Deep roots keep Shetlars in Iola

When Ann Shetlar graduated from Elsmore High School in 1966, she looked back with pride on being part of a high-profile sports tradition at the small school. The girls basketball team, of which she was an integral member, had been undefeated for eight straight years.
Thursday she and husband Ken gave Iola Rotarians a glimpse of their lives during talks required of new members.
Ann was one of six siblings who grew up “in an old farmhouse” southeast of LaHarpe. She attended a stereotypical one-room schoolhouse through fifth grade, after which consolidation put her in sixth grade at Zillah School, east of Humboldt. She then attended Elsmore High, which closed after her senior year because of state-mandated unification of school districts.
At Iola Junior College she was a bit miffed at the school not having athletics for girls. “I would have tried to play basketball,” Ann said. But all worked out well; with time after classes she took a part-time job with Brink and Dunwoody, a civil engineering and architectural firm on the second floor of the Register building.
That’s where she met Ken, working part time with his father, Charles. Seeing each other daily led to romance and after Ken went to Kansas State — Ann was a year back in school — she continued the part-time job and squirreled all she could from earnings.
“My folks couldn’t afford to send any of us to college,” she said of herself and her siblings.
Things fell into place and Ann enrolled at K-State, the relationship with Ken flourished and they married. After graduation, Ken took graduate courses to permit Ann time to finish her degree, but an offer too good to refuse from Brink and Dunwoody intervened. They returned to Iola.
“I had just 12 hours left” to graduate, she said. She reacquainted with education through 14 years as a paraprofessional at Jefferson Elementary — “a job I loved,” and one that was “more than just being an aide.” Ann explained she was one of three Jefferson employees certified to administer medications to students and outlined other duties that contributed to the good of youngsters’ educations.
Ann has remained active through the years, “walking three miles a day” when weather permits and more recently joining with Ken to bicycle on the Southwind Rail Trail between Iola and Humboldt.
Also, “we’re snowbirds,” Ken noted.
Since his retirement in 2010 after 40 years in civil engineering in Iola, they spend two to three months each winter — after Christmas — in the Phoenix area to escape the throes of what can be cabin fever-inducing weather in Iola.
Ken was born in Manhattan. The Shelter family moved to Iola in 1950, to a place on South Chestnut that was “flooded up to the eaves by the 1951 flood,” Ken said. That prompted a move to North Jefferson Avenue and he has been an Iolan, save studies at K-State, since.
The Shetlars — Ken and Charles — purchased Brink and Dunwoody and moved offices to the old Hiser Implement building on North Jefferson in 1979-80. The office closed with Ken’s retirement.
Ken said in his 40 years a variety of water-related projects and those having to do with streets and highways were the bread and butter of the firm. Clients came from a broad area, loosely bound by El Dorado on the west, Oklahoma and Missouri on the south and east and Ottawa on the north.
Nowadays, he likes to fish, join Ann in exercise and both enjoy the freedom of retirement to dote on two children and two grandchildren.
He noted a home they own in Phoenix is just a mile — little more than a stroll for the two of them — from where the Kansas City Royals have spring training, an opportunity they seize often.
“We really enjoy talking to the players,” he said.

SARA EVANS, Walmart manager and a Rotarian, presented President Bob Hawk and Karen Gilpin a blown-up check for $1,000 from Walmart to help with Iola Rotary’s Vision Quest.
The project has provided eyeglasses for the poor in several countries and its funding also helps with domestic Rotary efforts.
Jim and Karen Gilpin were recognized for becoming Paul Harris Fellows, designation that occurs with individual member contributions of $1,000 to Rotary International.
Also, Hawk announced that with recent District 6110 elections, Iolan Judy Brigham is in line to be district governor in a couple of years.