James Eitrheim

Born in Baltic, South Dakota in 1933. He was educated at the Willow Creek Country Elementary School and graduated Lyons High School in Minnehaha County, South Dakota in 1951 before serving in the US Navy. He graduated Augustana College in 1958 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Mr. Eitrheim married Diane Johnson in Hamburg, IA and went on to graduate school at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and began teaching English and directing theater at Oak Park River Forest High School in 1959.

Mr. Eitrheim remained at OPRF until 1990, overseeing one of the most respected and productive high school theater programs in Illinois, or anywhere for that matter! Mr. Eitrheim left Oak Park and moved to Brandon, South Dakota in 1990 to teach at the University of Sioux Falls. In 1998, he retired and in 2000 moved to Pequot Lakes, Minnesota. The Eitrheim children (Kris, Karin and Erik) carry on a proud family tradition of devotion to theater performance, production and education!