Our Lincoln Highway Heritage Byway Advisory Board

Eastern

Cathy Cutler has been with the Iowa Department of Transportation for 31 years. She started off in the materials department before coming over to the District 6 office.  Cathy is the transportation planner for the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City metro areas as well as seven counties around the area. She graduated from the University of Iowa in 1989.

Cathy resides in Cedar Rapids with her husband and their Pekingese puppy, Bruno. Her hobbies include cooking, reading, live music concerts, and gardening.

Kimberly Eaker is currently serving as the executive director for Clarence Main Street in Clarence, Iowa. Her background is in retail, residential real estate, and legal office management. Kimberly is a life-long resident of Iowa, residing in the Clarence area since 2005. She and her husband John are empty nesters who dote on their grandchildren and reside on an acreage just north of the Lincoln Highway.

President of the Belle Plaine Historical Society, Mitch Malcom was born and raised in Belle Plaine. He is a graduate of the University of Iowa (1985 BA Global Studies/Political Science). He is currently Vice President of Global Sales for Irontite Products in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Mitch’s family owned a car dealership in Belle Plaine from 1909 until 1959. His great grandfather Lew Malcolm had the first car business in Belle Plaine which was situated on the Lincoln Highway until 1937.

He enjoys delving into the history of Belle Plaine and spent a year putting together a DVD for the town’s Sesquicentennial celebration in 2012. He currently lives in Belle Plaine and is active in volunteer work at the Belle Plaine Area Museum, on the boards of the Iowa Valley Scenic Byway and the Preston Station Historic District.

Matt Parbs is the Executive Director of The Sawmill Museum in Clinton, Iowa. The museum is on the Historic Lincoln Highway and sits just off the Great River Road just below the river’s levee. He comes from Springfield, Illinois where he worked at the Abraham Lincoln’s National Museum of Surveying. Seemingly, he can never escape Lincoln’s shadow.

Tara Templeman is a graduate of the University of New Mexico and the University of Colorado-Boulder. Her interest in history grew out of her interest in pre-history. During her time as a paleontologist, Tara studied an extinct group of mammals called multituberculates. She then moved on to studying local history. Tara only recently moved to Cedar Rapids from Colorado. She is thrilled to the curator and collections manager at The History Center. She believes the best part of historic preservation is finding the balance between preserving history and sharing that history with the public.

Central

Bob Ausberger grew up on a farm north of Jefferson and attended school in Jefferson. He graduated from the University of Iowa and taught 7th and 8th graders.  After teaching for 4 years, he returned to Greene County to continue farming.  He has always been interested in soil and water conservation which led him to begin no-till farming in the late 80’s.

He became interested in the Lincoln Highway in 1990 and has been actively educating the public on the importance of the highway.  Bob helped form the Greene County Lincoln Highway Association, the state Iowa Lincoln Highway Association, and the national Lincoln Highway Association.

Joyce Ausberger grew up in Leon, IA except for five years in the states of Washington and Oregon, and she graduated from Leon High School and Northwest Missouri University.

She taught 4th and 6th grades for four years.  The first year she taught was in Jefferson, IA where she met Bob at the A&W root beer stand on the Lincoln Highway so obviously the Lincoln Highway became important to them.

Bob and Joyce have two children, six grandchildren, and one great grandbaby. Their David continues with the conservation farming in Greene County and his wife LeeAnna teaches in Jefferson.  Bob and Joyce’s son-in-law and daughter farm in nearby Calhoun County.

Henry Corbin currently serves as the executive director of Main Street Nevada. Born and raised in the community, Henry’s family goes back 7 generations in Nevada. He first attended Des Moines Area Community College, and then Iowa State University earning a Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Studies in 2019. Henry serves on the Nevada Community Betterment Committee which helped in the planning and naming of the Lincoln – Jefferson Highways Heritage Park in Nevada. He is a member of the Nevada Iowa Community Historical Society and helps maintain their historic farm and houses. Henry grew up hearing stories and history about the Lincoln Highway and how it helped his community, and all the towns it connected, grow, and thrive.  As director of Main Street Nevada, he oversees a district that includes the intersection of the Lincoln Highway, and the Jefferson Highway in the heart of downtown Nevada.

