Off The Clock: Robbinsdale Mayor Regan Murphy
When Robbinsdale Mayor Regan Murphy is not hanging out with his wife and three children, he escapes to his special space. That space is part garage, part man cave.
“The bat cave, or the robin cave I should say,” he joked.
There, you’ll find plenty of tools and sports gear. It’s also where broken things get new life.
“It’s kind of fun to tinker,” Murphy said.
The robin cave, as he calls it, is also where the Robbinsdale Mayor gets creative. He carves out works of art with wood. He showed us a wooden cribbage board he built with his tools.
“You can take a simple piece of wood and turn it into something extremely useful,” he said.
“Kind of a Sanford and Son”
The artist learned woodworking while watching his dad. His projects consist of crafting several cornhole boards. His wife, Kris, made the beanbags. Murphy says woodworking and repairing things go hand-in-hand with being mayor.
“I like to get things working again,” Murphy explained. “Whether it’s a city or a broken lawnmower, or a piece of plywood that’s not being used for anything.”
He feels a sense of accomplishment after completing a project.
“Kind of a Sanford and son,” referring to the 1970s sitcom about a junkman with the same name. “I just grab stuff if it looks like I could fix it or somebody can use it.”
Murphy has been Robbinsdale since 2013. He’s also an avid runner and enjoys camping, hunting, fishing and gardening.
