Photo by Mike Lamb Cody Nelson stands next to a fire truck inside the Hanley Falls Fire Department building

Cody Nelson says his fiancee calls him a “social butterfly.”

“She says I like to talk to everyone,” Nelson said.

Talking to everyone has become a benefit for the city of Hanley Falls. Besides establishing his LLC in flooring installation, he also dedicates time on the City Council and volunteering on the fire department.

“I do like helping people in the community,” Nelson said. “And just giving back.”

His determination to help out his community has led him on different paths and unusual circumstances.

Besides serving on the city council, Nelson also recently ran for mayor and only lost by 13 votes.

“It was actually kind of funny. Yellow Medicine County actually sent me a letter saying I won the election. Then if you look on the Internet, it showed I lost by 13 votes. So I called them and asked them what’s going on?

“I still have the letter at home. I think I will run for it next year,” he said. “I’m the duty mayor right now. So when he’s (present mayor) gone, I kind of fill that spot.”

Nelson also holds an important role with fire department as CEO of the Hanley Falls Fire relief Association.

“I pretty much help out with the gambling organizing (such as the pull tabs). Whenever we make money, we donate to the youth organizations. Schools and veterans programs or city entities. We donated money to the Wood Lake Fire Department after they had their accident. Donated money to go toward a new truck. We need them for mutual aid,” he said. “We host bingos and get other youth organizations to come in and help work it and give them a chance to make some money.”

Nelson also mentioned the association also holds a gun raffle every year.

“All the money goes toward a truck. We built a new grass rig and then just recently got a 4,000 gallon tanker. That is what we are trying to pay off now. Before that, we started to pay off our building because we built a new building in 2008 or 2009,” he said.

Nelson also said the association hosts a street dance during the Threshing Show.

“We try to bring people into the community, downtown and spend some money and have a good time,” he said. “Just trying to hold events and trying to get a bunch of people to come in and make some money so we can donate. It’s a really good time. We got a good group of guys on the fire department.

The list of organization benefiting from the donations is long, from FFA, after proms, scholarships to scoreboards.

When the fire department volunteers are not raising money to donate, they are on call for emergencies and hold regular training sessions.

“When you first get on you got to pass fire one, fire two and then Hazmat. That takes quite a bit of time. Then after that, we do one training a month,” he said. “So that could be auto extraction or like a tractor roll over, a structure fire, control burns, CRP (Required management practice) burns. We stay pretty busy with that. We just had an EV training on electric cars over in Wood Lake with other departments. That was kind of an eye opener to show how hot those batteries get.

“We had a training with auto extrication — cutting up cars and trying to do certain things like that. And I think it was like a day or two days later, we an accident on (Highway) 23. So it was really fresh on everybody’s minds and it went really, really well. It was kind of Coll that we do get to do those trainings.”

Volunteering in the fire department is part of Nelson’s family history. His grandfather, O.B. Anderson was on the fire department and vice president of the relief association in the 1950s and ’60s. His brother, Dylan, is currently on the department with 12 years of service.

On top of all the volunteering and flooring business, Nelson is also busy planning his upcoming wedding with his fiancee Trinity Broberg.

She helps me stay motivated,” Nelson said of her fiancee. (She is) my biggest supporter and helps a lot with everything I’m a part of. She has taught me how to use Xcel Spreadsheet which was not a simple task. I’m very thankful for how patient she is with me.”