Skroch Funeral Chapel in Flandreau hired a new funeral director and embalmer last month as Tim Boomsma began his work in town on April 7.
Boomsma said he’s enjoyed working with Mike and Jackie Skroch, as well as reacquainting himself with people he met while working as a Moody County deputy in 2008.
Though he went into law enforcement right after graduating from South Dakota State University in 2001, the decision to transition to mortuary science came fairly easy to Boomsma.
He said he went to school not knowing necessarily what he wanted to do. But traveling with the medical and ambulance staff on the job as a police officer sparked his interest.
After someone would pass away, law enforcement would go with the emergency medical services workers and the funeral home would also come.
Boomsma started getting recognized that way and eventually began working part time at Rude’s Funeral Home in Brookings, mainly picking up caskets and performing transports.
Subsequently, he took online classes through Des Moines Area Community College and obtained his degree in mortuary science in 2014.
He said one day Mike Skroch called him “out of the blue.” They had never met before, but Skroch had likely heard his name from the staff at Rude’s.
On the switch from law enforcement to the funeral business, Boomsma said, “I’m still helping people. I’m still interacting with people on a daily basis, and that’s what I enjoyed about being in law enforcement.”
Having grown up on his family’s farm in Hitchcock, he still gets his fill of farm work helping Rick and Adam Wiese on their farm north of Flandreau during any free time he has.
“I’m a farm kid; you can’t take the farmer out of me.”
