DMACC Boone Commencement Ceremony
posted 04/23/07

DMACC's Boone Campus 2007 Commencement will take place at 10 a.m., Fri., May 4 in the Boone Campus Gymnasium. More than 230 Boone Campus students will graduate this spring. A reception will follow immediately after the commencement in the L.W. Courter Center.

DMACC Boone Campus student Tammie Hartman of Ames will welcome family and friends to the graduation ceremony.

Rich Byerly, former president of Southwestern Community College in Creston and later Foundation Executive Director at Central Lakes Community College in Brainerd, MN, is the commencement speaker.

Byerly was born and raised on a farm near Boone. He graduated from Boone High School where he lettered in football, basketball and track. Byerly earned an A.A. degree from Boone Junior College in 1958, where he edited the college newspaper and played basketball. He went on to earn a B.A. from Simpson College where he played football, basketball and ran sprints in track.

He earned a Masters of Science degree in Educational Research from Iowa State University in 1969 and completed a Ph.D. in Educational Research with an emphasis on Statistics from the Higher Education Administration and Journalism fields in the College of Education at ISU in 1970.

Byerly was a high school teacher and coach at Gilbert High School from 1961-1967, a sports reporter and photographer for the Ames Daily Tribune and an intern in Congressman Neal Smith’s office in Washington, D.C. in 1971.

Byerly served in the Iowa House of Representatives for five years from 1973 through 1983. He was twice elected Assistant Minority Leader. He also helped modernize the Iowa Public Employees Retirement System (IPERS) and authored the Iowa New Jobs Training Act of 1983.

He became the Assistant to the President for Research and Development at DMACC from 1970-1982, where he established the foundations at Boone and Ankeny. He was Vice President for Development Services at DMACC from 1982 through 1983.

Byerly became president of Southwestern Community College in Creston in 1984 and served through 1996, presiding over the largest enrollment growth in the history of the college with an almost 200 percent increase.

He was Foundation Executive Director at Central Lakes Community College in Brainerd, MN from 1997 through 2001.

He is currently retired but engaged in management of a farm and still writing articles for numerous outdoor, hunting and fishing magazines.

He is the proud parent of six children and nine grandchildren.

DMACC Boone Campus Provost Dr. Tom Lee will preside over the commencement.

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