The Ride of a Lifetime: Diane Worm’s 40 Years at Valleyfair

The average amount of time an employee spends with a single employer in the United States averages around 4 years, but when I sat down with Diane Worm to talk about her time at Valleyfair, it didn’t sound like someone who was itching for the next best thing. It sounded like the story of someone who made real connections, embraced the good and bad that comes with any job, and found a work family in the business of fun. That is the beauty of Diane’s story. It isn’t your typical work experience. The story of Diane Worm’s time at Valleyfair is an outlier.

Let’s Get to Work

Diane Worm spent the early days of her career like many ambitious new employees, bouncing around from job to job, but never staying anywhere for more than a year. She was a woman on a mission to find her calling. She was on her journey looking for something bigger and better than the initial full-time roles she had fallen upon.

As Diane was working for a variety of different business around the Minneapolis area, she became proficient at word processing. “I worked in a department where we did all the typing for the entire company,” Diane recalls, “I wanted to find a new job and I knew that word processing was a great skill.”

She pondered to herself how she could find a company to work for that had these word processing machines. Diane wrote “a real live handwritten letter” to CPT Corporation telling them that she was looking for a new job and that she wanted to continue working their machines and advancing her word processing skills. She asked CPT for a list of companies that had their equipment so she would know where to start searching, but she never heard anything back.

Feeling slightly defeated, Diane continued with her current work and put her search for a new position on pause. “One day out of the blue, I got a call from a woman at Valleyfair named Denise,” Diane said, “she said 'we just purchased a CPT word processer, and our sales rep gave me your letter. Would you be interested in coming in for an interview?"” Diane recalls with excitement, “I answered her right away. Yes, I would!” Diane started at Valleyfair in 1982.

The Early Days at Valleyfair

Diane started by typing every single SOP (standard operating procedure) at Valleyfair. “I typed for everyone. Every single department. Every single ride. Every single food building. Every single job,” Diane said, “They would put piles and piles of documents on my desk, and I would type it all. I loved it.”  

Diane’s first role at Valleyfair was Operations Secretary, but then Denise, the Administrative Assistant who initially called Diane about her job at Valleyfair, was going to be leaving the park. Denise was going to train Diane to help in that role while they looked to hire someone new.

“Wait a second. I have to learn this role to train a new person and that person will be making more money than me?” Diane didn’t like the sound of that, so she applied for the Administrative Assistant role. “I remember our General Manager, Dick Kinzel, said ‘geez Diane we have been waiting for you to apply!’”

As general managers changed, so did the day-to-day responsibilities of her role. Diane worked for seven General Managers during her time at Valleyfair: Dick Kinzel, Walt Wittmer, Larry MacKenzie, Alan Schwartz, Dave Frazier, Brad Marcy, and Raul Rehnborg.

Before Cedar Fair was the giant entertainment company that it is today, it was just two parks: Cedar Point and Valleyfair. Diane recalls holding board of directors meetings at Valleyfair and she oversaw making all the arrangements. Diane excelled at shorthand notetaking and was responsible for keeping Valleyfair's directors on track during weekly meetings.

Diane helping out in the park at food stand

Finding the Love under a Mascot Mask

Back before Diane started working at Valleyfair, she was a sixteen-year-old high school student with friends who worked at the park and free tickets that needed to be used before they expired for the season. Diane recalls stepping off the Antique Autos ride where Chocolate Moose and Colonel Ompahpah were waiting to greet guests.

“The mascots kept acting like they knew who we were,” Diane remembers, “I was dating someone at the time who worked at the park, and I thought maybe it could be him under the Colonel Ompahpah mask, so I peeked under the mask to look, and it was a guy I had never seen before.” Diane remembers the mascots asked her and her friends to come back to the break area and hang out.

Diane and her friends came back the next week with more tickets to burn. She was walking past the Corn Cart and remembers hearing a person making coughing noises like you want to grab attention. “I remember looking over at my friend and telling her that was the guy we met last week,” Diane said, “I went over to talk to him. He told me he was getting off work soon and wanted to know if I would still be in the park. He came back and hung out with my friends and I the rest of that night.”

