Outlook Magazine - Fall 2021

ALUMNI NEWS

High-flying career Hegtvedt, major general in Air Force Reserve, took private pilot ground school class while working toward UW-Stout degree

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“The Air Force is a great opportunity to serve your country and be a part of something bigger than yourself,” he said.

aking a private pilot ground school class at UW-Stout changed the

As he worked toward his degree, Hegtvedt realized he wanted to be an Air Force fighter pilot. He entered Air Force Officer Training School in 1988 and transitioned to the Air Force Reserve in 1998. Hegtvedt is a command pilot with more than 4,100 hours of flying time. He served as a T-37 first assignment instructor pilot and has flown the F-16, F-22 and A-10, including combat missions in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq. As a two-star general, Hegtvedt worked in the Pentagon engaging with HQ Air Force staff, DoD staff and congressional leaders regarding plans, policies and programs affecting more than 70,000 Airmen in the Air Force Reserve.

course of alum Hubie Hegtvedt’s life.

Maj. Gen. Hegtvedt, who retired Aug. 1 as the deputy to the chief of Air Force Reserve at the headquarters of the U.S. Air Force, graduated from UW-Stout in 1987 with a degree in industrial technology. He decided to attend UW-Stout in 1983 with the encouragement of his sister, Peggy Terry, and brother-in-law, Steve Terry, a former UW-Stout athletic director, who died in June 2020. “The aviation bug bit me,” Hegtvedt said. “I started taking flying lessons in Boyceville while at UW-Stout, and completed training on our family farm’s grass airstrip in the summer of 1984.”

Maj. Gen. Hubie Hegtvedt

Impactful life cut short

Yang, refugee at 9, helped start and was CEO, principal of Hmong charter school

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“Choua loved life,” the statement added. “While life presented challenges and obstacles, she embraced it with a smile and always trusted that everything happened for a reason. Her entire life was dedicated to serving others.”

lumna Choua Lee Yang, CEO and principal of Prairie Seeds Academy,

bilingual education and educational administration.

a Hmong culture language school in Brooklyn Park, Minn., was a lifelong educator. Yang, 53, died Oct. 9, 2020, in St. Paul from COVID-19 complications. When the Laotian government fell to the Communists in 1975, Yang, who was 9, fled with her family to Thailand. Three years later the family was granted asylum in the United States and settled in the Syracuse, N.Y., area. After earning her bachelor’s degree in 1996 in marketing education from UW- Stout, Yang would go on to obtain three master’s degrees in K-12 curriculum,

Yang and her husband, Cha Ger Yang, also a Hmong refugee and educator, founded Prairie Seeds Academy, a K-12 Hmong charter school that has grown to 800 students, in 2004. She is survived by five children, 14 grandchildren and eight sibling and half-siblings. “Choua understood and valued the importance of education and devoted her entire career to the profession,” the school’s board of directors and administration stated. “Those (who) have been fortunate to work with Choua will remember her constant encouragement and her kindness.

Choua Lee Yang

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