Don Jensen

Don "Jens" Jensen, 67, of Aberdeen, passed away Thursday, July 27, 2023, at Avera St. Luke's Hospital, Aberdeen.

Funeral Service will be at 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, August 2, 2023, at Fron Lutheran Church near Roslyn, SD and will be livestreamed on Fiksdal Funeral Service Facebook page. Pastor Tim Martin will officiate. Burial will be in the church cemetery.

Visitation will be from 5-7 p.m. on Tuesday, August 1, 2023, at Fiksdal Funeral Service in Webster, SD.

A native of Roslyn, SD and born in Britton (1955), Don graduated from Roslyn High School in 1973. In lieu of university, Don spent four years studying girls and tractor tires before ultimately marrying his wife Jane Robinson in 1978 at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Grenville.  All that studying paid off as Don became a sought after regional specialist in changing large implement tires for nearly 50 years while cranking out four kids. 

As a child, Don had a passion for physics and chemistry while living on the farm.  His younger siblings remember him experimenting with concoctions of Clorox, Ajax, and chlorhexidine. Scientists say he invented 7 new ways to chemically burn his siblings’ skin.  Don’s pivotal research (with his assistant Roger) investigating the use of a common bed sheet as a viable parachute resulted in the first successful survival of a 150-thread count cotton aided leap from a 12 foot barn loft. 

Don had a passion for football.  He is considered the greatest fourth-string linebacker to ever grace the gridiron in northeastern South Dakota.  

A fan of outlaw country artists like Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings, he had a rebellious streak. That rebellion is evident as he grew up in a community of Scandinavians where the high school’s mascot was the Vikings, but chose to dodge decades of suffering as a Minnesota fan by pledging his allegiance to the Green Bay Packers – intoxicated by Vince Lombardi’s legacy of ACTUALLY WINNING FOOTBALL GAMES.   

A formative moment in Don’s life was the Vietnam War.  He watched as his peers were conscripted to service and waited for his time to be called, but the war ended before he came of age. Don felt he had a duty to contribute to the memory of our servicemen by performing “Taps” for local memorials and funerals. The sound of his unwavering trumpet – a symbol of his passion, his joy, and his compassion for those who have also experienced loss – brought so many others comfort and now comforts the ones who loved him.  “Make two trumpets of hammered silver, and use them for calling the community together…” Numbers 10:2

In work and life, Don made a friend everywhere he went.  

Don was predeceased by his father Donald and his maternal and paternal grandparents. He is survived by his wife Jane (Robinson) Jensen, his mother Arlette (Lorensberg) Jensen, his four children Jesse and Melissa (Buck), Lynsey Jensen, Kyle Jensen and Jordan Lewis, Nick Jensen, Stephanie (Reed) Jensen, and his siblings Roger Jensen, Tamie (Chuck *dec. 2/14/2023) Sattler, Roxie and Danny Kjos, and his seven grandchildren Ryan, Prentice, Maddux, Camden, Lincoln,  Brielle, Sullivan, and several nieces and nephews…and his furr-ever buddy, Henry.