If you think Dan Julich is just another face in the crowd, youre sadly mistaken.
He was the second employee hired when Joe Works and Roger Baker started B&W Trailer Hitches from scratch 25 years ago.
B&W and Monarch Cement make a huge difference, having the wherewithal to give downtown Humboldt its vibrance, and provide hundreds of men and women with good-paying jobs. Even so, it is Dan and others like him, the foot soldiers, who do much to tie together the bits and pieces that transform Humboldt from a small dot on the map into the envy of southeast Kansas.
Dan has served two terms on the school board and city council, defeating incumbents for each seat. He also was on the recreation commission and a volunteer firemen for 21 years.
Despite his personal success, Dan says theres one disappointment that grates to this day.
In 2012, council members wanted to rebuild residential streets, settling on a half-cent sales tax. Coupled with assistance from Allen Countys road crew, the extra sales tax money would have led to vast improvements and brought the side streets on par with Bridge, Ninth and other thoroughfares. The issue failed.
Nothing has changed, except some streets are worse.
More than eight years later, it is time to revisit street improvements, Dan said. City Administrator Cole Herder agrees.
We need to keep things up, he said. Just like people took care of us years ago, we need to do the same for our children and grandchildren.
When on the school board, Dan spent considerable time with the issue of building a new middle school, which opened in 1996. He also partook in the hirings of three superintendents, Steve Parsons, Brade Rahe and Bob Heigele.
Dan, age 62, takes such service to the community in stride. He seldom misses a community or school event.
DAN AND wife Loretta (nee Thompson) were married Jan. 4, 1975, just months after they were graduated from Humboldt High.
He dotes on Loretta, indulging her love of Christmas snowmen that by now has ballooned into the hundreds.
Dan grew up in a family with vivid memories of the Great Depression and lean times from World War II, which left him a bit of a financial pragmatist. He also recalls a house warmed by an old wood stove, and trudging on foot to school, no matter how cold or wet the weather.
In his garage are an older pickup truck and car; his previous auto lasted better than 200,000 miles. The two vehicles nickel and dime me some, Dan admits.
However, with retirement on the horizon he embraces frugality besides, he never knows when Loretta may find another batch of cant-live-without snowmen.
