MARTY AND MARCIA (pronounced Marsha) DUFFUS
Gen. 2:24: Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one.

"Marty and Marcia." - this is the way their lives have been since they met in junior high. Even though they each told their own story, at that time it became more "we" than "I."

Marty was born in the small community of Kellogg, Iowa, which is between Newton and Grinnell. He was the baby of the family. His brother and sister were adults at the time he was born, which he admits is to say "I was spoiled," and Marcia agrees, "You were Kellogg's little imp." Marcia's life is the mirror image of him. She was born in Grinnell, the first born of four siblings, so instead of having the privileges of being the youngest, as Marcia matured, family responsibilities shaped her life. The balancing component which each brought to the union becomes obvious as their stories unfold. Of her Marty says, "Marcia is a strong, independent, quiet, wonderful guide. She's my grounder, my center. We don't agree on everything. It would be boring if we did. Believe it or not, I had a little bit of a temper. I was not always the mild­mannered, even tempered person you have come to know. Marcia was the one who changed my temperament. Whatever I am, I credit to Marcia."

Marty tells: My mom was a stay-at-home mother/bookkeeper/accountant for Dad's Amoco tank wagon business. I went to school from kindergarten through sixth grade in Kellogg, and probably the most memorable event was when I broke my arm and failed my first test. It happened over the noon recess and I was taken to the hospital, thus being absent for the first period after lunch when the test was scheduled. In spite of both me and my mother asking that I be able to make up the test, the teacher was adamant and gave me a failing grade. Thirty years later I still don't know why I wasn't allowed to take that test. I acknowledge, however, that even though Miss Peterson was the toughest teacher we had, if you were to ask any of her pupils, we would agree she was probably the best teacher we ever had.

There were four or five of us who ran around together. Every kid in Kellogg could run all over town. In those days there was no fear of being abducted. However, we learned respect because it was one of those communities in which not a lot of moms worked outside the home, and every mother was quite capable of enforcing discipline, which was just fine with every other mom and dad. That curtailed some of the mischief we might have gotten into.

Kellogg is built on a hill. At the top of the hill was the school and the water tower, at the bottom of the hill was Skunk River. In the summer the school playground was everybody's playground. In the winter, we went sliding on Washboard Hill, which describes its surface. We broke more sleds on it than you could count. When that happened, we went to the local junkyard and took hoods off the cars. About eight of us could ride on a hood. The problem was that when we went over one of the washboards, we were pretty much airborne, and we'd end up in the creek at the bottom of the hill. We would usually break through the ice and get wet and cold, so we'd have to go home and change clothes. Another carrier was aluminum grain shovels. We sat astraddle the handle and down the hill we'd go. That was a blast! This went on every morning, but the sessions ended when the noon whistle blew. Every kid went home for lunch, no matter what we were doing.

My brother was enough older than I, that when I was six, he was married and lived in Newton. He'd been racing for a long time when he bought me my first go-kart at the ripe old age of 14. We were dirt racers and everybody called us that. On these karts we rode 1 ½ inches off the ground. There were no roll-bars so we were the tallest objects in the car. If they went over, our heads hit first, protected, of course, by helmets. There are various size motors - mine was a Yamaha with a 100 cc (cubic centimeter) one cylinder motor. By comparison, a push lawn-mower has a one-cylinder motor, but my kart would run in excess of 100 miles per hour. We would get up to 70 mph on the 1/8 mile track and slide through the comers at about 40 mph.

One of my favorite races was at the State Fair Grounds. In the fall they set up a road course. The road that runs in front of the Grand Concourse was set up to be a straight-away of 1100 feet, but to get into it we had to negotiate a 90° left turn, which meant we had to come almost to a stop. The Des Moines police had never seen anything like our go-karts and came to watch. They had a car equipped with a hand held radar. When I came down that 1100 foot straight-away, I was going over 107 miles an hour.

