Lyle William Schlaak

July 20, 1951~ September 27, 2022

Lyle Schlaak, 71, Sioux Falls, SD, formerly New Richland, MN, passed away on September 27, 2022, at Avera McKennan Hospital, following a car accident.

Visitation with family will be 2-4pm, Sunday, October 2, 2022, with a time of sharing at 4pm, at Heartland Funeral Home. Funeral Services will begin at 11:00am, Monday, October 3, 2022, at the Brandon Valley Assembly of God, with visitation beginning at 10am.  Burial will follow. A link to live stream the service is https://brandonvalley.online.church/

Lyle William Schlaak was born July 20, 1951, to Alfred and Luella (Tesch) Schlaak, in Waseca, MN. He attended high school at the Southern School of Agriculture in Waseca, MN, graduating in 1969. He farmed in rural New Richland, on the family farm, and then continued in agriculture throughout his career by working as a mechanic at John Deere, trucking, and buying and selling farm machinery.

Lyle and Diane Gottschalk were married on July 11, 1975, in Janesville, MN. Lyle and Diane have been married forty-seven years and raised four children together: Kari Rettig, Vermillion, SD, Kyle (Lisa) Schlaak, Cedar Rapids, IA, Katie (Gabriel) Waddell, Fresno, CA, and Kayla Schlaak, Fresno, CA. In 2016, Lyle and Diane moved from New Richland to Sioux Falls, SD.

Lyle loved agriculture, conservative talk radio (especially Rush Limbaugh), driving, and watching his children and grandchildren play sports. In fact, he attended every one of Kyle’s basketball games from middle school through college except for two. The family often gathered in his office (the smallest room in the house), joining him in watching classic television and movies (throwing in a bit of Rick Steves’ Europe here and there).

From trucking to Volkswagens, Lyle would get into a vehicle and just go. If you ever gave him a call, a good first question in the conversation was “which state are you in?”  Once he found a bailer on Craigslist that was in Montana. He had a bailer like this as a young farmer and he had been looking for one like this for years. He convinced his cousin to join him on an 18-hour drive just to check it out. Fortunately, he went with a trailer because that bailer came home with him.

If something didn’t work exactly how Lyle wanted it to, he’d tinker with it and overbuild it until it was better than perfect, from making legs on a ping pong table that would last forever to customizing an auger box for the new ridge-till system until the industry caught up (an idea that was later used by a major equipment manufacturer).

Lyle is survived by his wife, Diane; four children; eighteen grandchildren, Elisabeth (Taylor Gould), Jacob, Christian, Hudson, Hannah, Rockford, Victoria, Keira, Emma, Mercedes, Abraham, Benjamin, Caleb, Gracie, Micah, Reuben, Lincoln, and Gretchen; and one great-granddaughter, Makiah; several nieces, nephews, and cousins; and siblings-in-law, Carol Schlaak, Eleanor Schlaak, Daryl and Carol Kohloff, Gary and Kay Gottschalk, and Ron Gottschalk.

Lyle was preceded in death by his parents; and his siblings, Harlan, Kenneth, and Judy Leyk; brother-in-law, Kenneth Leyk; and sister-in-law, Joyce Wondra.

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