 Darrell Brand, a now retired long-time teacher, administrator and coach, does the traditional breakdown routine during Braves Night activities. Being a community journalist, I sometimes find myself in odd predicaments.
That was the case last week at Braves Night at Montezuma High School. Braves Night is a pep rally and crowning of the Hometown King and Queen held at MHS on the Thursday of Homecoming week. Part of the festivities include the Breakdown routine hosted by Darrell Brand, a now retired long-time teacher, administrator and coach at Montezuma. The Breakdown has been a part of homecoming at Montezuma for long before I came on the scene. Brand, who is in his 80s, still has the moves and quite a vertical leap. When I first came to Montezuma, Brand wore a ballcap backwards and a pair of plastic glasses with an extra big nose while doing the routine. He did away with the garb several years ago, said his wife, Sherma, tossed it in the trash. Brand bends over, claps his hands and jumps around while he chants “breakdown” along with the players and crowd, doing so several times. He ends the routine with “breakdown” to silence, or an attempt at silence. In some cases, when the athletes and crowd miss it, he starts over. It’s fun and makes for great pictures. Before the breakdown routine started that evening, I was seated in the middle of the gym on the south bleachers. In front of me was a mat used by the cheerleaders. Behind the mat were 10 chairs in sets of two spaced evenly apart for the 10 members (five couples) of the homecoming court. Further back was a podium and then seated on the north bleachers were the football, volleyball and cross country teams. I’m thinking that Brand is going to do the breakdown routine on the mat in front of me. I was wrong, he set up camp behind the homecoming court. I got up from my somewhat obscure seat and made my way to where the homecoming court was to get a better view and photo of Brand and his breakdown routine. I bumped into one of the queen candidates, apologizing for my misstep. “No problem J.O.,” the young lady said. Even Brand was smiling at me as I fumbled around trying to get the best position for a good picture. And of course I was standing in the middle of the gym for everyone to see. I did Ok. I got a couple good shots and that is what I was after. I only need one for the paper and I got it. I’ve walked in front of people at concerts, plays, ballgames and graduations for years. I walk alongside parades and get close to the floats to take the best pictures. That gives me the opportunity to get better crowd shots. At volleyball and basketball games, I roam all around the outside of the court. I do the same on the football sidelines, always keeping my eye on the ball just in case a player is headed my way. There’s nothing worse than to get one’s lights knocked out by a football player running zero to 60. That happened to me at Montezuma football game at Wapello my first year in town in September 2000. I got hit twice in the first half and broke my camera lens and flash into two pieces. I had a bruise on my stomach as big as a watermelon. I have had some closes calls in the years since, but thankful I’ve not been run over or knocked down. When I see a player running toward me carrying a football, I go the other way. I was at Star Lanes the other day ordering a couple cheeseburgers for Debbie an I. While waiting, I struck up a conversation with a young lady and her two boys who were there bowling. She commented on my work saying, “When I see you come in the door, I know we are going to get some good photos.” These were really kind words that touched my heart. I’ve always said that my backside has been in a lot of momma’s photos. I’m also positive that a lot of my photos and stories have been on a lot of momma’s refrigerators and scrapbooks. What a ride this newspaper venture has and continues to be. I love community journalism and I am always ready for the next good photo or digging out the next feature. Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day and always.
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 Photojournalist and author Dave LaBelle, left, checks out the Iowa State Fair photo book while J.O. and Debbie Parker look on during the 2023 All-Iowa Writers’ Conference held on Saturday, Sept. 16 in Montezuma. The Parkers, who host the writing conference, donated the State Fair and Midwest Old Threshers Reunion books they published to LaBelle. J.O. first learned of LaBelle and his work as a student in the 1990s at the University of Missouri-Columbia. It was the spring of 2010.
