WORKING PAST DISAPPOINTMENTS

    A much bigger place is the nearby town of Indianola. Just minutes from Des Moines it still felt like it was not in the shadow of the capital's growing southern flank. Susan Judkins works for the state of Iowa, heading up Vision Iowa, which is funding large attractions with money from the local gambling revenues. Susan was both a CSO and member of the Indianola team, which helped plan some of the training sessions. When they applied to Kellogg they were told their cluster was "wealthy, white, and populated" and felt bad that they were somehow not meeting the criteria of the foundation's project. So they were surprised to be chosen. One training session in town happened at the same time as a family illness and an attendee's car being crushed by a tree. When they did not have the right number of attendees they discussed the situation. Terry Tesar urged them to set a good example and honestly report the absence. When their team was eliminated he was crushed and dropped out of any further involvement in the program. While this certainly happened in other states, the Indianola group stayed together and went on to form CITA, Community Information Technology Access. The CITA meeting I attended included a city official, an aide to a Congressman who was working on rural connectivity legislation, a high school student, and various adult leaders from town. All of these people were involved in other civic projects besides MIRA. One interesting outcome of the asset-mapping training was an asset map for Warren County agricultural and small farm resource information. It is a spiral-bound book, beautifully edited by by Marjon Schaefer, and each chapter is divided from the next by a historic postcard. As I travelled around the other MIRA sites I displayed it as an example of a significant work that indirectly came from MIRA involvement.