Trip to Double Ds

Wednesday this week I headed to Dubuque for the League of Cities conference. I helped with a booth to market our section's programs to Iowa communities. A co-worker, Becky Ohrtman, from another section in our bureau staffed the booth with me. Ironically, Becky worked for the Natural Resources Conservation Service - who Paul works for - prior to DNR. So she knows Paul and lots of his buddies. Trash and dirt - they're simpatico.

I took off Wednesday and arrived at the Grand River Center about 1 p.m. The location is great and it was a beautiful day. I took a few minutes to check out the river side of the center - so gorgeous.

I set my stuff up and attended an excellent session by a woman named Rebecca Ryan who runs a consulting firm that helps businesses and communities figure out how to deal with the next generation. Some of the keys she talked about, that community leaders need to consider are things like schools, vitality and health, leadership, night life, commute time (not really a problem in small towns - but for every 10 minutes one commutes, you lose 30 minutes of volunteer time). Rebecca talked about how the different generations deal with these things in different ways.

It's important for those of us that work with the public, because we can't assume that we are reaching everyone just because we print it in the paper or put it on the radio. That might have worked back when I first started working in this biz. Heck I even started a website, but today that's old news...for today's young people. Twitter, apps, Facebook - we need to find new ways to get information to the people. While not forgetting the Boomers who still read the paper.

I got to see some Crestonites that Wednesday evening, as people went by our booth. Of course Jim helped us in our booth. We gave away nifty chip clips with magnets along with information about our programs. Warren Woods - mayor of Creston, along with his lovely wife went by. Later I saw Mike Taylor, City Admin - and my former boss at Gits Manufacturing. That seems like a lifetime ago! Someone else called out my name as I made my way through the crowd - it was Chad Levi, husband of Renee, former St. Malachy teacher. That fam now lives in the Cedar Rapids area. The oldest of their three daughters is a HS frosh!

Becky with Jim

I stayed at the Hotel Julian - (that is Dubuque's first name). It was refurbished - and it gorgeous. I wish I could have stayed longer than 9 hours...but all too soon I was off to Davenport for an audit. Jim helped with that too.

Audit Team with Scott County staffers

It was a good trip - a long couple of days for an old bat like me.