Rural communities are drowning.  Children are leaving never to return.  Their historical town squares are falling in and burning only to be replaced with gravel parking lots.  A majority of those with great ability and opportunity chase opportunity, opportunity they don’t see in their rural hometown community.

Centerville, Iowa was no different.  What happened?  Due to the marketing efforts made on behalf of our multiple businesses I’ve received more attention in regard to our community’s turn around than I deserve.  Let me share the real reason Centerville, Iowa and Appanoose County are turning around.

First there was a lot of groundwork by multiple small groups of people at different times.  The foundation was set by a truly entrepreneurial group a half century ago.  They did what it took to capture a federal project now known as Rathbun Lake.  When the lake went in the torch was handed off and for 30 years a small group worked on the establishment of a resort on Rathbun Lake.  Honey Creek Resort on Rathbun opened in 2009.

There was also a group who pioneered the town square restoration project on what is Iowa’s and possibly the country’s largest county seat town square.  There are many other groups who played their part.  It is interesting to me to notice how most things of true value were organized by small gorilla like ad hoc groups who, with an entrepreneurial spirit, saw a need and went after it.

All these things happened in Centerville and Appanoose County to create a foundation for something unprecedented and unheard of.  This is where the attention needs to be directed. 

In 1996 a local boy who was born in Appanoose County 64 years earlier took an interest in his home community.  Those great leaders who truly impact the world for decades, if not centuries, all do things the same way.  But the way they do things is often exactly opposite of how the rest of the world, including rural communities like ours, do things.  What is it that they do?  They inspire.  They first know the heart of why, then they work on the how of their dream and then the what of the details. 

Most the rest of us start with what then how and finally why. That is another story altogether.

In Appanoose County our world changed in 1996.  We just didn’t know it was changing yet.  It was that year when that local boy took an interest and slowly started to unleash his attention on an unsuspecting and tired rural town.  Now it is 15 years later.  Our world has certainly changed.  This is a short story about how entrepreneurship, volunteerism and philanthropy combined to start a fire of success in the deepest of rural areas in our United States.  ad company