I stepped into the house after a long day at the Poweshiek County CR and Debbie, who was seated in the living room, said, “I want to hold a writers’ conference.” “And I want to invited Donald Harstad to speak,” she added. Harstad of Elkader is a 26-year veteran sheriff’s deputy in Clayton County turned author. He wrote his first novel, “Eleven Days” in the late 1990s, which became a New York Times Bestseller. He went on to write several other novels including: “A Long December,” “Code 61,” “The Big Thaw,” “Known Dead,” and November Rain.” I didn’t know anything about hosting a writers’ conference, so I was a bit leery at first, but encouraged Debbie to reach out to Harstad. She found an email and wrote him that evening. He wrote back at 3 a.m. and said he’d love to come speak at our first conference. Shirley Damsgaard was there that first year as was Tamera Jones, Alan Loots, Mike Manno and others. We’ve had a crime lab employee speak at our conference one year, and a Grinnell Police officer spoke of police duties and dealing with crime. Our third year, we had Larry Weeks with Brownells come and talk about gun identification. He said some authors write about crime and don’t know a thing about guns. It was an educational presentation. We’ve had nationally known authors, editors, illustrators, historical fiction, romance, crime, Christian and children’s authors. There are far too many to name. And one year we received a grant to bring national best seller Laura McHugh to Montezuma. We also enjoyed a presentation by Darcy Dougherty Maulsby, an agriculture journalist and author of a number of Iowa books, including “The Lincoln Highway in Iowa,” “Classic Restaurants of Des Moines” and “Iowa Agriculture: A History of Farming, Family and Food. The first nine years we held the conference in the Montezuma School, Memorial Hall and Community Hope Church before moving it to Grinnell for one year in 2019. Then Covid hit and the writers’ conference came to a grinding halt for three years. But thanks to Debbie’s persistence, we brought it back this year. She spends from four to six months finding authors to speak each year. She receives a lot more “no’s” than “yeses.” And what a great lineup we had this year for the conference held on Saturday, Sept. 16 at Community Hope Church. They included Crystal Ferry, aka Stella Bixby of Montezuma, Laura Snider, a lawyer an author; Iowa State University Professor Kevin Kimle and his wife, Patti, who gave a moving narrative on the Underground Railroad in connection with their book, “The Only Free Road.” Also speaking was Joseph LaValley, who has seven books based on fictional newspaper editor Tony Harrington. And Adrianne Finlay, an English professor at the University of Northern Iowa spoke about the writing process and shared about her books. And lastly, a royal treat was Dave LaBelle, who calls Dyersville home. LaBelle is one of my favorite photographers and is the author of “The Great Picture Hunt,” and The Great Picture Hunt 2,” “I don’t want to know all the technical stuff..I just want to shoot pictures,” and “Lessons in Death and Life” His most recent book, “Bridges and Angles: The story of Ruth,” is a novel based on his mother, who was swept away in California flood in the 1960s when LaBelle was a senior in high school. I first learned about LaBelle as a photojournalism student at the University of Missouri. I have followed his work for years and have all of his books. When I learned that he had moved to Iowa, I reached out to LaBelle earlier this summer via Facebook and he agreed to come speak. I was on Cloud 9 all day as I shared my story with him and donated our books on the Iowa State Fair and the Midwest Old Threshers Reunion. LaBelle spent his time not only telling his life story, but talking about how words and pictures go hand-in-hand. He closed his presentation by encouraging the conference attendees to find their purpose in life and make the best of what is in front of them. We all have dreams and purpose. Today is the day to make a step to see those dreams come to pass. Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day and always. I don’t know what made me think about it, but somehow my mind strayed to back in the day when my folks and I would visit the bright red painted Country Store in East Tulsa.
You could buy about anything country there from clothing to seeds, plants, trees, garden tools and much more. They catered mostly to farmers (or city slickers trying their hand at farming) and those living in the rural setting. And there were actual people who worked there and knew the business and helped customers. There were no self-checkouts or bag your own items. Stores like that are few and far between these days. Most have been replaced with large box stores that sell lumber, paint, seed and toilet seats. Around Poweshiek County, Halls Feed and Seed in Brooklyn would come close in service and sales to what I remember at the Country Store. It’s not as big, but it’s packed with about anything you need for country living. The last I knew, the Country Store, which celebrated 50-years in business in 2005, closed its doors in 2007. A quick search of the Internet didn’t net much on the long-time business. My parents and another family from the First Baptist Church in downtown Tulsa joined forces in the late 1960s and planted a huge garden on a spot of land in East Tulsa, a mile or two from the Country Store. They grew everything including watermelon, cantaloupe, corn, green beans, tomatoes, lettuce, okra (a southern favorite), peas, onions and much more. My parents bought a roto-tiller from Montgomery Ward, another business that has bit the dust, in the late 60s. My dad loaded it in his 1967 Chevrolet C-10 pickup after work at the factory and hauled it to the farm to till the earth. I remember sitting in my dad’s truck and listening to the AM push button radio. I didn’t listen long as I was afraid I would run the battery down. On hot summer days, the other family’s two boys, Mark and Gary, and I would spend time roaming the area and shooting off bottle rockets and firecrackers on the Fourth of July. One year, we got a load of gypsum used for fertilizer. The boys used their craftiness to carve out two monsters in boxes with the gypsum. I thought it was cool. And it was on