Meet Our Officers and Directors
Guiding our mission, preserving our traditions, and building our future together.
Behind the work of Landings Laget of America, Inc. is a dedicated group of volunteers who bring passion, experience, and leadership to our community. Our officers and directors help guide our mission, preserve our heritage, and strengthen the ties that connect us across generations. Get to know the individuals who lend their time and talents to keep Landings Laget thriving.
We welcome your questions, ideas, and connections. To get in touch with any of our officers or directors, please use our Contact Us form. Just let us know in your message who it is for, and we will see that it reaches the right person(s). If you feel called to share your time and talents by serving as an officer or director, we warmly encourage you to let us know, new voices and perspectives are always welcome. We look forward to staying connected.
CURIOUS ABOUT LANDINGSLAG’S HISTORY?
Explore our Past Officers, Directors, and Volunteers to see the people who have helped guide the lag through the years.
Eric Goplin
President
Eric is the current president of Landings Laget. He joined after his father passed away in 2008 at his mother’s suggestion. Through his membership he has learned much about his ancestors’ beginnings. His family roots trace back to the Nordre Land area of Norway, specifically Nord Torpa. A surprise benefit to Eric, was receiving extensive pedigree information through the research of our genealogist. It has made several trips to Norway more meaningful and he continues to learn more with each visit! Eric is an active dairy farmer living on the homestead his great great grandfather settled in 1870. The farm is celebrating the 155th year of continuous operation located in the beautiful hills of Trempealeau County, Osseo, Wisconsin. Eric enjoys singing in a men’s chorus, coaching drama students, and visiting with friends. He feels the most important part of Landings Laget are all of the friendships and connections he has made throughout the U.S. and in Norway!
Rhonda Smerchek
Vice President
Rhonda has been a member of Landingslag since 2008 and currently serves as Vice President. Her ancestors emigrated from the Ske farm in Søndre Land (1857). They settled in Westby, Wisconsin where Rhonda has many fond memories visiting her grandparents and extended family. She is a retired teacher who lives on a farm in southeastern Wisconsin with her husband and two dogs. She has a grown daughter, Nicole, who is married and has two children. They all love getting together for Christmas to make their traditional Norwegian Christmas dinner of meatballs and lefse. In her free time, Rhonda likes to spend time with her grandchildren, travel, go out for lunch with friends and read. She has been to Norway with Landingslag four times. Rhonda loves Landingslag for the many friends she has made in the group. It is so much fun when they get together at the stevne each year!
Michelle Conner
Secretary
Michelle was born and raised in Rochester, Minnesota, and has spent most of her life in the state, with some time also in Arizona. She now lives in Austin, Minnesota, and is the proud mother of three children and grandmother of five. She enjoys family time, crafting, and short day trips. Following in the footsteps of her mother and aunt, Michelle joined Landingslag in 2015 and has been an active member ever since.
Ann Delano
Treasurer, Membership
In 2005, Ann’s mother, Carol Delano, and her cousin, Gayle Rehn, attended their first Stevne together in Whitewater, Wisconsin. The walking proved a bit much for Carol, and at one point she turned to Gayle and said, “Ann will drive you next year.” That was news to Ann, but just like that she became the driver. In 2006, she took Gayle to the Stevne in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Ann registered, thinking she was simply along for the ride, but soon discovered she enjoyed the whole experience, especially chatting with everyone. At the end, when Gayle asked, “Will you drive me next year?” Ann agreed. In 2007, they traveled to Wahpeton, North Dakota. Once again Ann considered herself “just the driver,” yet once again she had a wonderful time and agreed to return the following year. The 2008 Stevne in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, brought a turning point. With treasurer Chuck Hauck ready to retire, a few people asked Ann if she would consider stepping in. Though she didn’t know why, she said yes. By 2009 in River Falls, Wisconsin, Ann was sitting at the registration table for the first time, learning the ropes and trying to remember everyone’s name. Nervous at first, she soon found it to be a great experience, full of new lessons and even more new friends. Still, she insists she is “just the driver.” She has little interest in digging through family history; for her, it has always been about the people she remembers from childhood and the family she has today. That is what matters most.
Joanne (Thompson) Frisk
Board Member
Joanne is a retired nurse who lives in Dodge Center, Minnesota. She became interested in genealogy through a scrapbooking family tree page and tracing her family roots became an obsession like it does for so many! Her uncle, Marlin Bergerson (a fellow member of Landings Lag), noticed her interest and surprised her with a membership to the group. She doesn’t remember exactly what year that was but she knows it had to be before 2010 because that was the year she made her first trip with the group to Norway. Joanne is 75% Norwegian so she has branches of her family tree in many different areas of Norway. But Land holds a special place in her heart. Her maternal great great grandmother Helena Halvorson was the first Landing born in America. Helena’s parents, Hans Halvorson Smedsrud and Martha Olsdatter were married at the Åmot church in Land, immigrated and Helena was born in Luther Valley, Wisconsin October 31, 1842. Joanne hopes to pass on her love of the past to her future generations. Joanne says, “I look forward to the Stevnes every year as a place to connect with all the friends I have made over the past 15+ years. They are a wealth of wonderful information…and of course, more good memories in the making!”