Janice Gammon retired as Prairie Rivers of Iowa Lincoln Highway Heritage Byway Coordinator in April 2021. She graduated in 2009 from Iowa State University with a Master of Public Administration Degree.

She is passionate about historic preservation, economic development, and the environment and has served on the Nevada, Iowa Historic Preservation Commission and as the coordinator of the Nevada, Iowa Community Historical Society, as well as other community committees.

Past projects have included historical research projects, National Register nominations, event planning, and marketing projects. She helped write sections of “Voices From the Past” a book celebrating 150 years of Nevada, Iowa.

She also has an entrepreneurial spirit and owned a retail gift store for several years. Her spare time is spent with family and friends. She loves traveling (especially to the Okoboji area) and helped build a “bottle” school in Guatemala.

Kendall Jordan Tama County Supervisors, City of Toledo Fire Department Chief.

Andy Loonan has been with the Iowa Department of Transportation for seventeen years and with District 1 since 2011. Prior to the DOT, he worked as a planner for the City of  Waterloo and the Iowa Northland Regional Council of Governments. He is an avid family man, fishermen and finds some time for golfing too.

Alan Robinson of Grand Junction is a “true son of the Lincoln.” His dad, Ralph Robinson, a lifetime Grand Junction resident, owned and operated Ralph’s Mobile Service when Alan was born in the mid-1950s. Ralph’s was at the corner of Old 30 and Highway 144, now the site of Kafer Trucking. Alan’s mom also operated a business on Main Street in Grand Junction in the 1970s and 80’s—Control Central Cards and Things (CC&T). He recalls growing up in Grand Junction and hearing his folks and older relatives talk about Old Highway 30 being the Lincoln Highway.

After graduating from East Greene High School in Grand Junction, Alan studied journalism at Drake University and eventually moved to New York City to pursue a career in magazine publishing. He returned to Grand Junction and Greene County in 2011. Today, he is back “on the Lincoln” as the program director for Jefferson Matters Main Street whose office is at 110 West Lincoln Way at the former site of the Lincoln Highway Museum.

Alan is also a member of the Greene County Historical Society board of directors, Grand Junction Horizons board of directors, the Grand Junction City Council and First Presbyterian Church of Grand Junction.

Born in Iowa City, Michelle Roseburrough lived in Ferguson, Marshalltown, and Montour, Iowa, but grew up in Mesa, AZ. She attended both Northern Arizona University and Arizona State University and worked as a marketer for Motorola in Phoenix, AZ.

In 2000, Michelle and her children moved back to Marshalltown, where she quickly became involved with many community organizations. Past organizations include Child Abuse Prevention Services, Building Healthy Families, AEA 267 Early Access Council, Saint Mary Parish Council, and Marshalltown Area Catholic School Board. Current organizations include Live on Stage Marshalltown, Tuesday Musical Club, Entre Nous Club, Early American Glass Club, PEO, Central College Parent Council, Marshalltown Federation of Women’s Clubs, and is director of the St. Mary funeral choir.

Michelle joined the Historical Society of Marshall County located on the Lincoln Highway as a board member in early 2013 and transitioned to its administrator. She is also a trustee for the Susie F. Sower Trust, along with Dr. Dennis Drager and Steven Irvine. A lifelong student of history, she loves her work with the extensive archive and artifact collections and various historic sites. She also very much enjoys the community outreach element of her position, which includes helping others with their historical and genealogical research, hosting both public and private events, and giving programs to local groups.

Michelle is a proud mother to four children: Tess teaches high school in Shanghai, Jordan recently moved to Des Moines, Dylan attends Central College in Pella, and Stella attends Middlebury College in Vermont. Restoring her own historic home, also located on the Lincoln Highway, is one of her passions, as well as gardening, cooking, and reading. She is also currently enrolled at the University of Iowa, studying museum studies and nonprofit organizational management.

