After a career spanning law, education, and civic service—including a term as Cornell College Trustee from 1986 to 1993—Darrel Morf died July 10, 2025, in Mount Vernon, Iowa. He was 81.
Born in small-town Iowa, Morf graduated with highest distinction with a political science degree from the University of Iowa in 1966 and a law degree from the University of Iowa College of Law in 1969. Morf clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals in Omaha and then took a position with a law firm, where he continued to practice law for 55 years. He also taught at the U of I Law School for nearly 20 years as an adjunct professor.
Morf served as a board member of the Hall-Perrine Foundation, Mercy Hospital, Mercy Hospital Foundation, the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Foundation, and the University of Iowa Law School Foundation, as well as the American Baptist Ministers and Missionaries Benefit Board, the General Board, and the Home Missions Board of American Baptist Churches U.S.A. He was a long-time member of the Mount Vernon Lions Club and known for calling bingo for Mount Vernon’s Heritage Days.
He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Middie, his three sons and their wives, his 9 grandchildren, including Nellie Morf ’25, his brother, a nephew, and a niece.