Creston schools add 3 more to hall of fame

It’s fitting the Creston Community Hig

h School stage was used Friday as the site for the new inductees into the school hall of fame as part of homecoming festivities. The reasons behind the inductees had something to do with the stage.

Marilyn and Dwight Conover were named to the hall as contributors to the school district. Their foundation has provided various pieces and opportunities for Creston students in the fine arts. Dwight was chairman of First National Bank in Creston from 1984 to 1994.

Dwight said his children were raised in Creston and they got the “best of the best” with education and activities “and a lot of it.”

The Conover’s donations have been used to purchase needs for the school’s arts programs from flats, which are portable walls decorated for scenes for plays, and for tickets for Creston students to attend professional performances of theater in Des Moines.

“Being a tenor, playing trombone, speech, drama, it’s so rewarding,” he said.

Dwight said he played sports during his high school days, and still supports athletic programs, but non-sport activities add more to the educational experience.

“You are set for adulthood,” he said.

Conover gave the students in the audience three pieces of advice.

Keep your word. Raise your hand and further explained how to get involved with events and needs. The third piece was “to be a mile deep into something.” Dwight used that analogy as having an interest either be information technology, health care, fishing and so on.

“Always be invaluable. Be a builder,” he said.

Dwight finished his speech with the poem “A Builder or a Wrecker” by Charles Franklin Benvegar

As I watched them tear a building down

A gang of men in a busy town

With a ho-heave-ho, and a lusty yell

They swung a beam and the side wall fell

I asked the foreman, “Are these men skilled,

And the men you’d hire if you wanted to build?”

He gave a laugh and said, “No, indeed, Just common labor is all I need.”

“I can easily wreck in a day or two, What builders have taken years to do.”

And I thought to myself, as I went my wayWhich of these roles have I tried to play’

Am I a builder who works with care, Measuring life by rule and square? Am I shaping my work to a well-made plan

Patiently doing the best I can

Or am I a wrecker who walks to town

Content with the labor of tearing down?

“O Lord let my life and my labors be That which will build for eternity!”

Tiffany Murphy is a 2005 Creston graduate and she noted when she was a homecoming queen candidate her senior year. She was this year’s graduate inductee. She said she was surprised she’d be back on the same stage for homecoming and inducted into the school’s hall of fame. She is a news broadcaster for ABC6 in Providence, Rhode Island.

Murphy said she was very grateful growing up in Creston. She gave the audience some advice as well including being kind and stay away from negative people as that influence will not be productive.

“Don’t make excuses,” she said.

She also told the students to not be afraid of rejection as it only helps create growth and success.

Historically, nominations for th

e hall of fame are for a former graduate, former staff member and contributor. A staff member was not part of this year’s ceremony.