There were guys who raced on asphalt. Some of their karts were really fancy, specially made, $1,000 chassis, tires $40 apiece. They not only washed but waxed their go-karts. All us dirt trackers did was go to the car wash and knock off the mud. Our karts were banged and dinged up. Even if we washed them they didn't look great. Theirs had treaded tires, ours had knobbies. They had slicks with add-on parts that made them look like racing vehicles. When we went to the asphalt event every year at Quincy, Illinois, we took our knobby tires off, put on their slicks, and promptly outran them all. That was fun! When I raced at Newton, my number was "1!"

When I had my own go-kart, I raced every weekend spring through fall - always Friday night in Newton and on Saturday wherever we could. We raced in Illinois, and in Iowa at Newton, DeWitt, and Knoxville. Mom loved the races except when I had to move up in the karting classes, and eventually my brother and I raced each other. We were still brothers. We still loved each other, would do anything for one another - except on the track. Then brotherly love disappeared! We showed no mercy and Mom hated that. If we were racing today it would be the same. I have a garage full of trophies and plaques that I have yet to hang. My reason for hanging them is not conceit, even though I was good at it, but it is a reminder of a period when my brother and I were really close.

One summer in the early to mid-70s, when I worked construction, I made in the neighborhood of $4,000, and put it all in a motor. Marcia injected: ''Now you know why he quit racing when we got married." I am probably the end of the racing line in our family. They have classes for kids as young as our son, Connor, who is seven, but he has no interest in it. If his Uncle Mike lived closer, undoubtedly he and Connor's dad would have him racing. Oh, that was fun!

Of Marcia's high school years, she said, "I didn't get involved in extra-curricular activities. I continued to babysit, but I also had after-school jobs. One was at Grinnell Mutual Reinsurance as a file clerk. They hired people over the summer and after school. When they reorganized, and became more automated, they didn't file every piece of paper. That eliminated the need of part time workers, so I got a job at the hospital after school until 11 :00 several nights a week. It was a nice job because I could do my homework while I sat at the front desk. I answered the phone, did the paper work for admissions, and at 9:00 every night I announced on the intercom that visiting hours were over and visitors should leave. Mom was working again, in the accounting department at Grinnell Mutual, where I had also worked, so I helped out at home.

Marty protested: "She didn't 'help out at home.' She did home! She cooked meals, cleaned house, did laundry, kept her brothers in line, she did it all!" In defense, Marcia replied, "My Dad always had two jobs, if not three. He worked very long hours so he wasn't around very much. Something my parents insisted on was that we were all home together for supper. Some times it was a little later than normal, but we were together. I did help out a lot because I was the oldest, Mom worked, Dad worked. That was just the way it was.

My brothers will never let me forget what a great organizer I was. I always wanted things where they should be, neatly put away. One time I thought the oldest brother wasn't doing a good enough job keeping his room clean, so I put all his clothes away in dresser drawers, rearranged some things that I didn't think were in the proper drawers, and he was so mad at me for so long because I had actually organized his room and he couldn't find anything. I probably did it to my other brother, too, at some later time. They still laugh and give me a rough time about that. (Marty remarked, "And now she does it to me.")

I was very active in the youth group and with other church activities on the weekends when I wasn't working. My family has always been very active in the Methodist Church. My grandmother sat in the back pew every Sunday. Mother never wanted to sit in the back pew, so at the beginning of the service, we would start sitting farther up front, but by the time the service was over, I was always in the back pew with my grandmother.

Marty says of his high school experience: At that time, I found two other loves beside Marcia.  One would think, with my size, I'd have played football, but I didn't. I discovered the joy of singing and theater. I was in All-State Chorus in 1979. In the fall of that year, our high school did "Fiddler on the Roof," and I was Tevye. That was my first theatrical role, and I had the lead! I will confess that a great part of the experience was that I had a cousin in Kelly, Iowa, who was very theatrical. Their high school did that play, and he was Tevye. Now, me too!

