-Submitted photo
Darcy Doughtery Maulsby stands in front of the old Central School in Lake City with the 2022 Preservation Champion Award she received.

LAKE CITY — The board of Central School Preservation (CSP) in Lake City has presented its 2022 Preservation Champion Award to Darcy Dougherty Maulsby, a small-business owner, ag journalist, historian and author from Lake City.

“It’s such an honor to receive this award,” said Maulsby, who received a plaque denoting this award from CSP. “I’ve always been interested in the history of Lake City and Iowa, and working with CSP has allowed me to learn more and share this history with more people.”

Maulsby grew up on a farm between Lake City and Yetter, participated in 4-H and FFA during her school years, and graduated from Southern Cal High School in 1992. During college, she spent the summer of 1995 working as a historical interpreter at Living History Farms, where she learned to milk cows by hand, bake with a wood-fired cook stove, and put up hay with a team of draft horses during her internship.

After earning her degrees in history and journalism from Iowa State University in Ames in 1996, she worked as a writer and public relations specialist for various organizations, including the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, the Greater Des Moines Convention and Visitors Bureau, and AgWeb.com.

“No matter where I worked, I always tried to learn the history of the organization and the local area so I could make the stories I shared more interesting and meaningful,” Maulsby said.

After moving back to rural Lake City in 2006, Maulsby joined the CSP board, where she has served as board president since 2019.

“Darcy exemplifies the true meaning of Central School’s annual Historic Preservation Award,” said Dwight Dial of Lake City, a CSP board member. “This award is given to a citizen who, through their work and dedication, is helping preserve our heritage. Darcy, the ‘Yetter Girl,’ is an author and columnist who keeps alive rural Iowa’s stories, traditions and heritage. Her efforts to preserve our agricultural heritage are increasingly important, as more people become further removed from rural life and farming.”

In 2002, Maulsby created her own marketing/communications business, Darcy Maulsby & Co., which she continues to run today, serving both ag clients and non-ag clients across the nation. She also earned her master’s degree in business management with a marketing emphasis from Iowa State University in 2004.

“I even managed to include history in some of my coursework for my MBA,” said Maulsby, who wrote a lengthy paper about company failure using the Titanic as a case study.

Dubbed “Iowa’s Storyteller,” Maulsby helps businesses find their “wow” stories to inspire people to dream bigger, revitalize rural America and change the world for the good. As she writes newsletters, digital content, magazine columns, newspaper articles, business proposals and more for clients, she weaves a historical perspective into much of her work.

This is especially true in her books. Since 2015, she has worked with Arcadia Publishing and The History Press to publish seven non-fiction, illustrated books of Iowa history, including “Calhoun County”; “A Culinary History of Iowa;” “Dallas County”; “Iowa Agriculture: A History of Farming, Family and Food”; “Classic Restaurants of Des Moines and Their Recipes;” “Madison County”; and “The Lincoln Highway in Iowa.”

“Maybe my love of history comes from hanging out with the older people and listening to their stories at family reunions when I was a kid,” Maulsby said. “Maybe it took root from growing up on my family’s Century Farm and working in the barn and fields where previous generations of my family did the same. In any case, I’ve been fascinated with history since I was little, because it’s directly connected to how our world has evolved today.”

Maulsby appreciates the words of Winston Churchill, who noted that the farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see. “That sentiment reminds me why preserving history is important, and making history relevant to people today is vital,” Maulsby said.

As CPS board president, Maulsby writes the weekly Central School Remembers newspaper column of local history, offers tours of the Central School museum, writes grants and leads fundraising efforts for CSP, and finds new ways to connect younger generations with local history. In recent years, she has helped form stronger ties between CSP and South Central Calhoun schools by inviting local middle school and high school students to volunteer at CSP.

She has also worked with her fellow board members to host Fun Fridays in the summer, offering story-hour events for children from The Kids’ Spot Daycare in Lake City. In addition, the CSP board hosts Touch-a-Truck each August at Central School, where children and their parents can see (and touch) big equipment from fire trucks to tractors. In 2022, CSP also paved a basketball court near the vintage playground equipment at Central School.

CSP is focused on not only preserving local history, but finding new ways to serve the community. Since 2019, CSP has presented the Historic Preservation Award to honor local residents who inspire others to see the possibilities for preservation, tourism and economic development in the local area. Previous winners have included Paul Iverson (2019); Audrey Williams (2020); and Lynn Dobson (2021).

“We’re so fortunate to have Darcy as this year’s 2022 award recipient,” Dial said.

For more information on Central School Preservation, visit www.historiccentralschool.com.