Profile Text: Piper Nicely Interview: Joey Belmonte and Andrew Offenburger
For many, a parade is a way to bring a community together. Gathering to celebrate, to cheer, and to showcase the highlights of a town can do much to create a feeling of togetherness across generations.
For Candy Clough this is especially true.
In 2018, the 50th anniversary of her high school graduation, Clough and her returning classmates joined in Storm Lake High School’s homecoming parade. The experience wowed many of the graduates who had not seen the changes that had happened in Storm Lake since their childhood.
“All these kids came back for my class and we had it on homecoming weekend,” said Clough. “Everybody knows what’s happened in Storm Lake, but a lot of them had never even been back for many years, so that was so cool because we were in the parade. We got all these antique cars — well, from the 50’s and 60’s, they’re ‘antiques’ now — and convertibles, and we rode in the parade as a class.”
“As we went through the downtown,” she said, “our class members were overwhelmed with what they saw, which was all this diversity, and they said, ‘Here’s every color of kid in the world and they’ve all got green t-shirts on — Go Tornadoes! — and they’re cheering for Tornadoes.’ And they couldn’t quit talking about how wonderful the experience was. You could be told all day long what was happening, but until you get into the schools, you don’t really see what’s happening. That was really, really eye-opening for them, and it was an amazing weekend.”
As they drove through downtown with a new generation of diverse students cheering them on, Clough felt that it was like “a scene from a movie.”
“They love to see the vitality of our student body and just that the magic goes on,” she explained.
As we went through the downtown, our class members were overwhelmed with what they saw, which was all this diversity, and they said, “Here’s every color of kid in the world and they’ve all got green t-shirts on — Go Tornadoes! — and they’re cheering for Tornadoes.” And they couldn’t quit talking about how wonderful the experience was. You could be told all day long what was happening, but until you get into the schools, you don’t really see what’s happening. That was really, really eye-opening for them, and it was an amazing weekend.
Clough is no stranger to a changing community. As a long-time resident of Storm Lake, she has seen the demographic shift over the years.
Born in town in 1950, Clough’s family goes back generations as business owners of an auto parts store. After selling the business several years ago, Clough now works as a landlord, renting out apartments and retail spaces to residents of the town. A member of the 1968 graduating class from SLHS, she left Storm Lake to attend college and work before returning to help with the family business, bringing her family back to the town she had called home.
Even when she was away, Clough’s roots remained in Storm Lake. Along with the auto parts store, her parents also worked to maintain a family park in honor of her sister, who passed away tragically while young. “The park saved my parents,” she said. “They threw all their energy into that little park, and they loved it, and of course now they’re both gone and I’ve inherited it.”
Clough now maintains the park, at the corner of Railroad and Lake Avenue, an everlasting memorial to her sister and the love of her parents.
Once she returned to her family in Storm Lake, Clough utilized her musical ability to teach piano and to work as a kindergarten music teacher. Here she noticed the diversity increasing in Storm Lake as well. “Teaching kindergarten music of course I had all [kinds of students], so I was seeing a lot and was seeing it with my kids, too. In my son’s class there were not that many minority students, and then seven years later my daughter’s class…now you’re lucky to find a white kid in a class. It’s crazy.”
Years later, Clough has since retired from the school system but works as a part-time piano teacher with a few “hobby students.” Her rental business, while offering its fair share of challenges, has been one of her favorite experiences working in Storm Lake. “As a landlord, I have four apartments in these buildings, and I have had every nationality there is to have, and that has been the richest experience. It’s driven me absolutely insane, the problems. Hardly a day goes by that it isn’t some damn thing, you know, but honestly, I have met so many wonderful people. A lot of times we can’t even speak one word to each other. People ask me how I can stand it — I mean the constant problems — and I say, ‘Well, I just meet so many wonderful people and learn so much.’”
In one moving example, Clough’s grandmother once lived next door to one of the first Mexican families to move to Storm Lake, and she fell in love with the family. They invited her over every chance they got and helped her when she fell ill, eventually attending her funeral to support her family when she died at the age of 101. Clough was amazed at the acceptance she saw, and how her grandmother adjusted to a changing town. “At 101, if she can adapt, who can’t?” she said.
Clough recalled an early attempt at adaptation in the schools that she felt was successful: a school exchange with kids in Sioux Rapids. “We have this reputation. People say they won’t shop in Storm Lake because it’s too dangerous, and there’s too many shootings. It’s crazy. But then they did that exchange with those kids and the kids realized, ‘Well, geez, you’re just kids.’ They had a great time.”
Clough now finds herself completely used to Storm Lake’s newfound diversity. It feels normal. While briefly working as director for Santa’s Castle, she found herself shocked by the school groups that would come in from other towns. “We would have school groups come through all the time and it was so amazing, to me, because I was so used to our kids, Storm Lake kids, of every color, size, and shape. Then there would come a group from Le Mars and they were all white and it would be like, ‘Oh, wow! It was so shocking.”
The school groups from other areas in Iowa seemed like a part of the past, reminiscent of the school experience that Clough herself had had in Storm Lake. Now, everything has changed and, years later, she loves what the town has become. After almost seventy years living in Storm Lake, she has high praise for her hometown. “I would just describe it as just the brightest little jewel in Iowa. It offers pretty much everything you need; beautiful lake, college, lots of opportunity, good schools.”
She has hopes that her children will return to live nearby, believing that nothing can truly tear you away from the energy and peace of small town living. “The funny thing I’m finding with my kids is, all kids are anxious to get out, and they are living in cities. But they are living a little town life in cities,” she said.
Clough is a proud advocate of the “little town life”, where everything one could need is nearby and the community is close-knit. But Storm Lake is no ordinary little town. It boasts the diversity and modernity of a large city with the comfort and security of something much smaller and more unique.
From her class’ high school days (one of the largest senior classes the town had ever seen) to the contemporary and diverse town that is Storm Lake, Clough has experienced change through careful eyes, from behind pages of sheet music and rental agreements. When her classmates returned home for their 50th graduation anniversary, they were shocked to see the changes that had been made in town, but Clough knew it well. It was a parade to celebrate the past as much as a whole new kind of homecoming.