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By ANNE KAZMIERCZAK
Register Reporter
Jason Kegler is a “reluctant” Iolan.
“I grew up in the city — not the inner city — but there was more concrete than grass,” he said of his childhood in Kansas City.
Now, along with his wife Tara, he lives on a five-acre farm south of Iola.
“When we first moved out here, we didn’t have a light installed, and I couldn’t see three feet in front of my face,” Kegler said.
“People I grew up with can’t believe I live on a farm with two cows.”
Kegler said his childhood was definitely urban.
“My dad was a Kansas City police officer. My mom worked for the Social Security Administration. I went to private school — We were definitely middle class.”
Kegler says he’s a “reluctant convert” to country life. “It is a tremendous change,” he said.
But it has its advantages.
Kegler moved to Iola “In April of 2000. I had just gotten here to coach women’s basketball.” He was hired by Allen County Community College to be Director of Student Activities, Director of Residence Halls and Women’s Basketball Coach.
“My business card was getting pretty crowded,” he said with a smile.
That slew of titles brought him more than just work.
TARA RHODES was working on her bachelor’s degree in social work at Pittsburg State University. A Moran native, the former ACCC basketball player had transferred to Pitt just the year before. “I needed another basic class and I didn’t want to take it at Pitt,” Tara said.
“My family is really close,” she said. Missing them, she enrolled in a summer course at ACCC. That gave her the opportunity to coach basketball at her old high school, too.
Jason and Tara’s paths crossed.
“We met discussing some of her players that I was looking at recruiting,” Kegler said of their first encounter.
The two hit it off.
“We were friends for almost a year before we started to date,” Jason said. “And then we started dating just before September 11. It changed things drastically,” Kegler said.
What should have been the light-hearted beginning of a relationship became serious. “It got us thinking about what we were going to do for the rest of our lives,” Kegler said. “Personally, being a little bit older (He’s 34, she’s just shy of 30), and coaching, I thought it was important to settle down and start looking for a future wife.” Being practical, though, the couple didn’t jump into anything. “We dated for three years,” he said.
“After two years, I was like, ‘Is he gonna propose?’” Tara said. Eventually, he did.
The couple married in 2004.
The couple both agree Tara is a homebody. She recently left her job as secretary of human resources at Allen County Hospital and began a home-based daycare business.
“It was a way for me to stay home with my kids,” she said. It’s a pattern she knows and loves.
“My mom has always been a stay-at-home mom,” Tara said. “She ran the farm. My dad used to work for the city of Moran; now he’s at Heartland Electric.”
“She sees them all the time,” Jason said of his wife’s family. “They tend to come over here more than we go over there,” Tara said, especially now that she is running the day care. The Keglers have two children of their own; Ravyn, three, and Dierks, 10 months. For fun Tara said “I just like to stay home with my kids.”
Jason prefers to meet with other couples, let the kids play. “I personally don’t mind getting together with other couples and going to the steakhouse or having an informal gathering.”
But he accepts his wife’s nature.
Tara’s deep desire for home is why the couple lives in Iola, they both said.
“I didn’t want to go away,” Tara said. “And I was still coaching,” when the two got married, Jason said, “so there was no desire to leave at that point.” Jason said it’s inherent in the job of coaching to move up — and onward — at intervals, though, and that would require leaving Iola.
“When we found out we were going to have Ravyn, we talked about what we were gonna do,” Jason said.
Not long before, Jason was offered the position of director of student life at ACCC. He accepted it, adding those duties to his coaching job.
“It was tough,” he said of the double-load. “The dynamics of today’s teenagers is different than what I was used to,” Jason said. “It’s a difficult population.”
With a child on the way, the couple discussed Jason’s coaching, his double-duty job and Tara’s ties to the area.
“She didn’t want to leave,” Kegler said, “and with coaching, you have to at some point.” Jason knew he would want more family time, so he quit coaching.
“It was a good choice,” he said.
JASON DOESN’T miss Kansas City as much as he used to. “We’re close enough that we can get a taste of it when we want” he said.
“If you live out here, you’re out here for a purpose.”
The location is quiet, and safe for the kids. “We don’t get too many random folks out here,” he said.
The couple has lived in their current location just under a year. They lived north of Haldex before that, also beyond the city limits. They currently have five acres, “But I’m looking for more,” Jason said.
As for their farm plans, “If my wife has her way, we will have a chicken farm,” Jason said. “But I’m holding my ground.”
WHEN ASKED what the couple likes abut Iola, they answer in tag-team format:
“I think the size and closeness of the community,” says Jason. “Everybody helps each other out,” said Tara.
“Everybody knows each other,” she says. “That could also be a weakness, but I think it’s a strength,” he replied.
“More and more younger couples are moving in,” Jason observed. As to why that might be, Jason believes “Family ties are pulling people back, or they’ve experienced big-city life and want a quieter pace.”
Jason appreciates the influx of young families.
“When we were dating, it was really just the college group to hang out with,” he said.
The couple’s thinking is family-oriented.
“It would be nice to have more kid-type activites, like a recreation building,” Tara said.
“I think Iola is in desperate need of that, but the issue becomes who pays for it,” Jason said thoughtfully. “With the economy going the way it has, when you talk about raising taxes and spending that much money, people are reluctant. But, I think we need it.”
“That walking trail is very good, and there’s always something going on in the park, like a baseball game,” Jason said of things that keep him busy now that he’s converted to small-town life. Other pasttimes he engages in are fishing and riding four-wheelers.
“In terms of what Iola does well, the way the community supports its own is important,” he said. “Working out at the college, I get to see that.”
“The things the Ministerial Alliance does, the things that Rotary does, it’s vital to how the comunity supports itself.”
“I see more of it here,” Jason said, than Kansas City. “In the city, it seems organizations are trying to better a part — a neighborhood or district — here, everybody’sincluded. This IS the neighborhood.”
Despite its radical difference from Kansas City, Jason said of Iola, “I like it. I like the change of pace.” Although “It took a while for me to get used to everything closing at 9 p.m.”
“I have family and friends who think I live in Mayberry. A couple of my college friends will come down (to visit) but the people I grew up with won’t,” he said.
Still, Tara said the most difficult aspect of their life here has been “finding a church to go to. That was the hardest thing for us.”
“We could just not agree on a church-home for the longest time,” said Jason — Tara was a Baptist, and Jason a non-denominational Christian.
They finally settled on Fellowship Regional Church, which meets in the old Iola cinema.
“A community is what you make of it,” Jason said.
And he’s involved in this community. “I’m involved in youth basketball here. It keeps me more than busy,” Kegler said.
“It keeps me out of trouble, and it lets me give back.”
“There were so many people who helped me along, I wanted to give back.”
02/10/09
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