Iola has two new leaders in town.
Daniel Kays comes across the country from California to be the new director of the Bowlus Fine Arts Center.
And Mary Benningfield is the new executive director of the Iola Area Chamber of Commerce.
You can meet Kays at a reception at 6:30 on Friday night at the Bowlus Center, as a prelude to the nights entertainment, a tribute to the band Chicago.
Benningfield and her young family have relocated from Tulsa. In an earlier profile, Benningfield said she was enamored by the architecture of Iolas more stately homes and what she perceived as a Norman Rockwell aura from her visits north over the years.
So both come from metropolises several hundred thousand strong.
No doubt, they are expecting a more tranquil setting than from whence theyve come.
Which makes us nervous.
Because things in small-town America have a habit of getting blown out of proportion.
Take for instance the recent brouhaha over Farm City Days and the committees initial request for Don Erbert to remove a facsimile machine gun from his jeep as an escort for Kris Kobach, the Republican nominee for governor.
Gleefully, the Kobach campaign made the issue into an infringement of our Second Amendment rights and all of a sudden we had fellow Iolans trying to undermine the time-honored event by asking people to withdraw their support, financial and otherwise.
That our fair citizens could be turned on a dime is a worry. All of a sudden were on the national news being portrayed as a community of feuding Hatfields and McCoys.
To our relief, Farm City Days retained its decorum, no threatened protests occurred, and up and down the street people frequented booths, chatted with neighbors, and seemed glad to be a part of it.
The charm of Farm City Days cannot be denied. A parade of marching bands and cheer squads dressed in glittery costumes mixed in with equally shiny farm equipment always brightens the day, or simply the fact that youll come across long-lost friends.
