They are selfless… They are compassionate… They are generous… They are devoted… They are forward thinking… They are humble…

They know the difference between right and wrong and act on instinct.

They are willing to exhaust the limits of their capabilities without being asked.

They are the wealthy and the working class.

They often serve on the frontlines where help is needed most, but seldom receive the credit they deserve.

They are willing to take personal risks for the betterment of the community.

They are unwavering in their commitment year-round, not just during the holidays.

They understand that serving a higher calling is to serve the community in which they live.

They are Cityview’s 2006 class of People Making A Difference. And though they come from varied backgrounds and serve different causes — all have in common the goal of making Central Iowa a better place to live, work and play.

For that, we thank them. And you should, too.

John and Barbara Long
Volunteers,
Eddie Davis Community Center

To the children who frequent the Eddie Davis Community Center in West Des Moines John and Barbara Long are affectionately known as “grandpa” and “grandma,” always able — somehow — to find a toy or help with a problem. To the adults, they’re friendly volunteers more than willing to lend a hand and not ask questions. And to those who work behind the scenes, they’re the Center’s patriarch and matriarch — setting an example for others to follow.

“They’re good people,” says Ralph Pantoga, who owns Valley Realty and is a donor to the Center. “Very positive, very upbeat.”

Whether they’re participating in planning meetings, collecting donations from area businesses and residents, sweeping the floors or serving free meals, the Longs are an integral part of the day-to-day success of the Eddie Davis Community Center, 1312 Maple St., which opened in 2000. The longtime West Des Moines couple lives just a few blocks from the Center — which houses the Mae E. Davis Free Medical Clinic [named after John’s mother] and other free services including a computer lab, kitchen, clothing closet and food pantry. They spend at least eight hours a day, six days a week [they worship there on Sundays, too, where their son is the minister] helping the needy.

“This is a labor of love. I like helping people,” says John Long, 73, who retired after 34 years of service with the Monarch Cement Co. and with the help of his son-in-law, did the backbreaking work of renovating the building where the Center now stands. “Sometimes people give me a hug or they cry and it makes you tear up knowing how much they appreciate it.”

Barbara Long, 75, has been an advocate for the homeless and working poor since the 1960s. She served as director of the Human Services Center from 1969 to 1979 and has worked with the Church Opportunity Group that assists the Center and serves on the Center’s board of directors.

“It’s rewarding to me having been there myself,” she says. “John and I have always worked but we’ve seen times when we could have used some help, too.

“That’s why we do what we can to make people feel welcome when they come here. We know they appreciate the little things.”

Vivian Jordan, another volunteer, says without them there might not have been a Center.

“The Long family has always seen a need in this area,” she says. “As long as this family exists there will always be services.”

— Michael Swanger

Danielle Wirth
Environmental ethics professor,
DMACC and Iowa State University

Cityview first met Danielle Wirth in August, when we interviewed her for a story about the impact all-terrain vehicles have on Iowa’s protected habitat (“Tired of the tread,” Aug. 3). Wirth was fighting to keep ATV riders off prairie land she was restoring with the help of some of her college students.

While Wirth continues to argue with ATV riders at public trail hearings, she also continues to restore and preserve the state’s prairie land and is nurturing the next generation of Iowa’s environmental leaders.

“I’m on a mission,” says Wirth, an environmental ethics professor at Des Moines Area Community College and Iowa State University. “I am not interested in shallow environmental education.”

She involves her students directly in improving the state’s environment with a “prairie restoration” class she teaches twice a year — along with five other environmental education courses — at DMACC.

She started the restoration class three years ago. Since then, Wirth and her students have restored prairie land in Dallas, Boone and Polk counties. Last year, Wirth, her students and volunteers logged 450 hours of restoration work.

To start the process, “we do an inventory of what species are there, and we remove the invasive species,” she says. Other times, they burn the land to rejuvenate the original species, says Wirth, 53. “There’s enough memory in the landscape to respond,” she says. “Fire, fire, fire that’s what this landscape is all about.”

And it’s working.

“We can see the results on these little prairie remnants we’re working on,” says Wirth, who is helped in the restoration work by 12 students a semester.

