Tom Ellis is, if anything, visionary.
He has a deep love for Iola — returned when he could have stayed in California, more conducive to his artistic bent — and spends a good measure of his time thinking about ways to make our community more appealing. He also has a heart for wildlife, and has made his late mother Dorothy’s 160 acres off-limits to hunting.
Ellis recently gave a brief overview of four projects that would brighten Iola as a destination for tourists, as well as those hoping to find an agreeable place to live.
Foremost for Ellis is to turn his farm on gently sloping land south of the old Lehigh property and Iola Elks Lake into a wildlife refuge, with walking trails, feeding stations and, hopefully someday at the top end, to have a hotel-restaurant as you might find in the wilds of Colorado or Montana. Connecting to trails on the former Lehigh property, now under Iola Industries’ thumb, would be a terrific plus.
Ellis dreams big, and why not? Putting the bar high often results in extraordinary accomplishments.
Already he has deer in large numbers coming to feast on alfalfa and grain. Birds chirp throughout the day and a huge lawn interspersed with small flat-stone sculptures — miniature dolmens reminiscent of Stonehenge — invite a stroll.
This proposal is the most expansive of Ellis’s undertakings; others could be accomplished at much less cost and effort. They would be in Iola and shower our fair city with bewitching ambience.
Ellis would target the east entrance to town — a depressing corridor — with the erection of translucent plastic pyramids or domes, small enough to fit on the four corners but large enough to be seen for some distance, with pulsating colored lights inside.
In a somewhat similar vein, Ellis thinks pocket parks, maybe even with small in-ground aquariums, at the four corners of the courthouse square would make a downtown visit more delightful. He envisions having school children help care for the tiny parks, to give ownership and for them an experience not found in books or classroom.
The last project is a downtown art gallery and studio where he and others could serve as tutors to those of all ages who have desire to release their energies with pen, pencil or brush.
WHAT ELLIS proposes comes with a price tag, and takes time, energy and dedication. However, the results could turn Iola and the immediate area from just another town to someplace special, one that would entice anyone with a dollop of adventure to come for a visit.
We have the new apartments and soon-to-be G&W Foods a few blocks into the city, and the Bowlus plaza will be a magnificent addition.
We have the spirit to sprint to the top in Iola, albeit perhaps in hibernation. We just need to pull the trigger and move more aggressively out of the box of “doing what we always have done.”
