn’t see was an important part of the public figure’s private life: his religious faith.

His wife said the couple prayed over problems, both private and public, to find answers.

Now, Cummings has shed two labels that identified him most of all in life: meatpacker and county commissioner.

The old year leaves memories, the new year creates opportunities for reflection.

His wife is ready to make the transition with her husband, the public figure who now grows private.

“When he made the decision not to run again, he just told me ‘This is it’ and I was very surprised,” said Josie, “because he liked it so much.”

What’s ahead?

“It’s time for us now,” she said.