It was after that night in the park that Diane knew it was time to ditch her current boyfriend and give Joe Worm a chance. Diane worked at Kenny’s Drive-In at the time. Joe bugged her friends until they told him where he could find Diane. “He would show up at the drive in while I was working and order his pizza burger and onion rings,” Diane said, “He kept showing up so eventually I had to give him my phone number.”

Diane recalls that it must have been fate because the day she met Joe was the only day he ever dressed up as Colonel Ompahpah. “There he was flirting with guests in the park,” Diane said, “It was meant to be.”

Diane and Joe got married in 1980 when they were both 20 years old.

Diane and her husband, Joe, at her ValleySCARE headstone

It’s a Family Experience

“I can’t tell you how many Sundays we would go to church and then come spend our afternoons in the park,” Diane said, “My kids loved coming to the park and playing in the Bernstein Bears area.”

One of Diane’s favorite memories with her family at Valleyfair took place in Old Time Photos, where guests can still dress up as a scene from the wild west today. Diane took her husband and her two daughters to get their photo taken and once everyone had their outfits it was time for props.

The employee working that day gave Diane’s oldest daughter, Kayla, a decorative fan with flowers on it. That same employee tried to give her youngest, Kristina, a fan as well but Kristina boldly declared, “I don’t want a fan. I want a gun!” The entire family started laughing and they can all recall that memory when looking back on the photo they took that day.

Diane's Family: Kristina, Diane, Joe, Kayla

Diane’s family, especially her daughters, were involved in multiple marketing photoshoots. Her daughters were in one of the most memorable photos from Valleyfair – the introduction of the Mild Thing kid coaster.

The Worm family also had a special 4th of July tradition. Every year they would take their Little Tikes picnic table and put it in the back of their truck. The whole family would pile in and enjoy caramel popcorn while they watched the fireworks. They also took multiple road trips to visit some of Valleyfair’s sister parks including Cedar Point, Knott’s Berry Farm, and Dorney Park.

Diane’s favorite Cedar Fair park to visit was Knott’s Berry Farm. “Joe and Kristina are thrill seekers, so they loved going to Cedar Point to ride all the big roller coasters. There was no way I would have gone on some of those rides,” Diane said.

Diane’s daughters both worked at Valleyfair during the summers. “I got to watch my kids grow up at Valleyfair,” Diane recalls, “And now I am so excited to bring my granddaughter.”

Diane's daughters on the Mild Thing kid coaster

The People Make the Memories

Since Diane started at Valleyfair, the park has hired 369 full-time employees. “I look back and think about all those people I got to meet,” Diane said, “I had so much fun with all of them.” Diane recalls the excitement of Christmas parties and End of the Season parties. If Diane learned one thing from her time at Valleyfair, it’s that the people make the job worth doing.

Diane remembers all the different personalities that she worked with throughout the years and what impresses her most is how well everyone works together. “You really get to know the people that you are working with,” Diane said, “A lot of the time you are at work more than you are at home. When you work with your friends, it makes it fun to go to work.”

Diane loves rides. High Roller is her favorite. Wild Thing is a close second. Diane remembers one night she and her husband were coming home from a friend’s party. Joe looked over at Diane and asked, “Should we stop and ride the Corkscrew?” She laughs with joy as she recalls this memory. “How much fun is that you could just stop and ride roller coasters at any time?” Diane said.

“People will say ‘how can you do the same job for 40 years? But I remind them that because we are a seasonal business, it’s not the same job. I do something different every day. What I am working on in January is not what I am working on in August,” Diane said. She has done so many different things throughout the years and has served so many different roles in the park. “It’s so fun to know that we are creating memories for families,” Diane said.

Today, March 15, 2022, marks exactly 40 years that Diane has worked for Valleyfair. She has been the backbone of our business, and today is her last day with us before she embarks on her newest adventure, retirement. We can not begin to express our gratitude for all the work Diane has done over the years, but mostly we want to thank her for being a beacon of light and support for the entire Valleyfair team and community.

Please join us in congratulating her on retirement and thanking her for her dedication to the park. We don't know what we will do without you!