ABOVE: Dr. Timothy Hamp stands outside his office at 1125 Spruce Street in Fairmont. Hamp just marked 40 years of practicing in Fairmont.

FAIRMONT – With Labor Day weekend celebrating the contributions of workers, one Fairmont citizen had a little extra to celebrate.

Timothy Hamp first came to Fairmont Labor Day weekend 1985, meeting with then-current Chiropractor Bjorn Lund. Hamp took over the practice for a few weeks while Lund tended to his ailing mother, and he has practiced in Fairmont ever since.

Austin was Hamp’s original home, followed by undergrad schooling in Sioux City, Iowa, four years of classes at the Northwestern College of Chiropractic in St. Paul, and two years of work in Sioux City. After not making enough to make ends meet, Hamp said circumstances drove him elsewhere.

“At that point in time, I could not do acupuncture in Iowa [even though] I was certified to do that,” he said. “I looked north to Minnesota, where we could do so then.”

With the aforementioned meeting with Bjorn Lund, Hamp set up shop at 303 East Blue Earth Avenue and bought the practice from Lund in May 1986. When he came to Minnesota, Hamp said he was more welcomed than he had been elsewhere, especially by the farm community.

When he started out, Hamp said he did everything.

“The practice was very simple,” he said. “I would answer the telephone, set the appointments, treat the patients, and collect the money. When I was working on a patient, if the phone rang, I would answer it once and take the call. If it rang a second time while I was treating a patient, I just let it ring. I thought, ‘Well, I’m not going to get interrupted more than once with this patient.'”

This lasted for around two months before he hired someone to help with the insurance work. For the first eight months, Hamp was still his own receptionist.

His first office, where he practiced for 28 years, was located in his home. Hamp’s office was downstairs, and he lived upstairs. He would not move into his current office at 1125 Spruce Street until 2013.

While Hamp said he has never worked a day in his life because he loves what he does, living in the same space as his occupation did have one drawback.

“The big difference between living where I work and living away from where I work was the 13 stairs between the first and the second floor,” Hamp said. “Sometimes it’s not a long enough travel time to make a mental break between work and home or family. Now my 10-minute drive home is the big difference between the two.”

One of the most significant experiences Hamp recalled from his career was attending a week-long international alternative healthcare congress in Cuba in 1990. At the time, he had been taking acupuncture classes from Dr. Richard Yennie in Kansas City.

“They were very interested in this,” Hamp said. “Knowing it’s over 4,000 years old, the art and the practice of acupuncture, they were there with open ears the whole time.”

Being in Fairmont for 40 years has provided Hamp with what he said is his home.

“I very much enjoy the community of Fairmont,” he said. “I met my wife and raised my children here in Fairmont.”

To this day, Hamp said he has seen over 10,000 different patients. Even so, he still sees the first patient he ever worked with.

Ever since he graduated, Hamp said his goal was to continue being a chiropractor until he was 85. At 69 years of age, he said he only has 16 years to go.

“It brings me great joy to come to work every day,” Hamp said. “I feel great and many rewards from helping people. As long as the good Lord allows me to do this, that’s my plan. Certainly, as the years progress, I may work fewer hours, and maybe my wife and I may take a trip or two.”

For anyone interested in chiropractic work, Hamp said he had a few words of wisdom.

“Study hard and chase the dream,” he said.