By BEN KLEINE

Staff writer

After 31 years at the Farm Services Agency in Marion, Wendy Hoffman of rural Marion retired from her administrative position this week.

“I’m looking forward to simple things,” she said. “Just sitting back and relaxing.”

In her duties with FSA, Hoffman worked on community loans. She served as many as 400 loans a year, which has decreased to three or four per year. She also helped create a graphic information system that plotted all of the land in Marion County.

This past year, she was part of the conservation reservation program.

“I’m just a stepmom,” Hoffman said of CRP. “It’s not my baby.”

Hoffman said at first she was counting down her last days to retirement in excitement. She has been training her replacement in everything from looking for information in a 22-year-old computer system to loading information on the FSA website.

However, Hoffman also said she will miss her friends at work and knowing that she was making a difference in the community through her job.

“You have to be a useful member of society; this job fulfilled that,” Hoffman said. “I always felt like I was helping people.”

Hoffman said she is going to transfer that energy into volunteering with the Altar Society.

“They’re also a nice bunch of ladies, not that I’m trying to replace these girls,” Hoffman said.

Hoffman is planning to work in her garden and greenhouse and enjoy living at the reservoir.

“You need to learn to play again,” she said.