Coach's wife Petersen builds a busy life

Coach's wife Petersen builds a busy life

Doug Flanagan/Post-Register
Nov. 05, 2009

Doug Flanagan/Post-Register

Misty Petersen spends her free time creating furniture and other decorative items from used wood, such as the shelves that sit outside of Petersen’s home.

Misty Petersen has a simple, yet rewarding hobby.

“I build stuff,” she says.

OK. That’s cool. What kind of stuff?

“Furniture,” she says. “Home decorations. Things like that.”

Sitting on her downstairs couch in her two-story home in the AHO Complex in north Quincy, Petersen points to a wood television stand on the other side of the room. “I made that TV stand. I built the white bench in the entryway. I built the shelves near the front door. It’s something that my friend, Joey Hodges, and I have been doing for a few years now.”

When Petersen isn’t at work as a reading teacher at Mountain View Elementary School or keeping up with the various activities of her five children, there’s a good chance she can be found in her garage, working on her next project.

“It’s fun,” she said. “When somebody tears down an old fence or something like that, they’ll call us and ask if we want the wood. We grab as much wood as we can — old doors, windows, fences. We like old stuff.”

So how many projects have they completed?

“I wouldn’t say tons and tons, but we’ve done a lot,” Petersen says. “We’ll just sit out in the garage and crank them out.”

Her daughter, Madison, sitting next to her mother on the couch, rolls her eyes in a display of comical objection. “No, you’ve done tons and tons,” Madison says.

“Right now we’re just building for ourselves,” Petersen said. “People have talked to us about building and selling, but right now we still have a lot of ideas that we want to do for us first.”

Woodworking may be one of Petersen’s passions, but being a wife and mother is the focal point of her everyday life. Misty and her husband, Wade, have five kids — Chase (junior at Quincy High School), Madison (sophomore), Trey (eighth-grader), Gunnar (sixth-grader) and Gates (fourth-grader) — who keep the house buzzing with school activities, church projects and their various athletic endeavors.

Yes, it’s no surprise that sports are a big part of Petersen’s household. Wade is the head basketball coach at Quincy High School and is an assistant football coach.

When Misty met Wade, she wasn’t exactly as enthralled with athletics as her future husband was and is. “Growing up, my dad watched basketball on TV, so I knew what it was, but I never went to the high school games or anything like that,” she said.

But now, Misty sits with her children in rapt attention right behind the Quincy bench at every home basketball game, cheering her husband’s team to victory. She enjoys every second of it — usually.

“It’s a killer,” she said. “It’s stressful with all the close games. But I’ve really gotten into it. The thing with Wade is, he’s intense during the games, but he never brings any of it home. He’s never upset or stressed. His motto is, ‘You can’t do anything about it.’ I say, ‘It must be nice being you.’ ”

Misty has also helped to foster somewhat of a family-type environment with the team, a factor which no doubt helped a senior-laden Jackrabbits squad win the district championship and advance to the state tournament last year.

“After the home games the kids will come over to our house and we’ll have pizza and they’ll just hang out,” she said “It’s a great time. I remember one time after a game I got a call from somebody who told me that there were a bunch of kids sitting out on our front lawn having a picnic. I was like, ‘What? It’s dark and cold out there.’ But they didn’t care; they just wanted to hang out with Wade for a while longer. I love it when the players come over.”

During the summer, the Petersen family can be found at the Quincy Aquatic Center; four of the children competed on the Quincy swim team last year.

“When I was growing up, I was a lifeguard and on the swim team, so I’ve always thought swimming was a good life skill to have,” she said. “It’s good to get out of the house in the summer and get some sun. All of my kids have been fish from the start.”

Petersen grew up in Oklahoma, in a town “about the size of Wenatchee,” she said, and met Wade when they were both attending Brigham Young University. Over the years, she has learned to embrace Quincy and all it has to offer.

“I love it here,” she said. “I love it for the kids. It’s a great place for them to be involved in a lot of things. They have good opportunities in sports and other things. And there’s great people here. I love the people.”