Marlene Ehresman, a wildlife specialist at the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, calls Mirth, who she’s known for two decades, one of Iowa’s “premier educators.

“She’s trying to train tomorrow’s generation of environmental leaders,” Ehresman says. “She puts her soul into it.”

Wirth has an outsider’s perspective on the Midwest. She was raised in Bucks County, Penn. — a wooded area north of Philadelphia. She moved to Iowa with her husband in 1978.

“There’s more of a utilitarian use of the landscape” here in the Midwest, she says. “More than 98 percent of Iowa’s surface lands have been transformed,” by agriculture, urban sprawl or road construction.

Still, Wirth says she has no plans to move back to the East Coast. “I’ve adjusted to this region.”

Ehresman says that Wirth is more expressive than a typical Midwesterner.

“She’s true to her convictions and she speaks those convictions,” Ehresman says. “It grates some people, but it never ceases to make people think and help them come to some wise decisions.”

Before going getting her Ph.D at Iowa State in 1996, Wirth was a Park Ranger at Saylorville Lake national park.

“Maybe that’s why I’m a little more strident protecting things,” Wirth says. Adding, “law enforcement skills are very helpful: I have no discipline problems in class.”

— Sean J. Miller

Scott Stilwell
Coordinator,
Lighthouse Coffeehouse

The success of Des Moines’ live music scene is dependent on the entrepreneurial spirit of promoters and venue operators like Lighthouse Coffeehouse coordinator and co-founder Scott Stilwell — independent risk takers who pour their hearts and souls into presenting quality concerts in hopes of enriching this city’s cultural offerings in spite of overwhelming obstacles and great personal expense. Then again, to know Stilwell is to understand that he would blush at such a compliment.

For the past six years, the Lighthouse has been a bright spot for folk music fans thanks to Stilwell. Like a handful of others in Des Moines who book live music for niche audiences, the 42-year-old singer-songwriter launched the popular coffeehouse series at the West Des Moines Christian Church to preserve the music he loves, and it shows in his work. Over the years, Stilwell has become one of the city’s best and most likable promoters [even though he refuses to call himself one] while making the Lighthouse a destination venue for respected national artists like John Gorka, Lucy Kaplansky and Alice Peacock. What’s more, he’s done so by word of mouth — no thanks to major media outlets in town — with a staff of volunteers [including his wife, Sharon] and proved that a smoke- and alcohol-free secular music series [just like those back East] can thrive in a church.

“I don’t think there is an equivalent concert series in the country,” singer Susan Werner told Cityview last year. “What Scott’s doing takes real nerve, and I think it’s great he has the support of the church to do it.”
Eric Yarwood, who served for six years as director of the Maintenance Shop in Ames, and who now works at Creighton University in Omaha, says he admires Stilwell’s tireless devotion to the series as well as his professionalism.

“It’s exhausting work, especially when you’re a one-person crew doing all the behind-the-scenes stuff and creating a series from scratch. It requires a lot of elbow grease,” Yarwood says. “But he knows his stuff. He gets big names and good crowds. Just from being the genuine person that he is, he’s gained the respect of the industry.”

Stilwell recently told Cityview that 2007 is the Lighthouse’s seventh and final season, adding he has appreciated the opportunity to present his favorite music to like-minded fans.

“It was a sweet ride, and there are no bad memories,” he says. “We built this place so everyone would feel welcome. We didn’t fit into ‘the scene,’ but we made it on our own and built our own following. We created something other than music; it’s like family. I want fans to look back at the Lighthouse with great fondness and be glad they participated.”

Yarwood says fans not only will do that, they’ll notice a void when Stilwell turns the lights out at the West Des Moines venue.

“He filled a need in the community,” he says. “People will notice when it’s gone.” — Michael Swanger

Ken Auge and Colleen Kelly
STAR 102.5 radiothon DJs,
Children’s Miracle Network

For Ken Auge and Colleen Kelly — better known to early risers as Big Ken and Colleen — the morning team on STAR 102.5 KSTZ, helping Iowa’s critically ill children has become as much a part of their routine as dishing out the Hollywood dirt to commuters.

For the past seven years, Auge and Kelly have helped raise about $1.7 million for the Children’s Hospital of Iowa at University of Iowa Hospitals in Iowa City through STAR’s annual radiothon, which benefits the Children’s Miracle Network, a charity that raises funds for children’s hospitals across the country.

