Marjie Jurgensen has been named the 2015 Apple Fest Ambassador for the 57th Annual Gays Mills Apple Festival.

Each year, the Gays Mills PACE Club accepts nominations for the title. From among the nominees, the club selects an Apple Ambassador, who has a deep record of giving back to the community.

The former editor of the Crawford County Independent & Kickapoo Scout, and daughter of Pearl and Tillmen ‘Punk’ Swiggum, Jurgensen grew up on a farm near Star Valley (rural Soldiers Grove). She has one sister, Dorothy Briggson, and one brother, Jim Swiggum.

Marjie attended the Star Valley School, and then graduated from Gays Mills High School in 1957. After high school, she worked in Madison at Oscar Mayer for three years before marrying her high school sweetheart, Wayne Jurgensen, in 1960.

Marjie has four children: Laurie (Paul) Delmore, Mary (Dan) Halpern, Barb (Len) Harris, and Alan (Sarah) Jurgensen, and five grandchildren. Her husband Wayne, a high school chemistry and physics teacher, died in 2007.

Marjie Jurgensen served as treasurer of the Village of Gays Mills from 1970 to 1974. To this day, she lives in downtown Gays Mills in the house built in 1905 by her husband’s grandfather, Nicholas Jurgensen.

 Marjie retired in 2006 after 34 years as editor/  reporter/ photographer/ office manager of the Crawford County Independent & Kickapoo Scout.

Marjie keeps busy with volunteer work at the nursing home in Soldiers Grove, the Gays Mills Food Pantry and Second Harvest, and is a member of the Luther Memorial Church in Gays Mills. She recently became the first person in Gays Mills to erect a Little Free Library, which was built by her son Alan.

Marjie Jurgensen was nominated to become the 2015 Apple Ambassador by her longtime friend Mary Green.

“Marjie is a tireless community contributor who volunteers countless hours to local organizations and activities,” Green wrote in her nomination letter. “Marjie is talented and generous, while being a lifelong, well-known and well-liked individual in our community.”