Rexroat named Mount Vernon Citizen of the Year

MOUNT VERNON – Cornell College Communications Director Dee Ann Rexroat has received the Citizen of the Year award from the Mount Vernon Area Chamber of Commerce.

As a member of the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Strategic Planning Commission, Rexroat championed the group’s top recommendation, which was to create a joint identity for the two communities. She became founding president of the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Marketing and Tourism Board, which created the joint identity “Close to you, far from ordinary.” In 2007, the Tourism Board combined with four other civic organizations to form the Community Development Board, which applied for and was accepted into the Main Street Iowa program in March.

“Dee Ann has a strong sense of volunteerism which can be characterized as being dedicated, and consistently committed to quality,” said Chamber president Jennifer Miller at the awards banquet April 16.

Rexroat serves locally on the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Community Development Board and the Red Cedar Chamber Board. She also serves the Annapolis Group, a consortium of national liberal arts colleges, on its Public Relations Committee. Previous board service includes the local Chamber of Commerce, the Cedar Rapids History Center, and two terms as president of the Mount Vernon-Lisbon League of Women Voters.

Rexroat arrived in Mount Vernon in 1978 as a Cornell student. She left town briefly after graduation to pursue graduate studies at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and begin a decade-long career at the Cedar Rapids Gazette as an arts and entertainment writer, editor and music critic. In 1985 she moved back to Mount Vernon, and in 1994 she returned to work at Cornell.

Other awardees were Big Creek Market for Business of the Year, Beryl O’Connor of Lisbon for Above and Beyond the Call, and the Mount Vernon High School for its national Blue Ribbon award.