Utleys dive into retirement together

After a lifetime of separate careers, Sharon and Larry Utley are looking forward to spending their retirement together.
Sharon will work her last day as Allen County treasurer Monday. Larry, who started Utley’s Iola Auto Body, 324 N. State St., in 1974, is retired — well, better make that sort of.
“I still work part time and probably will for a while,” he said.
That’s understandable. His partner for years in the auto shop has been their son, Curt.

A HAYRACK ride back in 1962 put on by Winona Maley (now English) got the two LaHarpe High kids together.
Soon after they were engaged. He graduated in 1963, she in 1964. A few weeks later they were hitched.
They remember their honeymoon well.
“We didn’t have any money and got married on July 3, so we could have the weekend,” to go to Fort Scott, Sharon said. The National Cemetery was a highlight of the trip.
Larry, 69, was born and raised to early teens on a farm outside Pipestone, Minn. His family moved to a farm near LaHarpe when he was a high school freshman.
“I was a city girl,” said Sharon, 66, having grown up in LaHarpe.
He started work for Lang Motor Company in 1962, the year before he graduated, and later worked with Jay Patterson, body man at Dick White Motor Co., Verle Hoffman at State Street Motors, Fritz Auto Supply, and Dale Wichman Ford, before starting his own shop.
Sharon got her first exposure to county government as motor vehicle deputy in the county treasurer’s office, 1965-1969. She then took time off to raise their family, but often found herself plying her clerical skills at the auto shop.
After three years with Allen County Farm Bureau, she returned to the treasurer’s office in September 1987 and became treasurer in October 2000.
She is past president of the Kansas County Treasurers Association and past matron of Moran Eastern Star, which just consolidated with the Yates Center chapter.
Larry is no stranger to elections, having served as Jaycees president and is a past exalted ruler of Iola Elks.

BOTH HAVE seen many changes within their professions.
“There is much less mechanical work with cars today, more electrical and technical,” Larry said. “Tolerances are much closer. Vehicle structures are designed for occupant safety and aerodynamically for better mileage.”
Body repair also has changed.
“If a (body) part is bent, you usually have to replace it because the metal is carbon-hardened,” he said. “Thinner and lighter but stronger. Grills and bumpers are all plastic.”
Paint application also has changed. When putting on today’s polyester color coating, the person doing the work wears protective clothing and a full mask.
With older enamel paints and associated cyanide gas, “some catastrophes nearly happened,” he said. “There was one local guy who nearly died.”
Larry developed melanoma in 1997 at the edges of a mask he wore while painting. Surgery dealt with the malignancy and he has been cancer-free since.
“That ended my painting and welding career,” he said.
“I was the youngest in the courthouse” when she started in the treasurer’s office, “and now I’m second oldest,” Sharon quipped.
She remembers doing paperwork by hand and with typewriters, including typing all tax statements that today are all computerized.
“We also sold all vehicle tags at the start of the year,” rather than in today’s staggered sequence, she said.
Perhaps the biggest headache of Sharon’s career occurred when the state installed a new motor vehicle computer program in 2012, but “most days are fun,” she said.

RETIREMENT won’t find either of the Utleys rocking on the front porch of their North Kentucky Street home.
They look forward to being able to spend more time with family members and to go camping.
They also expect to have more time to volunteer.
“We love the Bowlus (Fine Arts Center) and want to do more volunteer work there and anywhere else we can help out,” she said.
“The Bowlus is a great thing for Iola,” Larry chimed in. “We’ve had season tickets for I don’t know how long.”
Sharon won’t be on the go all the time.
“I love to read and I have lots of Readers Digest condensed books waiting at home,” she said. “I also like to crochet — I want to get better at it — and I want to get back to playing the piano.
“And, I want to learn to play pickleball,” after reading about its surging presence in Iola.
For Larry, being outdoors has appeal.
“I like to hunt deer, although basically I like to watch wildlife more than trying to take a deer,” he said, recalling an experience a year or two ago when a nice plump doe was in range but he passed on the shot because her fawn was standing a few yards away.
At other times, “I just like to putter around the house and the yard,” Larry allowed.

IN ADDITION to son Curt, his wife Amy and their children, Brad, a student at the University of Kansas, and Allie, a sixth grader, the Utleys have another son, Doug, who lives with wife Christy and their son, Cooper, 3, in Kansas City.