the road next to the garden that I first drove my dad’s pickup. He’d push in the clutch and I would shift the gears and steer the truck. I grew up one half-mile from Route 66. In fact, I walked or rode my bicycle one block on Route 66 when delivering the morning Tulsa World newspapers each day. My mom and I started throwing the Tulsa World on Sept. 1, 1972. That first day, she had to leave me to go home and get my dad off to work. Later on, he learned to get ready to pack his lunch and leave for work on his own. Sounds familiar as Debbie gets me going in the mornings and packs my lunch. I threw newspapers with my mom for almost five years, quitting on July 31, 1977, just a month before my senior year in high school. I used the money I made to buy school clothes and at least five bicycles, three of which were Schwinn Stingrays. My dad also helped with the newspaper business and we were once featured in one of the Tulsa papers about the family who throws papers together, stays together. My dad and mom always grew a small garden at my boyhood home each summer. My dad loved wilted lettuce salads and fresh onions from the garden. My mom would heat up the bacon grease and pour it over the lettuce. My dad also mowed yards around our neighborhood, a business that he took over from my grandfather on my mom’s side of the family. I took the yard business over from my dad and mowed many yards in the neighborhood in the 1980s. Living on my block was in some ways like living in a small town. We knew all our neighbors and would check in them. I always enjoyed visiting with the Belknaps on the north and playing dominos with Mr. Bell, as I called him. I got my first camera, an Argus Twin-Lens Reflex camera, from the neighbors to the south, the Watsons. It was their son’s camera and I still have it to this day. And it still works. I’m thankful that my parents were involved in my life and that of my brother. We had a close net family who ate together, did things together, worked together and prayed together. They both grew up in the sticks in the country and they knew the value of hard work and doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. I will always be thankful for their impact on my life, for carrying me to church, teaching me the Good Book, loving me and providing lots of memories. Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day and always. Debbie and I welcomed home a new puppy during the Labor Day weekend.
His name is Boomer and he is a Great Pyrenees Border Collie mix that we purchased from a breeder in Fayette, Mo., Mark and Rosemarie Adams. I first met Rosemarie 20-years ago at the Missouri Photo Workshop held in Louisiana, Mo., a town of 3,000 plus along the Mississippi River. We’ve been Facebook friends for a number year and I have sent her a message or two, but it wasn’t until late June this year that I saw post on her Facebook page offering Boomer and four other puppies from the same liter. We reached out to Rosemarie and got the ball rolling on welcoming Boomer into our home. We came up with the name and shared it with Rosemarie and she started using it when calling the little fellow. We happen to have a cat named Sooner, so we know own Boomer Sooner. Rosemarie and her husband, Mark, who recently retired after a 35-year career as a crane operator, had wanted to attend the Midwest Old Threshers Reunion in Mount Pleasant. So the couple made the three plus hour journey from Fayette to Mount Pleasant to bring Boomer to us. We met them at the Mount Pleasant Wal-Mart. Boomer is such a loveable fur ball and we are glad to have him in our lives. Debbie and I along with our family have been attending the Old Threshers Reunion since 2007, the year that we started working on our second Iowa photobook, “Family Reunion: Midwest Old Threshers,” which was released in August 2008. We worked with the now late Lennis Moore, the CEO of the Old Threshers and Terry McWilliams, who is the current CEO, along with the Old Threshers Board to make the book project possible. They paid for one-half of the printing on the book and in exchange, we gave the Old Threshers 1,000 books to sell. It was a win-win situation for all parties involved. There’s always plenty to see and enjoy at the Old Threshers. It’s a nice way to end the summer and head into the fall. I enjoy antiquing and bought several items this year including a framed print of a farmer hand-picking corn that was being tossed into a horse-drawn wagon. It is unique piece of artwork that reminds me of the time my dad and his brother, Uncle Charley, hand-picked 40-acres of corn after the Verdigris River east of Tulsa got out of its banks, not once, but twice in 1948. The Verdigris is a tributary to the Arkansas River that runs on the west side of Tulsa. “The river knocked the stalks down, but not the ears of corn,” my dad told me. The brothers earned enough money from the sale of that corn for their dad to purchase a used tractor and harrow. Somewhere in my parents things I have the receipt from when that tractor was bought at a dealer in Broken Arrow, Okla. We also checked out the many vendors at Old Threshers. I would like to purchase a new flag pole, but the good ones have hefty price tags. We also rode the electric trolley and steam train, attended the family-friendly dancing girls show at the Old Threshers Saloon and watched a shootout at the train depot, all in the North Village. And a trip to the Midwest Old Threshers Reunion would not be complete without a visit to the First United Methodist Church food tent on the grounds. They have some of the best fried chicken and the state fair award-winning meatloaf, which is the creation of Melinda Huisinga of Mount Pleasant and formerly of Des Moines. Melinda won a blue ribbon with her meatloaf at the state fair in 2017 in a food contest that Debbie and I sponsor through our company, Our Front Porch Books. Life can keep us busy as there are always things to do. If your life seems out of sorts, take time to reflect on the positives, spend time around positive people, maybe get back to a church and change things that are pulling you down and wasting time and not lifting you up. Have a great week and always remember that “Good Things are Happening,” every day and always. |
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