Tanner Scheuermann is the Executive Director for the Boone County Conservation Board (BCCB). From 2015 to 2017, he served as the operations manager for the BCCB where he utilized his background in construction and a bachelor’s degree in forestry to provide Boone County with many aspects of grounds maintenance and natural resources management within nearly 1,300 acres of county managed campgrounds, parks, wildlife areas, and also eight miles of the High Trestle Trail which includes the High Trestle Trail Bridge. In 2017, Tanner was fortunate enough to take on the role of executive director of the BCCB which has opened the door to many other new opportunities in administration, planning, and implementation of projects with the conservation board. Most of his free time is spent in the outdoors with his wife Jacklyn and son, Sawyer where they enjoy hunting, fishing, and hiking within the unique and diverse ecosystems that Boone County has to offer.

Western

Kathy Dirks serves as the program manager for the Harrison County Historical Village & Iowa Welcome Center near Missouri Valley.  Kathy oversees the day-to-day operations of the village/welcome center which includes everything from volunteer coordination to ordering merchandise for the gift shop to organizing the yearly school program.

She loves all aspects of tourism and has been actively involved in the Travel Federation of Iowa, Western Iowa Tourism Region, the Loess Hills, Lincoln Highway and Western Skies byways and Harrison County Tourism.  Prior to coming to the village/welcome center in 1994, she worked in education, private industry and tourism-community development.

Kathy has degrees in psychology, sociology and education from Wartburg College and Drake University.

 Barbara J. Hackfort grew up on a farm near Carroll, Iowa, and developed a fascination with the Lincoln Highway during her 4th-grade social studies class in elementary school, which featured a trip across the United States on the Lincoln Highway. She graduated from Mount Marty College in Yankton, South Dakota, with a major in history and a minor in Spanish, and earned a Master of Arts in History from Iowa State University.

 After teaching Middle School social studies and Spanish for 40+ years, and, part of that time, also teaching Western Civilization as an adjunct professor at Des Moines Area Community College, Carroll Campus, Barbara retired from the teaching profession in 2014. Her time is now spent as president of the Carroll County Historical Society, chair of the Carroll Historic Preservation Commission, and Carroll County Consul for the Iowa Lincoln Highway Association, with twice-daily visits out to the farm to help with the family farm’s cow/calf operation.

Dakin Schultz is the District 3 transportation planner for the Iowa Department of Transportation and has planning responsibilities for the twenty county region of Northwest Iowa.  Other duties include media, community and public relations as well as civil rights liaison.  He is a graduate of the University of Nebraska, Omaha and a twenty-nine year veteran of the Iowa Department of Transportation.

Dakin’s wife Mary is a teacher and activities director in the Woodbury Central School system in Moville, Iowa.  He has two children including a son who is a freshman at South Dakota State University and a daughter who is a junior at Woodbury Central.  Dakin is on the Wildcat Athletic Club board, a former president and current board member of the Missouri River Historic Development Board, Moville planning and zoning board chair, has been a youth recreation league coach and is involved in scouts.

Deb Sprecker has been the Woodbine Main Street Executive Director since 2009. She guides downtown revitalization and economic development, working with community leaders downtown and city government, education, and industry. Woodbine Main Street has been recognized for superior efforts in downtown and community revitalization through awards such as a Great American Main Street by Main Street America, National Trust for Historic Preservation, a Keep Iowa Beautiful Governor’s Award for Community Leadership, and other Main Street Iowa and Preservation Iowa awards. Sprecker’s background includes grant writing for community development, education, and business, as well as media writing and editing. Sprecker also directs a private foundation serving children in poverty and serves on the Governor’s STEM Council for Southwest Iowa.

A small town enthusiast, Sprecker has lived in rural communities in Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa. “Some of the most creative and tenacious people I know work and live in rural America. I love working alongside volunteer leaders to revitalize and champion downtowns. They are the nerve center of a community. If downtown is working, you can be sure the rest of a community is humming along as well,” says Sprecker.

“Iowa Byways” and the Iowa Byways design mark are registered trademarks. The wordmark ‘Lincoln Highway’ is a registered trademark of the National Lincoln Highway Association.