Meet Your Neighbor Deb Brueck. Deb has lived with her family in Stronghurst for the past 12 years.
The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
by Susan Galbraith, Quill Reporter
Meet Your Neighbor Deb Brueck. Deb has lived with her family in Stronghurst for the past 12 years.
She is the guidance counselor at James Madison and Oak Street Middle School in Burlington, Iowa.
Deb was born and raised in Burlington and sometime in the future they plan to return and build a home there. Although she says, "This is really home, for me and my family."
In 1985, Deb graduated early from Burlington High School and joined the United States Army. She was on active duty for 6 years and 2 years inactive reserves as a medical specialist.
After her military career, she married Gary Brueck and they have been married for 21 years.
Gary owns Brueck Construction, in Burlington, Iowa, which he and Deb bought two years ago.
Deb received her bachelors in education in 2000 after their children were born and her masters of education in guidance counseling in 2003.
She and Gary have two sons, Jordan (19) who is a freshman at Western Illinois University in Macomb majoring in Recreation Parks and Tourism with a minor in Environmental Science, Logan (17) a junior at West Central High School and a daughter, Hannah (15) a freshman at West Central.
Her parents are Barry and Sue Geng of Burlington, Iowa. Barry was a pharmacist at Apothecary 24 until his retirement and mom, Sue, is a homemaker who works at B. Dalton, for a hobby!
Deb has two sisters, Becky (Ross) Dowell, of Lincoln, Kim (Jon) Wittkamp, of Burlington, Iowa, and one brother, Steve (Diana) Geng, of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
While growing up Deb was also raised with several foster brothers and sisters.
Deb loves oil painting and was recently commissioned to do her first painting. She and Gary also enjoy attending their kids sporting events at school and traveling.
On their vacations they try to take their family to different places so the kids can be exposed to many different cultures.
Before the summer of 2008 they asked each one of their kids where they would like to go on vacation. Of course, they all had different answers so they made plans to accommodate all three. They started out with Jordan's request. He wanted to go white water rafting in Gully River in West Virginia. After that they traveled to Washington, D.C. where Logan saw the statue of Iwo Jima and then on to New York to Rockefeller Center where Hannah could see Miley Cyrus. They ended up at Niagara Falls and Deb said, "They all enjoyed each one of the vacation spots the kids picked out". A vacation that made many memories for the family.
They attend church at St. Patricks Catholic Church in Raritan where Deb and Gary are presently on a steering committee and getting bids to renovate the Community Center.
Deb said, "We had not planned to live in Stronghurst this long, but we have been so pleased with the friendliness of the community and the faculty at the schools".
"On our first Christmas here Dr. Pogue called and invited our family to participate in the lighted Nativity scene, in the park, where we sang Christmas carols and enjoyed hot chocolate with the folks in the community".
"One of the highlights of our summer is attending the Henderson County Fair and viewing the animals and exhibits. We all enjoy that."