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• Warrior Success Stories

The Forest City Lions Club has announced Ray and Joan Beebe as this year’s Puckerbrush Days parade grand marshals.

It comes less than nine months after Waldorf University and the Forest City community honored the couple for its part in the Bolstorff and Beebe Gateway project. The Waldorf Athletic Complex expansion with Beebe Track has benefitted the university, Forest City Schools, and the community.

“As a broader community honor, this is very meaningful for us,” Ray said. “My involvement with Waldorf has been very satisfying. I was glad to be involved in that (gateway) project and taking ownership back to the Foundation.”

Ray has served on the Waldorf Lutheran College Foundation Board for the better part of two decades, most as its chair. He was awarded an honorary doctorate degree from Waldorf at its May 8, 2021, commencement where he also delivered the commencement address.

Also president of the Forest City Education Foundation for decades, Ray said he plans to continue his involvement with both Foundations for the foreseeable future.

“I’m a guy who doesn’t say ‘no’ even though I probably should say ‘no’ sometimes,” he said.

Joan Beebe has worked more behind the scenes, raising their own biological and adopted children, foster children, and seemingly an endless parade of other kids that have found the way to the doorsteps of the Beebe home. She has been active in her church and said she particularly enjoyed serving a lead role for a group that worked on the bond issue for Forest City’s elementary school some years ago.

In addition to their two biological children, Blane (Sara Beebe) of Burnsville, Minnesota, and Kristen (Dan Ollenburg), who is a lawyer in Mason City, the couple adopted sons William and Jeffrey from Guatemala. After Ray graduated from the University of Iowa College of Law in 1967, daughter Kristen later did the same with her twin daughters Ava and Sophia now representing the family’s third generation at the U of I.

Blane and Sara have three sons – Talon, Ben, and Max. Kristen and Dan have a third daughter, Ella, who attends the University of Arizona.

Ray graduated from Avoca High School in 1960. Avoca is also where he met Joan when she visited her grandparents there.

“We just celebrated our 56th wedding anniversary and we moved here (Forest City) six months after we were married,” Ray said. “We lived in Indian Springs for about three years, had a house for about 35 years, and have been in the house we’re in now for about 18 years.”

“We just work through things,” said Joan of making marriage work. “We went into marriage with the idea it was forever. You work on things and you fix them. We very good partners.”

The parade of kids that have come to know Joan and Ray as mom and dad, began when a boy Ray was mentoring showed up at their front door seeking help. He was taken in by them for the duration of a family situation. Ray said he began mentoring many young men and women, even before he retired from Winnebago Industries in 2012, after serving as the company’s vice president, general counsel, and secretary over 38 years.

“The draw that got me here was the job at Winnebago, which I very much enjoyed,” said Ray, who did not retire until age 70. He said the experience of working through several challenging seasons with the company has benefitted him in his community endeavors.

Ray and Joan have also had six foster children. Five kids stayed with them for a various lengths of time for a variety of reasons, thinking of them as mom and dad without their own parents. They took in kids based on need and circumstance regardless of race, religion, or gender. The first foster child was an 18-year-old black senior in high school, they recalled.

“Joan said ‘I don’t care if he’s purple,’” said Ray of being informed of the boy’s race beforehand. They took in two Hispanics, two African Americans, an American Indian, and several Caucasians.

“I’ve mentored lots of young men and women, meeting with them for breakfast,” Ray said, “staying with them through thick and thin. Success isn’t about how much money you make; it’s about making a difference in the lives of other people. That’s what I try to live by and use to help kids.”

“’We do kids’ is my motto,” said Joan, noting local a girl was set to visit them in the next two days after asking to tour their home. “We do a lot of kids’ stuff. Ray is always helping kids who are at-risk and all kinds of kids for college.”

“I’m always involved with something,” Ray said. “It’s particularly inspiring to be involved with so many of these young people. They inspire me. I often feel I gain more from it than they do.”

Ray and Joan have also greatly enjoyed awarding scholarships to so many young people from Forest City High School, the University of Iowa, College of Law, Iowa State University (where Ray received his bachelor’s degree in business administration), and Waldorf University. Ray has received the John K. and Luise V. Hanson Lifetime Achievement Award for years of dedicated service to the Forest City community and was inducted into the Forest City Education Hall of Fame. During the Iowa Law School ‘s 150th anniversary in 2015, he was among 150 Iowa Law School Alumni recognized as leaders and trailblazers. Locally, he has served the Forest City Rotary and Lions Clubs and other organizations.

Ray and Joan are eager to serve as this year’s Puckerbrush parade grand marshals. The parade is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. Saturday, July 19, on Clark Street and through the Forest City downtown.

“We’re going to be riding in a convertible,” said Ray, noting his son is a car dealer who owns a convertible. “Some of the family members had conflicts, so we’ll work around that. Others will be here to support us. Some of the kids we know and have known will probably be around too.”

Other Puckerbrush activities will commence on Friday, July 18, including a free watermelon feed on the courthouse lawn sponsored by MBT Bank. It will be followed at 5:30 p.m. by the Little Mister and Miss Puckerbrush Contest on Clark Street in front of the courthouse. Battle of the Kids and Battle of the Businesses will also be held on Clark Street at 6 and 7 o’clock, respectively.

Free entertainment will be held at the fire department parking lot adjacent to Pammel Park with Don Johnson & Company performing from 7-10 p.m. A fireworks display at Pammel Park will follow. Preceding activities there from 4-10 p.m. that evening will include bouncy houses, bags, ping pong, and community volleyball. There will be food trucks and a beverage garden.

Other Puckerbrush activities on Saturday will include a 7:30 a.m. 5k run/walk and 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. pie/ice cream social at the United Methodist Church as well as a Winnebago Historical Society wild, wild west reenactment from 11:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. and a silent auction at the Forest Theatre between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.

The annual pet parade will run down Clark Street from noon to 1 p.m. with the car show from noon to 3 p.m. extending down Clark Street as far as the Mansion Museum this year. The Forest City Municipal Band will perform from the courthouse gazebo starting at 1 p.m. Afternoon BINGO and a raffle will be held on the Mansion Museum lawn during the afternoon. Saturday festivities will shift back to the fire department parking lot/Pammel Park at 2 p.m. with Jake Kemble and Kick to provide free entertainment at 7 p.m.