Oskaloosa, Iowa

Back in 2017, I had the very good fortune of meeting Allison and Andy McGuire, two talented and community-centered theatre-makers from the George Daily Community Auditorium.

Over the years, I've learned multitudes from Allison and Andy about effective and creative project management, out-of-the-box community engagement, and was reminded of just how hard theatre-makers and community arts leaders work. (There are very few nights off.)

The Daily Auditorium’s motto is: Give more than you take. Work together. Make everything count. Share what you can. Lots of little builds an awful lot. Many of us strive for that and few of us get close.

What I’ve heard from many of the folks that I’ve spoken with is how much George Daily has contributed to the sense of belonging in Oskaloosa, through mentorship, fun, and unconditional inclusion.

According to Brant Bollman, puppeteer and Director of Theatre at William Penn University:

“The programs at George Daily have so much built-in social and emotional learning. It's tolerant - kids have ownership and they're welcomed. It's reinforced through theater-based play and games. Everybody learns to work with each other. You just learn to work with people and respect each other's points of view.

And there’s a lot of mentoring. Right now my eight-year-old is being mentored by middle school kids and loves them to death. And those middle school kids were the little kids being mentored by older kids. It’s just this cycle and this very creative culture.”

In September, I witnessed one of the coolest community art events I’ve ever seen: Oskaloosa’s lighted puppet parade, courtesy of William Penn University Theatre Director Brant Bollman; puppeteer and founder of Thingumajig Theatre, Andrew Kim; loads of William Penn students and faculty; the good folks from George Daily Community and FACE (Fine Art and Cultural Events) Mahaska County; and Oskaloosa High School art students.

Students worked for two weeks with Andrew and Brant making puppets, then staged a community-wide puppet parade on the town's recreation trail, complete with a drum line. It was something else.

If the past few years have taught us anything, it's how important gathering is, particularly gathering together to have a good time.

Science actually supports this. We know that when you actively listen to another person's story, you mimic their brainwaves, increasing your capacity for empathy. We know that shared laughter deepens feelings of connection and attachment. We know that goodwill is contagious, and that a kind exchange between two people creates a domino effect that impacts folks neither person ever meets.

That this kind of gathering occurred in Oskaloosa and at William Penn University shouldn’t be a surprise. Penn himself was a Quaker and pacifist, and founder of the Pennsylvania colony. The University was founded by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in 1873.

The first graduate of the then Penn College in 1875 was a woman.

The first African American graduated from Penn in 1902 and, in 1947, the school hired the first African American professor in all of Iowa, a female scientist.

Shocked me, but apparently isn't all that shocking since two of the founding Quaker principles are equality for all and education.

The Mammoth Puppet Parade, in my humble opinion, exemplified both of the principles through the puppet workshop, the deliberate inclusion of participants from across the community, and the joy of the evening.

One of the Oskaloosans I interviewed is Diane Crookham-Johnson, a local attorney and avid bird watcher. Here’s one of her favorite places in the community.

“Maskunky Marsh is 5 miles east of town. It's a really tiny little marsh. You can see the whole thing from your car, from the parking lot. And it's just magical. I think I've seen 208 breeds of birds there. And I don't see everything that's there.

Last summer, we had some yellow-crowned night-heron show up, which typically would not be in Iowa. They might stop here for a couple days to feed and then they'd be off. And in 2021, the marsh was just perfect for them. There were 12 adults and they had at least four eggs that successfully hatched and then the juvenile state until they were big enough to leave in the fall. And it was amazing.

I posted something on Facebook about it and some other birders saw it and word spread. People visited from four states…and 38 counties came to see these birds. They’re a real curious bird. They don't fly away when people show up, and they're easy to see.

And so people would say, "It's a three-hour drive for me. Do you think they'll still be there?" [And I’d say,] ‘Oh, they'll still be there." "Will they fly away when I pull up?" "No, they're going to walk over to you to see what you're doing."

It was really interactive. And it was fun because we were kind of coming out of COVID last summer, and people weren't sure what they could and couldn't do. And we were all outside, so it didn't matter.”

Osky’s Penn Central Mall is unusual, as far as malls go. Located right downtown, it serves as almost an indoor extension of the town square. I had a conversation with Mike Gipple, Penn Central’s Community Coordinator, about how he approaches a small town mall in the 21st century.

He revealed that most of the mall focuses on experiences and community gathering spots, like an arcade, movie theater, several restaurants, axe throwing, and art gallery. Folks gravitate there in the heat and cold to walk, scoot, play games, and hang out. Here’s Mike’s philosophy on discerning new possibilties for the mall:

“We start with the assumption of ‘yes, that will work.’ And then let's prove why it wouldn't.

I think that's a little different than a lot of places. They want to start with a no and then prove why it would work.

I always want to be that other side. I want to be that, ‘yes, yes. Yes. Yes. Let's do it!’

And then we can process slowly and work through the project and say, “oh, you know what, I ran into this stumbling block” versus starting with the stumbling block.

Because when you start with the stumbling block, you don't invite other people in to solve the problem.

When you start with yes, you have a team of people that can help you resolve the situation.”

