Dennis Haugen

Dennis Haugen, age 82, of Sioux Falls, SD, formerly of Clinton, MN, passed away on Friday, December 19, 2025, at Sanford Hospital in Sioux Falls. 

Funeral services will be held on Saturday, December 27, 2025, at 11:00 a.m. at Living Hope Fellowship in Ortonville, MN. Pastor David Homrighausen will officiate. Visitation will be held one hour prior to the service on Saturday. We will depart for burial at Clinton City Cemetery in Clinton, MN, at 1:00 p.m.

The service will be live streamed, recorded, and viewable below this obituary. 

Dennis Irving Haugen was born on August 15, 1943, in Graceville, MN, to Marvin and Doris (Swenson) Haugen and grew up on the family farm in rural Clinton, MN. He graduated from Clinton High School and then attended Concordia College in Moorhead, MN, where he graduated in 1965. He studied theology at Luther Seminary in St. Paul before moving to the Seattle/Tacoma, WA, area.

He purchased a plumbing and excavating company that installed septic systems and did that work for several years in the Tacoma area. He then moved on from that and acquired his real estate license, working for a company selling real estate for many years before his retirement.

He soon became bored with retirement. Thus, he checked out an ad for a dockworker job, also known as longshoreman work, at the ports in Seattle. He loved running equipment and all the fascinating things that went along with this new job; it became a fun adventure for him. It started out as a part-time position since he was in his early sixties and just wanted a little something to keep him occupied. He really enjoyed the work, and it soon turned into a full-time job as he volunteered for all the hours no one else wanted. He stayed there until 2019, when he finally retired. He always had many interesting stories from his time in this occupation.

In the fall of 2019, he purchased a house in Sioux Falls, SD, with a completion date of April 2020, right when COVID hit. This 76-year-old guy refused help with the move because of all the unknowns surrounding COVID at that time, so he rented a moving truck, loaded up his belongings, and moved himself to Sioux Falls.

His move to Sioux Falls was a blessing for his family in the Clinton area. He loved to come and help with work on the farm during planting and harvesting. He had made the trip from Tacoma many times before, but now it would be much easier. Growing up in the 1940s and 1950s on the farm as a boy, he experienced the tail end of an era in which horses were used for farm work. Like many from that generation, it was fascinating to be able to work a quarter of land in a few hours or haul a thousand bushels of corn in one load on a semi. He appreciated seeing how farming had evolved over his lifetime and took pride in being part of both its past and present.

Left to cherish his memory are his siblings: Marcia (Vance) Kemmer of Horace, ND; Karen Miller of Branson, MO; Jean Haugen of Phoenix, AZ; Gary (Mary) Haugen of Clinton, MN; sister-in-law, Ann Haugen of Menagha, MN; and several nieces and nephews.

He was preceded in death by his parents: Marvin and Doris Haugen; brother, Lee Haugen; paternal grandparents: Martin and Fannie Haugen; and maternal grandparents: Melvin and Emma Swenson.

Memorials will be donated to 30 for Freedom, a movement dedicated to ending sex trafficking of women and children in our lifetime.

The service will be livestreamed and recorded and will be viewable at the bottom of this page. Our mission is to deliver the highest quality shared video experience for visitors to our website. However, there may be instances when network issues arise, causing the livestream to be unavailable. In such cases, we are promptly alerted and work to resolve the problem. If we are unable to restore the livestream, a recorded version of the service will be made available for viewing at any time on our website.