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Ode: Being a black man in small-town Iowa, I was in for a surprise

Ty Rushing
Ally Karsyn

A Kansas City native ignores his family's advice and moves to a mostly-white community in a state that he doesn't know much about.

The first time I heard it, I was sitting at my desk at the Newton Daily News. I don’t remember who said it or what direction it came from, but I couldn’t believe my ears.

Did someone just say supper? The only thing that convinced me that I wasn’t watching a rerun of “Little House on the Prairie” was the annoying static from the police scanner and the confused look on my San Diegan co-worker’s face.

I wasn’t in Kansas City anymore.

Before I moved to Iowa four and half years ago, I wasn’t aware that people actually said supper and called lunch dinner. It was quite confusing to this KCK native. I was once four hours late to an interview because of this colloquial misunderstanding.

I also didn’t know that it was pronounced crik and not creek; May-drid and not Madrid; that high school sports were a big deal; morning coffee groups were a thing; and just about any food item could be turned into a taco or pizza variation, including soups and burgers.

Little did I know, when I returned to college in the fall of 2011 after nearly two years off, I would be writing professionally someday and not only living in Iowa but growing fond of this state where hogs outnumber people seven to one, corn is king and the term supper is used with reckless abandon.

 

I moved here to start my journalism career at the Newton Daily News, a five-day-a-week paper in Central Iowa, 30 minutes outside of Des Moines. It’s a town best known for the Iowa Speedway and being the former home of Maytag.

It was an exciting and confusing time for me. I had just graduated, which at one point, I didn’t know if or when it would ever happen. Partway through college, I had dropped out to deal with a myriad of personal issues including losing my mother to cancer. She had raised me on her own.

In addition to all that baggage, there was this girl. I actually knew her in high school. She was a year ahead of me and way out of my league back then. I thought I could potentially spend the rest of my life with her. But once I got the job in Newton, that whole thing fizzled out in unspectacular and heart-wrenching fashion.

Before I moved to Iowa, here’s what I knew about this place: there are a ton of farms; the major college teams are the Cyclones and Hawkeyes; the governor at the time had a sweet mustache and there aren’t many black people here.

That last one drew a bit of concern from a lot of my family and friends back home. But it didn’t really matter to me. A lot of my interests and activities didn’t always fit within what I’ll just call black “norms.” Such as reading comic books and superheroes before it became mainstream, watching anime, attending debate and disliking most Tyler Perry productions. I was, and still am, used to being the token black person in the class, office or event. Just look around tonight.  

Working at the Newton Daily News was my foot in the door, but I had one foot out the door, too. I told myself thatI was going to grind it out in this town of 15,000 for a couple of years and immediately seek another job in a bigger market. I was so sure of this plan that I didn’t bother to fully unpack my apartment.My co-worker used to joke about it. And now the joke’s on me. Because he actually followed through with this course of action and now lives in Florida, working for the PGA. And as you can see, I’m still in Iowa.

Something happened while I was in Newton. The more I learned about the community and the state as a whole, the more I began to love it. And here’s the kicker: the feeling was mutual!

Here I was thinking that I—a 6-foot-3, heavyset black man—was going to be an oddity in this small town off the interstate. But this community welcomed me with open arms.

I drive a Kia sedan. My first winter in Iowa, I got snuck in a snowdrift in cul-de-sac on the edge of Newton. I was aimlessly searching for this nursing home to meet a World War II vet for an interview. Before I moved, I assumed the weather in Newton would be similar to Kansas City since they were only three hours apart. I was so wrong.

After struggling for a bit, I got out of my car and started walking toward a random house to ask for help. Before I made it up the driveway, the garage door opened. A tall woman stepped out. She smiled at me and handed me a shovel. I didn’t know it at the time, but she was one of the local elementary school principals and I worked with her often during my tenure in Newton.

Another early assignment required me to track down this family who had a child born with multiple disabilities so severe that the family’s doctor  recommended a late-term abortion.

None of the numbers in the phonebook or online worked to contact them. So I decided to just drop by their home, which made me incredibly nervous. Even wearing slacks and a polo with dress shoes, I still cut an imposing figure and my skin was darker than that of 93 percent of the town’s population.

I pulled up to the ranch-style home with children’s toys scattered across the lawn and knocked on the door.  The family’s matriarch greeted me. I told her who I was and what my intentions were. Before I could even give her details on the story or why we were doing it, she had already invited me in. And then, I hadn’t even taken off my coat when she began offering food and drinks.

Seriously, I gained 30 pounds my first year living in Iowa and more in the years since. Pretty sure the cordial people of this state will be the death of me! And that’s without eating deep-fried butter on a stick.

Here’s the thing: those were common occurrences in Newton. When I lived there, I hosted fair queen pageants and spoke in classrooms and to Rotary Clubs. I was invited to be the local celebrity guest at multiple events ranging from a cooking contest at the local nursing home to losing a hot dog eating contest to the superintendent of the Newton Community School District.

Shortly before my two-year mark, I left Newton for a job at the N’West Iowa REVIEW in Sheldon, a town of roughly 5,000 residents. It wasn’t exactly the market I had in mind, but it was an award-winning weekly that covered four counties and had subscriber base larger than its population.

The decision to move on was much more difficult than I ever imagined. I was leaving behind a close-knit group of friends, a bevy of sources that kept me fed on stories and a job that the publisher said was pretty much mine for life if that’s what I wanted.

I never could have predicted that I would not only adjust to living in a small town but I would thrive there. I would become a better person because of my surroundings. And I would become extremely defensive and fond of that community.

When I left Newton, Marta Ford—a former chief nurse in the Iowa Army National Guard, the first female commander of the Newton American Legion and a subject in a few of my stories—told me nobody would ever love me like they did in Newton.

Three years and two jobs later, I can say without a doubt that she was right.

 

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Ty Rushing is the business reporter at the Sioux City Journal. He is a travel and pop culture junkie, sneaker collector, avid reader and unabashed nerd.

 

Ode is a storytelling series where community members tell true stories on stage to promote positive impact through empathy. It’s produced by Siouxland Public Media.

Our next show is Friday, October 6 at ISU Design West in downtown Sioux City. The theme is “Home.” We’ll have live music by Angela Lambrecht and Shawn Blomberg of Ultra Violet at 6:30 p.m., followed by stories at 7 p.m. Tickets are $10 in advance; $15 day of show.

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