Webster
County Connect Gowrie Spring Banquet
Each year, Gowrie hosts a Spring Banquet to celebrate the year’s successes and acknowledge a Go-getter, someone who demonstrates “leadership, inspiration, generosity, and wisdom” of a professional in the community. The feature speaker at the banquet on March 30th was Deb Brown with “Save Your Town”. “Save Your Town” exists to provide low or no-cost solutions for small towns to make improvements that will benefit their quality of life and economy. They believe that small towns can best be saved by their own people using their own resources. “Save Your Town” shows communities practical steps they can use to impact their future. Deb Brown grew up outside of Geneva, Iowa. She has led a small town chamber of commerce, foreign casualty insurance underwriting, and retail management, among other jobs. Deb holds an Institute for Organizational Management certification, graduated from Leadership Iowa, and the Ag-Urban Institute in Iowa. She also completed
the Governing Officials Institute in Oklahoma and earned certificates in Facilitating for Results and Quality Leadership. What she most loves about her job is “the opportunity to work with people who really care about their communities. Sharing the success stories from other towns is always fun. Helping people get entrepreneurial ideas off the ground, finding ways to save your town and hearing the good things about a town are the things I really enjoy.” During Brown’s presentation, she discussed filling empty buildings, using city codes that already exist, making new ones and enforcing them as ways to get started. To fill empty buildings, Deb spoke about creating art residencies and incubator projects. To fill empty lots, Deb discussed filling them with, “outdoor activities, museums, party spaces and tiny market villages.” Brown says, “Small towns have all they need to move forward, try new ideas and save their towns. I believe small towns can be saved by their own peo-
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