The 72-hour radiothon happens each May, during which Auge and Kelly stretch their usual four-hour show into twelve for each of the radiothon’s three days. Beyond encouraging listeners to contribute, Auge and Kelly share the airwaves with children and their families, who tell often heartbreaking, but always inspiring, stories of their fight against illness while in the care of Children’s Hospital staff.

“Ken and I get all the credit,” says Kelly, “but all we do is provide a medium for families to share their experiences, and why it is important to support the Children’s Miracle Network.”

That medium has helped collect much-needed funds that, according to Lisa Baum, a director at Children’s Miracle Network, help patients continue to live a normal life while facing incredible adversity.
“I’m proud of Ken and Colleen for their help in making it possible for our kids to just be kids,” says Baum.

Money raised through the radiothon has helped create and maintain the hospital’s Teen Lounge, a teens-only space that allows patients to create a welcoming and supportive community.

“Kids sometimes think they are the only sick kids in the world,” says Baum. “But in the Teen Lounge, they meet others who are bald, or who use an oxygen tank, and this helps put their illness in perspective.”

Auge and Kelly’s work has also directly benefited the hospital’s Child Life program, which has been able to expand because of money raised through the STAR radiothon. The Child Life program pairs patients with specialists who help minimize the pain and discomfort they might feel while undergoing a stressful or frightening treatment.

Baum is quick to point out that beyond funding programs, Auge and Kelly contribute to an essential element in a family’s healing process: storytelling.

“Ken and Colleen do a wonderful job of introducing patient’s stories in a respectful way,” Baum says. “Families share their stories to reach out to others living through similar situations. Telling stories, introducing listeners to these heroes — our patients — can be an emotional job, but a labor of love.” — Andrew Brink

Susan and Carl Voss
Volunteers, East Village activists

Susan and Carl Voss are two loyal Des Moines residents who helped trigger the urban revitalization of the East Village. In 1999, the couple of 22 years were living across from the Des Moines Arts Center on Grand Avenue when they decided they wanted a “a new living experience,” Susan says.

“Our kids had gone off to college, our dog had died and we didn’t want to do yard work anymore,” she says.

The couple bought a 118-year-old building — which in previous incarnations had been everything from a butcher shop to a women’s clothing store — on East 5th Street in 2000, and converted it into a modern, two-story loft.

“We were early pioneers,” says Susan, 51. “I think the fact that we were willing to take a risk in a neighborhood that was really underdeveloped — people saw the possibilities of living downtown.”

More importantly, many people saw the possibilities from the inside of the Voss’ 3,200-square foot loft. The couple has hosted numerous fundraisers over the years, raising money for organizations that represent their passions.

Susan loves to sing — she regularly belts out the national anthem at Iowa Cubs home games. While she was serving as president of the Civic Music Association in 2002-2003, Susan started the Moveable Feast as a way to raise money for the association and bring visitors downtown.

“We were trying to expose people to the area through art,” says Susan, Iowa’s Insurance Commissioner. “I’m not afraid to have people come through and show it’s possible to live downtown.”

The event, wherein area businesses and residents invite the public to tour their property, has become an East Village fall tradition.

Susan’s passion for the arts is complemented by Carl’s passions for exercise and the outdoors.

In 2005, as chairman of the Trails and Greenways Advisory Committee, Carl was instrumental in having bike racks installed on city buses. The racks have subsequently become the friend of many city cyclists.

The city recorded almost 2,000 riders a month boarding buses with bikes this summer, Carl says. “That’s just awesome.”

After the Metro Transit Authority became bike friendly, Carl — whose day job is editor of a quarterly publication of the American Association of Woodturners — turned his attention to the East Village.

“We got 16 bike racks installed as public art in 2005-2006,” he says. Now, the advisory committee is looking at installing up to 200 regular bike racks downtown.

Carl, 56, has also pushed the city to develop its trail system.

“I’m very interested in seeing that more trails connect,” he says.

The couple says they are committed to seeing their neighborhood and their city continue to grow.
“We both love Des Moines,” Carl says.

— Sean J. Miller

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