In 2022, my husband and I visited the Nelson Pioneer Farm in Oskaloosa, Iowa, to check out Celebrating Buxton, a fundraiser to preserve the history of Buxton, a former coal-mining town in Mahaska county.

The afternoon included, among other things, a family-style soul food lunch, gospel choir performance, puppet show, history tour, and old-fashioned baseball game. It was genius.

Why celebrate Buxton? Because it was a predominantly African American community from 1880 to 1920, with nearly 2700 Black Americans and 1990 white Americans and Europeans living there in 1905.

Currently an Iowa ghost town, the Buxton community included Black doctors, lawyers, and business owners (and no police or city council), as well as an integrated YMCA, community pool, and the Buxton Wonders, a winning Iowa baseball team.

The demise of this community, as with many others in southern Iowa, was due to a combination of factors, mainly companies exhausting the local coal supply and a decreased demand for coal.

The community story that inspired Sculpture Workshop….

I interviewed Matt and Sarah Kargol, two local artists and the founders of the Oskaloosa Art Center, about the growth and impact that visual art continues to have in the community. Here’s an excerpt from my interview with Matt:

“Four or five years ago, we started the sculpture tour.

We started talking about it, partly because we were getting some people coming to the Oskaloosa Arts Center, but the majority of people in the community weren't. A lot of people didn't know it even existed.

My thought was, well, then let's put art in front of them. Let's put it where they can't miss it. And so being a sculptor, it only made sense to do a sculpture tour.

The first year, we got ten sculptures. We went to a group in town called the Golden Goose Club, a group of women who, every quarter, each contribute $100, and they pick a project in Oskaloosa to support. We applied, and we got selected the first year. Then we went to the George Daily Trust and got matching grant fund for it. The first year, we didn't even have to ask for sponsors because we had the tour covered.

The Sculpture Tour was new and different, and it challenged people's perceptions of what art should look like. None of the sculptures were controversial in themselves, but they apparently were controversial just because they were different and unexpected.

We sold four of the sculptures that were in the first tour. They're permanent now in Oskaloosa. It's amazing. It's great. It's great for the artists, too. Private businesses bought them, or private citizens and organizations. The library bought one. One was donated to the fire department.

One sculpture’s in a community garden. The animal shelter bought one and then commissioned another one.

And then over time, it's become part of the fabric of Oskaloosa, and people are interested in it. They come to the Art Center wanting pamphlets so they can go do the tour, wanting to know when the next sculpture is coming, etc. We don't get any negative feedback anymore.

It looks like we might have even some neighborhoods stepping up to have a sculpture in their own neighborhood. So that's neat, because then they're taking ownership of it. And it's not just a business doing it for advertising. It's the community saying, we want this.

The Sculpture Workshop came out of this tour. A local donor called and said “I have this garage. You guys can have it for the sculpture. But it has to be an asset to the community. It can't just be your personal sculpture studio.”

He wants more people in the community building sculptures for the tour, local people building them. And now we've got to teach them how. And so that's how that came about. That space was donated, and a lot of equipment was donated.”

If you head out to the ball fields in Oskaloosa, you cannot miss the 86-foot half-dome sun that towers above the rest of the scaled planets.

Solar System Walkabout is the brainchild of Joe Crookham, founder of Musco Lighting, art + science + education enthusiast, and public supporter of all things Oskaloosa.

Eventually, the planets will be placed along a 2000-foot walkway, also to scale of the distances in the solar system.

My favorite quote about this comes from an 2018 Oskaloosa Herald article:

"And that's part of the point of this, the crux of the display, is just how insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things," [Bob Drost] said. "And as Joe [Crookham] would say, we've got this little planet that we live on to take care of and it's a long ways to the next planet and we don't even know that we can live there, so we need to

take care of it while we're here."

Woodhaven Amphitheater in Oskaloosa, Iowa, is a gift of COVID.

Originally part of Vennard College that closed in 2008, the overgrown amphitheater had been on the theatre community's radar for years as a potential performance venue.

And then 2020 came along.

The George Daily Auditorium was shuttered, and folks realized that outdoor gathering spots may be a potential solution. All eyes turned to Woodhaven. The stage was sound, but the grounds were a mess, and seating was nonexistent.

(No matter. Forward movement.)

In late 2020, the George Daily was awarded a Resilience Grant from Arts Midwest to renovate and update the existing stage and add power and internet.

In 2021, a local high school student shouldered the seating problem for his Eagle Scout project. Taylor Drost set a goal to raise $10,000 to create 20 eight-foot benches. By January 2022, he had raised $24,000 and built 30 benches just in time for Woodhaven's first production of Twelfth Night.

Since its opening, Woodhaven houses a Summer Series for George Daily Auditorium, as well as serves a performance rental space for community groups.

Iowa is known for its charming county courthouses. Often the architectural anchor of a community, these courthouses reflect the values of the counties they serve.

The three-story Mahaska County Courthouse sits adjacent to the Oskaloosa Town Square and Bandstand. Built in 1886, the Mahaska County Courthouse was put on the National Registry of Historic Places in 1981, and in 2006 underwent a major renovation. By all accounts, this most recent renovation was a testament to the willingness of public and private partners to collaborate on a major infrastructure project. And almost symbolically, 100-year-old stained glass windows were discovered in the courthouse during the renovation and which now sit behind the judge’s bench.

