Searsboro residents reflect on town memories, celebration

​        The community of Searsboro, population 129, in southwest Poweshiek County is celebrating 150-years with a parade and other festivities on Saturday, Sept. 12. The parade gets underway at 2 p.m., followed by a car show, carnival games, water games, basketball, food, a dance and fireworks.

By J.O. Parker

       Kim Thon Shutts recently stopped to see her dear friend, Kennetha Smith Criswell.
Shutts and her husband, Rick, had downsized and moved to New Sharon from Searsboro earlier this year and she stopped to catch up on the latest happenings.
       As the two ladies sat in the living room visiting and sipping on a cups of coffee, Criswell, who had moved to New Sharon about 10 years ago, started talking about the upcoming Searsboro 150th town celebration and that triggered memories from back in the day.
      “We had two gas stations, two restaurants and two grocery stores,” recalled Criswell. “One time we had a motel and a bank and a produce store were farmers brought in their cream and eggs. We had movies outdoors in the summertime and outdoor dances.”
       Shutts said after her dad passed away, her mom, Jean Thon, and her sister-in-law, Barbara Meredith, opened up a grocery store and café known as BJs.
      “What was really cool was the train engineers would stop and eat lunch at BJs,” recalled Shutts. “My grandfather, Jim Guthrie, owned one of the gas stations.”
       “My brother-in-law had a pizza place in Searsboro and people came from all over to eat there,” noted Criswell. “His pizza was awesome. And Tuesdays were Taco Night and guests could enjoy softshell tacos.”
         The ladies recalled the big co-op in town and Macy’s Lumber where people came for lumber, cement and coal to heat their homes.
          Criswell said she remembers the town depot and that she’d sometimes take the doodlebug to Grinnell with her mom.
        And Shutts mentioned that in the 1970s, there was hangout for the kids called the Pink Panther.
        “Our teacher, Linda Vogt, painted panthers on the wall,” she said. “The building is still there.”
Criswell said as a kid, she delivered the Des Moines evening Tribune in town and the Register on Sundays.
           “A lot people had outhouses and I had to use them on my paper route,” Criswell said with a chuckle.
        She remembers the 500 card club in town, saying “there were 12 of us that belonged to that.”
        “My great grandfather, Robert Gregson, was sheriff in the Poweshiek County years ago,” recalled Criswell.
         Criswell was born in Grand Prairie, Texas and raised in Searsboro where she graduated from the high school with the Class of 1960.
          There were eight graduates in that class, the last at the school before it consolidated with Lynnville-Sully in 1961. The school building remained in use as a junior high through the early 1980s, but in the more than 40 years since, the building has fallen in disarray.
        “I remember the marble staircases on both ends of the old two story building with the kitchen and gym in the basement, “ she said of the school on the north edge of town.
       When Criswell was in high school at Searsboro, the only sports available were baseball, softball and basketball.
          “We didn’t have a football team,” she remembers.
          “ I loved school,” she went on to say “We were free spirits.”
         “I went to seventh and eighth grade there in Searsboro and graduated from Lynnville Sully in 1977,” said Shutts. “It was a great schoolhouse. It’s just sad that it has died out. Just changing times. They call that progress.”
Searsboro 150th Celebration
         The Searsboro 150th Celebration is slated for Saturday, Sept. 12. The parade gets underway at 2 p.m. with staging of floats by the old schoolhouse.
        Other activities from 3 – 7 p.m. include: water games at the fire station, carnival games on the basketball court, bounce houses at the Searsboro Telephone Building and a Car Show on Railroad Street.
       Food trucks will also be available from 3 – 7 p.m., including Fire on Wheels Pizza, Katie’s Donuts, Paparoni’s, Road Trip Coffee and Suikerspin Cotton Candy. And from 2 – 10 p.m., Old Fashioned spirits will be available.
        At 4 p.m. the fire station is hosting a cornhole tournament. A Street Dance with Paul Michael Davis Band, on Main Street gets underway at 7 p.m., followed by fireworks from 9 – 10 p.m.
More Searsboro memories
     Criswell had three boys with her late husband, Jerry, who originally hailed from Malcom where he graduated high school in 1958. The couple met and were married at the Friends Church in Searsboro in 1961.
       Jerry died at 1970 at age of 30 due to a heart condition while the family lived in Ruthven near Spencer in Northwest Iowa.
     He coached basketball and taught physical education at Ruthven and was preparing to assume the spring track coaching program before passing away. And prior to Ruthven, Jerry coached and taught at Twin Cedars in Bussey for three years.
       At the time of his death, the couple had three children, Greg, Jeff and Tim, who were all under age 10 at the time of their dad’s passing.
        After Jerry passed away, Criswell returned to Searsboro and worked at Grinnell Mutual for 35 years before retiring.
         Greg is a 1981 graduate of Lynnville-Sully and Jeff graduated in 1982. Tim graduated in 1986 and has enjoyed a long career in sales. The two oldest boys attended and graduated from Graceland in Lamoni. 
        Greg taught physical education and coached girls’ basketball at Montezuma in the 1990s. He then went on to earn his masters at UNI and served as principal with the Winterset Community Schools. Jeff had a long career as an offensive lineman in the NFL. He played eight years for the New York Jets and four years with the Kansas City Chief before retiring.
      Some years ago, there were signs on the north and south entrances to Searsboro announcing that the town was home to Jeff Criswell, a member of the Kansas City Chiefs.
       “I don’t know what happened to those signs,” said Criswell.
       Criswell has six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
      Shutts, who has two children and eight grandchildren, recalls spending the summer months with her friends playing hide and seek.
     “The railroad tracks and the school were the borders and downtown was base,” recalled Shutts. “Sometimes, we would hide in the elevator until our parents found out and forbid us to do that again.”
        During the winter months, the town kids utilized the hills on the edge of town for sledding.
       “At the time, there was a lot of kids in town and it was great sledding with all the them and sometimes the adults would join us,” said Shutts. “When I became an adult, I still sledded down the hill, only with my kids. A few years later, I had the privilege to sled with my grandchildren.”
         She also remembers all the town Christmas gatherings in Searsboro.
       “We had luminaries that we put out and we served hamburgers, soups and held a bake sale,” recalled Criswell. “And Santa Claus showed up, too.”
Criswell said every year the Searsboro alumni still get together.
        “A couple years ago, we had about 50 of us, some in their 90s,” Criswell said of the reunion. “They (the alumni) still come for luncheons at Seeland Park in Grinnell.”
       Shutts said she and her husband have been members of the fire department and that she and the now late, Diana McVay, where the first women in the county to join a fire department in 1983.
      Shutts and her husband have both sat on the Searsboro City Council and have held the mayor’s position at different times.
         “When you are from a small community, you have to take you civic duty turn,” said Shutts.
       “Searboro was a great place to grow up and raise my kids,” she added. “And my heart will always belong to the town.”