Photos by Deb Gau On Monday, Abby Wikelius, left, will be sworn in as the new Lyon County attorney, while current county attorney Rick Maes retires after a career spanning more than 30 years in Lyon County.

MARSHALL — When Rick Maes started working in Marshall more than 30 years ago, he didn’t see himself sticking around.

“Initially, I was intending on being in Marshall maybe a year or two. And as it turns out, this next year would be my 33rd year coming through the same doors,” Maes said. “I just loved the community.”

While he’ll be staying in southwest Minnesota, Maes is now retiring after serving as Lyon County attorney for more than 25 years. A reception for Maes was held at the county government center on Thursday.

Assistant county attorney Abby Wikelius was elected Lyon County attorney this fall. She will officially step into the position on Monday, when she is sworn in.

“I just thought it got to a point that it was time to hand it over to someone else. And I knew Abby would be able to do a great job,” Maes said.

When Maes came to Marshall in 1990, he started out working as a law clerk, mainly for Judge George Marshall and Judge George Harrelson. He was hired in the Lyon County Attorney’s office in 1992. In 1997, the county attorney at the time moved away from Minnesota, and Maes was appointed as the new county attorney.

“At that time, the county board could appoint (an attorney), they could interview, or they could hold a special election. They ended up appointing me in May of ’97,” Maes said. At the next election, he ran for county attorney and won.

Maes said he’s enjoyed serving as county attorney, and at the same time the Marshall area community was part of the reason he and his family have stayed.

“It had everything I was looking for,” he said of Marshall.

There were good schools, and plenty to do both in the community and at work.

“This office keeps you plenty busy,” Maes said. “It’s 24/7, and very quickly I learned that you’re going to get calls in the middle of the night. And you’re gonna pick up the phone in a daze and have to ask the officer a couple of times, ‘What do you want?’ You know? But you know, that’s just part of the position.”

Working on a wide variety of legal matters is another part of the job, Maes and Wikelius said. The county attorney serves as legal counsel for the Lyon County Board, as well as prosecuting felony offenses in Lyon County, and representing Southwest Health and Human Services in child protection, child support and civil commitment matters.

Over the years, Maes said there have been some unusual cases he’s worked on. One that stood out was federal prosecution the county faced over a five-gallon pail of asbestos that was found at the Lyon County landfill in the 1990s, he said. Maes said he ended up having to travel to Washington, D.C., on two different occasions while arguing the case.

“I just couldn’t believe it would go that far,” Maes said. “It was initially a state prosecution, and so we asked that it be brought before the citizens’ board and determine whether or not it should even go forward. Instead, the state referred it to the feds, and they prosecuted it.”

Maes said a trial was held in Marshall, and the county appealed the case in Washington. A federal case was dismissed, but the county ended up paying a civil penalty, he said.

Maes said the process of preparing the transition to a new county attorney is something that has gone on gradually.

“I’ve tried to spread out work in the office, so people have at least a general understanding of the different types of cases,” Maes said. “I think you learn by doing. That’s a never-ending job for a person in this office.”

One of the positives of the Lyon County Attorney’s Office is that the staff members know what their colleagues are working on, Wikelius said.

“That also helps, I think, in the transition,” she said.

Wikelius said one project that the county attorney’s office will be working on in the coming year is implementing a new computer system for records management. The new system will be a much-needed update, and allow the office to be more paperless, she said.

Wikelius said there were some parallels between Maes’ career and her own.

“It’s kind of interesting, we both kind of started the same way,” she said.

Wikelius started working in Marshall in 2011 as a law clerk for Judge Michelle Dietrich, and was hired as an assistant county attorney in 2013.

“Like Rick, when I had initially moved to Marshall to be a law clerk, I didn’t know how long I was going to stay,” she said. “I’m originally from the metro area, but Marshall has become my home, and I think it’s the job that has kept me here and excited about living here.”

Wikelius said she knew she would be interested in the county attorney position when Maes decided not to run for re-election.

“I think I’ve been really fortunate because I’ve had the last, basically, almost a decade to learn from Rick,” Wikelius said. In addition, the Lyon County Attorney’s Office has great employees and has been historically well run, she said. “I’m sure that there will be some learning curve as well.”

“There’s always, in this position, a time when something new comes out. Something that for me, I haven’t experienced,” Maes said. “That’s going to happen for Abby as well, and she’s more than capable of providing a response or taking the appropriate action.”