Larry Neitzel will be ordained and installed at St. Matthew’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in rural Ontario (South Ridge) in a special service at 3 p.m. Sunday, July 23, followed by a potluck reception.
Neitzel will serve the congregation of St. Matthew’s as well as St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Kendall.
Neitzel has spent most of his life in the Milwaukee area, where he and his wife, Cheryl, raised three boys. But he has connections to the Kendall area. He was born to Raymond and Lydia Neitzel and baptized at St. John’s in 1955. His family left the area for Kenosha in the late 1950s, when the creamery closed.
He served for 24 years as the director of public works for Brown Deer, Wis., before embarking on his second career in the ministry.
In May, Neitzel graduated from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in Mequon, Wis., and was assigned to St. John’s and St. Matthew’s.