School honors longtime secretary as Homecoming Grand Marshal

     Lifelong Lakota resident Rena Steele will preside as Grand Marshal over the 2015 North Iowa Homecoming Parade, which is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 2 in Buffalo Center.

     Steele, a 1969 graduate of Lakota High School, worked as a secretary with the North Iowa school district and its various incarnations for 37 years. She served in various capacities during those years, including as high school, elementary and school board secretary.

     Since retiring from the district in 2008, she has stayed involved with local students as a part of the Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP). She works with first grade students at North Iowa through RSVP’s Reading Buddies program, which involves coming into the school for an hour each week to work one-on-one with kids to improve their reading skills.

     Other organizations Steele is involved with include First Presbyterian Church in Lakota, where she serves as a deacon, and the Lakota Quasquicentennial Committee.

     The Homecoming Parade will follow its usual route from recent years, setting out from Bison Field at 2:30 p.m. on Friday and traveling south past the nursing home before turning east on 3rd Ave. NW. The parade turns south at 1st St. NW for one block before turning east on 2nd Ave. NW and then north on Main St. The parade concludes by going west on 4th Ave. to end at the school. In the event of poor weather, the parade route will run in reverse.