Annette Olson, daughter of Russ and LaVonne Husemoller, was born and raised in Austin, Minnesota and attended Austin Community College before finishing her degree in Marketing and Human Resource Management at Mankato State and later earned a Master’s Degree in Business Administration at St. Mary’s University in Winona.

She met a married Corey Olson, a pretty fair wrestler from Hayfield and Nebraska, and they made their home on the third-generation Olson family farmstead just outside of Grand Meadow. Annette worked in the business office at Mayo while keeping the books for Olson’s Tree Service, the family business.

One night, Corey came home after visiting with Grand Meadow wrestler Dean Swanson and brother Curt, and pitched the idea of a youth wrestling tournament series similar to the Huskerland program he had been involved with while wrestling and coaching at Nebraska, and the NYWA (Northland Youth Wrestling Association) was born. The program has continued to grow with District and Region Qualifiers. The NYWA State Wrestling Tournament currently has 68 weight classes with 1088 wrestlers competing in the State Tournament and an Invitational (overflow) Tournament of over 800. There is also an individual tournament for girls (fourth year) as well team competition tournament for both boys and girls (third year). NYWA memberships were between 3500 and 4000 for a number of years and in the past two years have risen to just over 5300.

When Corey was asked how an undertaking of this size can be managed along with a growing Tree Service Business, he explains, “Annette kind of does it all.” With each passing year, their children (Blake, Brenn, and Isabelle) have taken on more of the workload, and the NYWA is truly a family project that has become bigger and better than Corey and Annette ever imagined.