According to a 2006 Oskaloosa Herald article by Jared McNeil, Judge James Q. Blomgren, then the chief judge of the 8th judicial district, said “that the most impressive part of the project was all the governmental entities and private parties coming together to make this courtroom renovation a reality.”

Per McNeil, Mahaska County Clerk of Court Mary Sexton stated, “A sense of cooperation embraced this project from the very beginning,” she said. “Ideas were never scorned or belittled, but only taken into thoughtful consideration by the supervisors, planners and renovators. As this project started to unfold, and this room was uncovered, it was like a treasure hunt — a history lesson, a step back in time for many of us.”

When I asked folks to tell me the community secrets of collaboration, more than one person described the ability to sit around a table together and make things happen.  

Not to put too fine a point on it, but sitting together, face-to-face, on a regular basis is a seriously powerful habit for building goodwill in communities.  Research supports this.

Small Iowa communities that have the highest self-reported quality of life also have the highest level of social capital. Social capital refers to the feeling of belonging that folks have where they live and work.

Bridging social capital occurs when diverse groups of people come together for a collective purpose. It’s built by – you guessed it – regular, in-person, fun interactions.  

Over and over, I heard about monthly art and cultural gatherings, groups like the Entrepreneur Exchange and FACE of Mahaska County, impromptu meetings at Smokey Row, the ease oforganizing something at Penn Central Mall, and big, wild, cross-organizational community events.  

Each of these massive and tiny habits matter. They all create an upward spiral of goodwill and belonging.

Last fall, Allison and Andy McGuire and I zipped all over Oskaloosa, Iowa, in their golf cart. We used the Mahaska County Recreation Trail system as our predominant route, and I was struck by how well 13+ miles integrates the town. We saw walkers, runners, cyclists, golf carts, dogs, kids, the whole gamut of life.

Trail systems hold a special place for me. I spent each summer of college doing trail work on the Appalachian Trail, wrote my honors thesis about AT thru-hikers, and then spent seven weeks walking a third of it in 2003.

In 1921, Benton MacKaye envisioned the Appalachian Trail as part of a larger national trail system – a great leveler that would literally connect people with community camps, establish goodwill, and strive toward a utopian existence for all.

I don't know about all that, but I do know that we tend to slow down on trails, and be in the world in ways that are impossible to do from a car.

Nestled in an old bank building, the Book Vault encapsulates the typical ways-of-being in Oskaloosa, Iowa. This independent bookstore has an open-door-policy with Smokey Row, its next-door-neighbor coffee shop, with literally an open door between the two so that folks can wander in and out with books and coffee.

There are multiple book clubs that meet regularly at the Book Vault. The shop even has its own demonstration kitchen, and since it’s opening in 2005, it’s employed many, MANY Oskaloosa residents. Matter of fact, folks new to town have been known to work there just to meet people.

Julie Hansen, Emeritus Librarian at William Penn University, and Nancy Simpson co-developed the Book Vault from the (not literal) ashes of the former Johnson Abstract Building, using the vaults in the building to house different genres of books. Nearly everyone I spoke with about what was good in Osky mentioned the Book Vault by name.

Oskaloosa’s superpower is collaboration, and it’s genius lies in cultivating many third places in the community. The Book Vault is no different, co-hosting public puzzle tournaments at Penn Central Mall, pop-up shops at regional breweries, book signings, storytimes, yoga classes, and many, many book clubs.

In 2011, Oskaloosa’s Skate and Bike Park broke ground. A partnership between the City of Oskaloosa and the Mahaska Community Recreation Foundation, this urban park sits north of Penn Cental Mall and downtown Oskaloosa and was funded by grants from the Tony Hawk Foundation, the MCRF, local donations, and young folks fundraising.

It’s a pretty sweet facility, with superb lighting and a newly constructed mini-pitch, both courtesy of Musco Lighting, an Oskaloosa-based company that does a lot to support quality of life in Mahaska County.

The Oskaloosa Public Library was built in 1903 with support from a grant from the Andrew Carnegie Foundation and leadership from the Oskaloosa Women’s Club. In 1996, the library doubled in size and currently houses 83,750 items, including books, audiobooks, magazines, CDs, DVDs and other materials.

Libraries change as communities change, responding to the needs of the town it serves. Beyond books, the Oskaloosa Public Library provides cultural programming, language classes, reading programs, music events, a seed library, a makerspace, a library of things, and a genealogy room.

Libraries are also third places: places that promote social connections beyond a person’s workplace or homeplace. Third places have six important qualities:

1) They are on neutral ground, i.e. not in a private home.

2) There’s no paid membership or exclusion for socioeconomic or racial reasons.

3) Conversation is a central activity.

4) They are accessible and accommodating.

5) They have regulars.

6) They aren’t fancy or pretentious.

If you live in a community with a high quality of life, your town has a lot of third places, which act as connectors and gathering spots to bring diverse people together.

Like what you see? Invest in a painting or a painting study of Osksaloosa.