Everyone in my family was very musical. Mom could sight-read or play by ear the piano, organ, and accordion. She tap danced on WHO radio in the 40s on a show called "Barn Frolic." Her brothers played guitar and sang, Mom sang, and Grandpa was an old-fashioned fiddler. My sister played piano and violin, my sister-in-law played the piano, and I had a cousin who played piano, organ, and guitar. I, on the other hand, took piano lessons for three years in elementary school and can't read a note of music. But I sing. That's what I do, and it has given me a lot of joy - in high school Swing Choir and Concert Choir. In 1976, I was asked to sing the National Anthem at the Kellogg Horse Show - my first public solo and I was scared to death.

Marcia and I dated all through high school. One of my attractions to her was that my mom's family had red hair, and Marcia had red hair. Mom always wanted a red-haired grandson. The only grandchild she ever knew was my niece Julie. Obviously she wasn't a grandson and she didn't have red hair. I figured this was my chance to give her a red headed grandson.

I planned to drive into the southeast part of the county to see if I happened to run onto anything. I wandered through that part of the county, drove down to Gibson, and met the Keokuk County sheriff, Ron George, to whom I reported that I'd come down the back roads and didn't meet anybody. He said, "Great!" I said, "I'll return by some other back roads." I meandered up a gravel road and saw some acceleration marks. As I looked more closely at them, I saw they came out of a long lane that led into a farmstead. There was no house, just a couple big barns, a couple grain bins, and a grain wagon sitting crossways at the top of the lane. It was pretty obvious that someone had gone out of there in a big hurry.It was summer, so I drove with my windows down. At the top of the lane, I could turn either right or left and I chose to go left. I went past the grain wagon and there sat the silver car with the stereo playing loudly enough that I could hear it. That was the second time I was scared to death (the first time was when the fellow was shooting at us). I threw my car in reverse and went down the quarter-mile lane backwards.  I don't know how fast I was going, but it was as fast as I could possibly get out of there, because I was pretty sure that if the stereo was on in the car, the fellows had to be close. I radioed for help, and everybody responded quickly because they were just a few miles from where I was.

We went back up and searched the vehicle and the outbuildings.  There was nobody but we found another vehicle parked in the weeds in an attempt to hide it. We ran the plate on the silver car and it came back to a Poweshiek County resident who lived not far from where I was. One of the deputies went up to the house and found this gal - it happened to be his cousin - shot and killed. The robbers had stolen her car, shot the victim in Mahaska County, stole her pickup, drove up to the house where the girl lived with her grandparents, and left the pickup where we found the weeds. They used the car to rob the bank, drove back, parked the car, took the pickup and left. I couldn't have been far behind them.

That investigation took a long time, but the two men, Kauffman and McMahon, were apprehended in Pensacola, Florida. They had taken two girls from Oskaloosa with them. The girls were not a part of the crime spree. They just wanted to go along, so they were released, sent back on a train, and picked up in Ottumwa.

The DCI, the FBI, the Mahaska County Sheriffs Office, where I was, were all involved. MUSCO Lighting donated their jet to fly us to Pensacola and we interviewed the guys, brought them back, with federal charges against them. I nominated MUS CO as Volunteer for the Year, and they were selected. The fugitives pled guilty to all charges. It was a huge case, and I was lucky enough to be nominated by the FBI to be one of four recipients - one FBI agent, one DCI agent, the Mahaska County Sheriff, and I - for the Law Enforcement Coordinating Committee for our work in that investigation. I was floored when I got the notification from the State Attorney General's office. The result is that even now I am the guy DCI agents call, knowing I am here in Osceola. I became known as "The Resident Gravel Road Expert." Even after I came to Osceola, I had a phone call using that designation. It was because the marks in the gravel road had alerted me. I could have easily driven on by but they didn't look right, and pursuing that got us where we needed to be. The men are in prison for the rest of their lives, and that is a good resolution.

Marcia's temperament is great for being the spouse of a law enforcement person. People often ask, "Don't you worry about Marty when he is on the job?" She can truthfully say, "No, I really don't. Life is too short to spend it worrying. A lot of officers' wives listen to the police scanner while the spouse is on duty. That makes me nervous. I don't want to know what Marty is doing. I tell him 'goodbye, see you when you get home.' And Marty has promised. 'When my shift is over, I'll come home.' And he does. He's a good, level-headed guy. He will take care of himself at work."

