DuWayne Arthur Skov

DuWayne Arthur Skov, age 90, of Austin, Minnesota, passed away on Sunday, May 21, 2023.

DuWayne was born in the bedroom of the family farm, homesteaded by his grandfather in 1901, the same bedroom his mother was born in, the same bedroom he would share with his wife, LaVonne June (Noble) Skov after their marriage in 1955 for 67 years. How many people can say they lived in the same house their entire life? (Save the last few years when they moved to assisted living at the Cedars of Austin.)

A mischievous boy (I know that’s redundant), one time he and his best friend, Gilbert, discovered a nest of skunks in a culvert, and with one boy at each opening wielding a stick, proceeded to dispatch the skunks and carry them home on a pole between them. His mother said she could smell them long before she could see them. Another time he was catching pigeons in the barn and dropped from the track on the top of the roof to the hay below not realizing he was directly over a hay-covered hatch. He fell 2 ½ stories to the concrete first floor and broke all the bones in his feet.

The resulting flat feet from the fall prevented him from entering the Army, even though he had sold all his cattle in preparation for going into the service. Also, in preparation for that entry he had proposed to LaVonne June Noble less than a month after he met her. Undaunted, he rebuilt the herd, and married the love of his life a year later. They had met after LaVonne secretly plotted to have a roller-skating party and invite him through friends in order to facilitate a meeting and it worked.

Music was always important to DuWayne and by extension, the whole Skov family who carry on the tradition. As a young man he would play, sing, and record records with a circle of talented musician friends, occasionally joining the stage with country band, Roy Lilly and the Little Green Valley Boys, whom he accompanied on a trip to Nashville. He also sang regularly at church and for a variety of community functions, and was a regular in a local choir, The Country Gentlemen.

He had a lifelong love of animals and birds, always keeping a menagerie on the farm, which, in addition to the standard barnyard fare extended to an array of fancy show pigeons, pheasants from China, turkeys and his beloved peacocks. Over the years, this group was also supplemented by skunks, raccoons, badgers, squirrels, possums, etc. etc. A few times, cages were loaded into the pickup, and animals transported to his kids’ school for an impromptu “zoo visit.” In the spring, pregnant mother skunks were live-trapped, and the resulting offspring sold to a pet store in St. Paul. On one of his “skunk trips,” the car was stopped along the way by a man surveying people about the nature of their trip. Not believing, “I have a box full of skunks in the trunk to sell” the survey-taker exclaimed, “Now, I’ve seen everything!” after the trunk was opened and a boxful of chittering baby skunks was produced.

In between farming the land, he worked one day a week butchering cows, pigs and often up to 500 deer a year for Brownsdale Meat Service. Feeling that it just wasn’t enough work, he picked up farm work for the neighbors when needed, served on the Dexter township board for 30 years, was a member, deacon and trustee for First Baptist Church in Brownsdale, and was on the boards of Brownsdale Creamery, Cemetery, and Elevator. DuWayne loved farming, and loved the outdoors, especially hunting and fishing with his family and friends. I think he would sum it up like this, “Can’t drive, can’t hunt, can’t fish. Time to go home.”

Survived by his wife, LaVonne Skov (she capitalized the V to match his capital W); sons, Larry Skov (Roseanne) and Dale Skov (Bronwyn); grandchildren, Arthur Skov (Marisol), Joren Skov (Michelle), Sonia Colleran-Skov (Koreah) and Jamie Colleran-Skov; and great grandson, Ryder Rasmussen Skov.