Jackie Goplin
Board Member
Jackie serves as a board member and has been a long-time member of Landings Laget. Her family ancestors are from Hedmark, very near the Nord Torpa area in Norway. A retired band director from Whitehall, Wisconsin, Jackie continues to be involved in many music related endeavors in the community and school district. A top priority for her is spending time with her grandchildren. She also enjoys baking many Norwegian treats such as rosettes, sandbakkels, and of course lefse! Jackie lives with her husband Eric on the family dairy farm in Trempealeau County, Osseo, Wisconsin. Her favorite benefit of Landings Laget membership is being able to join the group tours to Norway! She enjoys serving Landings Laget in an official capacity to help continue learning and sharing ancestral stories and events.
Kathleen Klein
Board Member
Sandra Hendrickson
Past President
Sandra served as president of Landingslag from 2000 until 2015. She has been a member of the lag since 1994, and has played an active role in lag activities since she coordinated the lag tour to Land in 2000. While in Land that year she was elected to the presidency. She served in that position for 15 years and during that time had the pleasure of coordinating two stevner (with the help of other talented and helpful members of our lag), as well as three additional tours to Norway. Between 2000 and 2025 she led 6 tours to Land for the lag. In conjunction with the lag centennial in 2010, Sandra translated and published (in English) Boka om Land IV, The Immigration of Nordre and Søndre Land to America. Sandra has ancestors from Numedal, Sigdal, Valdres and Trøndelag, as well as Nordre and Søndre Land, and genetically is 99% Norwegian. Following many trips to Norway she has had the pleasure of meeting cousins in each of these areas. Sandra studied Norwegian at the University of Minnesota where she majored in Scandinavian Studies. She has been married to Tom for over 50 years. They have 3 children and 11 grandchildren, all of whom have visited Land.
Mary (Gilbertson) Hendrickson
Past President
Mary served as the Land Lag President from 1989 to 1991. She was elected at the 1989 summer stevne held outdoors on the grounds of Land Museum in Dokka, Norway. Mary retired after serving for 33 years as a history teacher and school librarian/media specialist in her home state of Wisconsin. She enjoys attending estate sales and auctions, watching her favorite Wisconsin sports teams and serving as the current president of the Valdres Samband Lag. Mary and husband Carl live in Cloquet, Minnesota.
Open Position
Genealogist
Art Paulson
Assistant Genealogist
Art’s curiosity about one great-grandmother from Norway sparked his research into her origins, as well as his interest in Norway and the Norwegian language. He discovered that she had been born on her father’s portion of the Brattlia farms in Nord Torpa, Nordre Land. Her mother came from the Beinerud farm in Biri near Lake Mjøsa, and it is possible they met on a summer farm in the highlands around Synnfjorden. This search also led Art to discover Landingslag.
Garry Rossing
Historian and Archivist
Garry has been a member of Landingslag for over twenty years and became the Historian and Archivist in 2023, after Paul Anderson stepped away from the position. His paternal ancestors hail from both Nordre and Søndre Land. A retired occupational health professional, Garry and his spouse, Lynn, split their time between his hometown of Argyle, Wisconsin and her hometown of Portland, Oregon where their children reside. Garry is actively involved in Argyle’s affairs, including its historical association (Historic Argyle), serving on the village’s plan commission and village board and heading up the local library’s Friends group. He has contributed several articles to the Lag’s newsletter over the last ten years regarding his family and community histories.
Ann Ryall Edwards
Newsletter Editor
Ann was born in Burlington, Wisconsin, received a degree in Retailing from University of Wisconsin, Madison, and married Paul Edwards in 1961. They have four children and ten grandchildren. Ann has been the Landingslag newsletter editor since 1994 and was involved with other lag publications including Landings across the Ocean in 1997 and Landingslag The First 100 Years in 2010. Ann has ancestral connections with multiple families in Land and has visited with Landingslag on four of their trips. She has written family histories for the Gaarder, Tandberg and Komperud families. In the late 1990s, Ann corresponded with Alastair Brown about some kind of memorial at Lands Museum to honor the memory of her father whose maternal grandparents, with their parents, left Land for Wisconsin in 1852 and 1867. And it was such a highlight when all four of her children and Paul were present for the unveiling of Per Einbu’s beautiful relief in 2000. Ann and Paul’s interest in Landingslag for multiple decades has led to a lifetime of very special memories!
Paul Falde
Website Administrator
Paul retired in 2016 after a career in engineering, developing software for supercomputers. That same year, he began exploring the ancestry of both his family and his wife Kim’s family. Paul and Kim live in Apple Valley, Minnesota. His Norwegian roots trace back to Vest Torpa and Nordsinni in Nordre Land, Oppland; Modum and Lier in Buskerud; and Nord Trøndelag. In the U.S., his Norwegian ancestors settled near the small farming community of Martell in Pierce County, Wisconsin. Paul and Kim joined Landingslag in 2019, attending their first Stevne that year and quickly becoming enthusiastic members. Paul enjoys using his technical background to help preserve and share family history, and finds great satisfaction in uncovering the stories that connect generations.