The sky’s the limit for Riverland Community College professor Sue Grove. A woman devoted to language, diversity, service and education, Grove, on the heels of retirement, has earned multiple master’s degrees, led countless organizations and given tender-loving care to dozens of immigrant newcomers.

“I still think I can do anything, and I do,” she said.

And she’s rarely paused to rest until now.

Not that this retirement will necessarily interrupt her 30-year momentum.

Grove came to Riverland in 1977 having moved to Austin with her husband, Vern, after he was hired as a photographer for Hormel Foods.

A St. Paul native and French-language enthusiast, Grove wasn’t thrilled about relocating to the small community; in fact, she said, she dug her heels into the ground her entire entrance in.

“We were going to stay one year and go back, but no one paid as well as Hormel,” she said.

It proved fortuitous. With a teaching license and bachelor’s degree in French from St. Cloud State University, Grove worked part-time as a teacher and tutor before receiving a call about a position funded by a six-month grant for a program designed to teach foreigners the English language.

Initially, she said no.

“I turned it down because of the full-time — I wanted a permanent job,” she said.

After a follow up call in June from the coordinator, Grove accepted the job. It was the start of a 30-year legacy of English as a Second Language programming, a set of classes that not only taught immigrants the language of the U.S., but provided mentors and resources for populations. The services became particularly intimate after an ecumenical church group to which she belonged began sponsoring newcomers as they sought housing and other basic needs.

“And then it was really hard to distinguish where the sponsorships began and the teaching ended,” she said.

Now Grove knows she’s always been bold — she recalls one story from her college years at St. Cloud State when she assumed responsibility for a friend’s wedding, and coordinated the entire affair — but providing such needed services for scared, typically poor and often abused individuals hardened her already strong will to work on their behalf.

“I actually developed a courage I didn’t know I had,” she said. “I became a vocal local proponent of the immigrants.”

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Grove and her comrades were the be-all, end-all for many of these families, most of whom were natives war-torn Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

She remembers sitting one night in a hospital room with a young pregnant woman abandoned by her partner, and seeing her child being born. There was one man, Grove said, with bright perspective and demeanor, who would later describe horrific scenes in a Vietnam re-education camp during a journaling exercise for an ESL class.

Grove would mourn with parents grieving the loss of their child, would witness the dire consequences of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, would watch Hmongs and other Asian foreigners struggle with tools and culture so outside their own.

“I literally knew every new immigrant in this town for years,” she said. “I could tell you their addresses, everything. I was a walking encyclopedia.”

She said she was proud, overall, of the reception to these early immigrants, who first came from East Asian countries, and then from Eastern Europe and Africa.

“I expected much worse,” she said. “I think most people could identify with the plight, and that it was our fault that they were here. They didn’t want to leave their country.”

She said accepting Latinos was more of a struggle, particularly given the embroiled strike experience at Hormel in the mid-1980s. From her perspective, they are the same flesh and blood.

“These are people, you know what?” she said. “They have the same feelings and sorrows, and just because of accident of birth, for goodness’ sake, they were born in another country. You could have just as easily been born out there.”

In the midst of this effort, Grove was compelled to refresh her French skills and gain more credentials toward her professorship.

“I’d let my French go for 14 years, and I wanted to pick it up again,” she said.

Between 1984 to spring semester 2008, Grove earned degrees in graduate programs for French, English and speech from Minnesota State University, Mankato, the University of Northern Iowa, Southwest State University in Marshall and even the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Paris, France.

She would travel abroad to France through a teacher’s program, and join and eventually help lead multiple state and national organizations, including Phi Theta Kappa, the Friends of the Library, the American Association of University Women, The Welcome Center, the Blandin Community Leadership program, her Episcopal church and more.

She said that these roles will endure despite her retirement, of sorts, in which she also plans to return to Riverland as an adjunct professor next year.

In fact, the only respite she’s guaranteed thus far are a trip to France with a women’s group, joined later by her husband, and a vacation to Disney World with her son’s family this fall.

“That’s when I know I’ll be retired — when I take my trip during the school year,” she said, laughing.