In 2000, Marty ran for sheriff. "We'd never thought of anything like that, but we talked it over and decided it would be all right to campaign, but we would not do anything unethical, immoral, or illegal. When the election is over, we still want to live here and not have regrettable memories of things said or done." It was an ugly campaign, but Marty did everything the right way. He kept it clean, he presented the facts and how he stood on the issues - and lost. At that point they began to say, maybe they were not supposed to be there and maybe Marty should be looking for a career outside of law enforcement. He started looking at other investigation-type work - insurance, state agencies, etc. He would always get interviews but never the job. Marcia couldn't really picture Marty being in anything outside of law enforcement, because he loved it, he went to school for it, and she thought he should stick with it.

So, Marty said, "I began looking at various communities and opportunities. Some jobs required a Masters degree, which I didn't have. We concluded that Osceola seemed a pretty good pick. I had a little difficulty, which had nothing to do with Osceola. I had moved once - only ten miles, which wasn't much of a move, but it was quite a fruit basket upset for me. Marcia was born and raised in Grinnell. We attended the church her mother and grandmother attended. Marcia was in the church Circle her mother and grandmother were in. My family attended that church, both my mother's and father's funerals were in that church. We were married in that church - our whole lives were wrapped up in that church. We graduated from high school in Grinnell, where Marcia had gone since kindergarten. We were going to take a daughter, who had graduated from the same high school we did, and another daughter who was going to start high school, not in the same high school we went to. We had a son who was going to start school not in the same school we did. I was taking Marcia away from her mom and dad and our friends.

"I really wrestled with all that, but after we talked about it, I had no question. I knew, 'We can do this.' And we did. I came here on February 17th, 2004. To me it has been great - not without struggle and some disappointments, but also joys. I've met some great folks, I work with wonderful people. I wouldn't change a thing. People said, 'What church will you go to?' Marty said, without hesitation, 'The Methodist church.' There was no question about that.

"For those who wonder about the job description of a Police Chief, I would say it is a very responsible position.  If anything goes wrong, 'the buck stops' with the Police Chief. The job is to administer the day to day and long range planning of the department, which means patrol operations, investigations, scheduling, human resources, equipment purchase, scheduling for training, preparing a budget and making sure the department functions within it, meet the public, serve at the pleasure of the mayor, be compatible with the council and department heads within the city, develop and implement policy and procedure. Public Relations are a great part of it.  This is where I wanted to be, in the position I wanted. I may be one of the few people in the world who are where they want to be and happy to be there."

From Marcia's perspective: "Moving to Osceola was the second time Marty took me away from a job I loved. That was okay. I had encouraged him to come here. I stayed in Grinnell while Cori finished her senior year, Kendra finished her eighth grade - the last year of junior high, and her confirmation; Connor finished pre-school. So Marty was a bachelor from February to August, and that was probably good. He had a new community and a new position to become familiar with. He was free to come and go without being concerned about the family, and by the time we came, he knew his way around and was comfortable with it. As soon as school was out, Kendra moved here and got a job at the concession stand of the swimming pool, took drivers' ed, started band and playing basketball.  By the time school started, she had made a lot of friends

"In August we moved Cori to Coe College, and the next weekend the rest of us moved to Osceola. Connor wasn't aware of much change. In a grocery store and he would tell the check-out person, 'We're moving to Osceola.' 'You are? What are you going to do here?' 'My Dad is the Chief of Police.' So he took it all in stride. I commuted for awhile between Osceola and Grinnell, but I knew I didn't want to continue that, particularly with winter driving.

"When we came to town to drive around and see what Osceola was like, we drove past the college satellite center and I said, jokingly, 'I wonder if they need a secretary.' That was in January so in the fall I sent my resume to the college. Just a few days later, they called to say they had an opening at the Osceola center. So I am the secretary to the Director of the center. I, too, have found a place in Osceola. When things fall into place, you know they are meant to be."

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Last Revised June 25, 2013