News : Women gather for 2nd Women 2 Leadership event in Belle Plaine

The second annual Women 2 Leadership conference took place Saturday, Sept. 18, in Belle Plaine.

The guests varied from local business owners to politicians who came from situations that looked like their opportunities would be limited by their circumstances.

Deb Ewoldt of the Blacksmith Boutique and Garden Studio in Dysart, gave an inspirational speech entitled “A Successful Person is a Dreamer, Someone Believed In.“

She spoke about the importance of having just one person believe in you, the challenges of starting up her business and the freedom she’s had to be as creative as she can be because of the steps she took.

Deb has a business like nothing else in the area. She takes scrap metal that farmers have laying around and want to get rid of and recreates a unique item from them. She has also created a line of clothing named “Rusty Wear” in honor of her grandfather, Rusty, the clothing has the rust stained look.

She also creates lawn decorations out of the scrap metal, as well as wall décor for the home. (To see some of her work, check out her website www.blacksmithboutique.com)

The little moments

On the panel discussing leaders from all backgrounds, was Doris Winter of Mt. Auburn. Doris spoke about her many memorable moments throughout her life, beginning with the day of her birth, both Columbus day as well as the day the bridge on the north side of Vinton was dedicated. Because of the bridge construction on her birth day, the doctor wasn’t able get to their home for her arrival. She shared her belief that life is made up of many important moments. She became active in helping children that had dislexia. She spoke of other highlights in her life which included meeting former First Lady Laura Bush as well as attending a banquet which allowed her to rub elbows with some of Hollywood’s famous in California.

Variety of speakers

Other speakers included Lisa Van Allen, a Life Coach, who spoke about balance in our lives and how there really is no such thing as balance. She explained that as hard as we might try to have that elusive balance, often our life is determined by the events in our lives at any given time, and our balance will be altered by what is happening in our lives.

At times career may take more of our time, especially while trying to establish a career, than we would spend with our family. At other times relationships with family will take more time because of illnesses or other events.

Karilea Reis, of Cameron’s Clothing and Henkle Creek Mercantile gave a style show which highlighted the various styles that will be popular this season. Her models included gals from the area which modeled many of those fashions available throughout Reis’ store.

Judy Schaffer of Divine Decadents in Shellsburg, served the lunch and also talked of her struggles and success in starting a business. She catered the lunch and also donated a sampling of her truffles to the group.

Following lunch, Managing Editor Faith Ann Brown of the local newspapers and I were privileged to sit in on the press panel discussion. The idea of the panel is to answer questions about how to use the press to benefit events the women may be involved in. The differences in our media abilities ranged from the way we receive the news from the community to the amount of news we are able to share. A concern was expressed to another reporter at the meeting concerning the limited coverage she was given after a lengthy interview. In the newspaper world sometimes the ability to share a lengthy story might be limited simply by space in print. The online ability that we have at Vinton Today is virtually unlimited. Advantages of website coverage is our ability to round a story out with web links, photos, and video clips.

Renae Becker shared the journey her life had taken and the steps that she had taken , and shared with the group the purpose of Benton County Development.

We closed out the day hearing from various elected women who shared their varied struggles and the paths their lives had taken to the positions they now hold.

Women 2 Leadership is in its second year, and already has plans to extend into other parts of Iowa. Representative Dawn Pettengill along with others have begun to look into bringing the group into a more formal designation as a non profit group with plans to have committees throughout the state.

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My apologies and thanks to Doris ;)