Ken Laughery giving Iowa Lt. Governor Adam Gregg a tour of the Williams Building in November 2019.

National Volunteer Week seeks to recognize the power of volunteers to tackle society’s greatest challenges. Locally, a Guthrie Center resident has spent the last several years doing his part to revitalize the downtown area and provide housing.

Raccoon Valley Radio spoke with Ken Laughery recently about continued efforts to renovate the Williams Building in Guthrie Center to have second and third story apartments. Laughery was instrumental in renovating the first floor businesses, and has renovated other buildings downtown. Laughery says his involvement began when the City was redoing its downtown sidewalks, “And I was up eating at one of the local establishments one day and there was two or three of us sitting around complaining and griping about how we were doing this and how we were doing that and we should be doing it this way and that way. And as I walked back to my office from that gripe session I looked into a mirror and said, ‘You know you really don’t have any room to complain about things because you’re just sitting on your heinie, and not getting involved. If you want things done and you want things done differently, get off your seat and go help out.’”

Laughery has been a previous recipient of Main Street Guthrie Center’s Volunteer of the Year award, and has been nominated for a Governor’s Volunteer Award.