Dennis Fred Nowka
March 21, 1944 ~ July 2, 2025
Dennis F. Nowka, 81, Luverne, MN, passed away on Wednesday, July 2, 2025, at Sanford USD Medical Center in Sioux Falls, SD.
No services are planned at this time.
Dennis Fred Nowka, professional semi driver, ardent sports fan, and avid fisherman, was born on March 21, 1944, in Kanaranzi, MN, to Fred and Etta (Klosterbuer) Nowka. He was baptized and confirmed at the State Line Presbyterian Church and later became a life member of the Luverne Presbyterian Church.
Dennis enjoyed growing up in the small town of Kanaranzi (pop. 65), where kids played in the streets and in everyone’s yards. At the one room school, he was dubbed “Nowky.” The nickname stuck through high school in Magnolia and into adulthood. Kanaranzi was also where Dennis got his first taste of driving a semi when he was 14. He became obsessed with driving them and this passion spanned a lifelong career of driving, one that he never regretted. When Dennis was drafted into the army in 1965, he was even placed in the transportation division.
Dennis met the love of his life, Robyn, in 1962, when she was 15. Their budding romance continued to flourish until they finally made it to the altar on October 5, 1968. This lifelong love affair produced three children – Cory, Dodi, and Jerod.
Family was very important to Dennis, as he was to them. He ate box lunches at the Father/Daughter banquet and helped build winning pinewood derby cars for both of his sons and then grandsons. He claimed the winning secret was the melted fishing weights in them. The family enthusiastically joined his hobbies of bowling, camping, and trolling lakes in hopes of hooking that elusive trophy fish. When questioned about vacations, the comeback was “any vacation we ever took involved a fish.” Watching the Twins and Vikings with dad meant you also got to listen to him critiquing the refs very loudly. And then there was his passion for sprint car races. We all joined him in the stands or pits at local tracks, then later, at Jackson and Knoxville Nationals.
Some of Dennis’ dates with his future wife were to the races. The first picture in their wedding album was the one he took of his best man, Larry Groth, with his championship trophy, taken on the first day of their honeymoon.
Dennis loved driving, but when the doctor refused to approve his CDL after a heart attack, he took a job with the Rock County Highway Department. It took him 5 years to convince the doctor that there was more stress in his NOT driving than IN driving. They finally okayed him to get back on the road. His new CB handle became ‘Rusty Hammer.’ He drove for Christenson Trucking, Ripco, IBP, Eagle Transport, Transport Inc., and Wayne Transport. This spanned over 50 years of driving with Dennis receiving many safe driving awards and no chargeable accidents over his whole career.
In 2013, Dennis was diagnosed with two forms of leukemia: MDS and MGUS (benzene poisoning). Because of the fatigue that came with it, he was no longer able to work full time and was forced to retire.
With retirement, he was able to rejoin the McDonalds coffee club, fish Lake Erie, and also the Gulf with his few winters in Texas. And most joyously, say yes, when Craig Stegenga asked him to help with harvest. He was back in his beloved trucks.
In 2022 and 2023, Dennis had the replacement of a stent that was originally placed in 2020. With many side effects from new medications, his health steadily spiraled downward. With a pacemaker implant, Dennis developed lung issues causing his health to further worsen. On July 2, 2025, he was hospitalized, and while being prepared for a GI procedure for an ulcer, he suddenly and unexpectedly aspirated from a gastric hemorrhage. His lung collapsed and he died.
Grateful for having shared Dennis’s life and mourn his passing are his wife of 57 years, Robyn; children and grandchildren, Cory – Michael and McKenzie (Izak) VerSteeg, Dodi (Don) Beaubien – Alexander Nowka, Jerod – Dylan (Bethany Popinga), and Austin (Benz) Nowka; sister, Helen Dohlman; brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, Greg Gervais, Vicky Atwood, Sally Ripley, Russel Scott Ripley, Kim Ripley, and Lisa Ripley/Tom Lahr; and many cousins, nieces, and nephews.
Dennis was preceded in death by his parents, Fred and Etta; father-in-law and mother-in-law, Russell and Eunice Ripley; brother-in-law, Randy Ripley; and sisters-in-law, Cathy Groth Gervais and Paulette Ripley.
May you always be remembered by those you loved and who loved you.
Love you forever and a day….
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