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This article appeared in the April 7, 2003, issue of Around LAS, the faculty/staff newsletter of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences:
One box. That's all the physical memories that Cleo Honold is taking with her when she retires from Iowa State and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) this April. But Honold will take many more personal memories with her when she walks out the Catt Hall doors for the final time on Friday, April 18, after serving 13 years as the secretary to the LAS dean. "I have mixed feelings about leaving," Honold says. "But I need to get on with the next part of my life."
Since 1990, the Dean's Office in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has been a major part of Honold's life. In that time frame, she has worked with six different deans, from David Bright, the dean who hired her, to David Glenn-Lewin, Betsy Hoffman, Dick Hoffman, John Dobson, and currently Peter Rabideau. At one point Honold worked with a different dean four straight years. The hardest part was finding out their different work habits and trying to keep things on schedule for them, she said. "Each of them worked differently but I always thought the most important part of my job was to make sure things in the Dean's Office ran smoothly."
With Dean Rabideau, Honold says she particularly liked the opportunity he has given her to work on her own. "I also like the variety that comes with this type of position," she said. "I even like the stressful periods of time, especially when it gets busy." While she has worked with six different LAS deans, it's mind-boggling the number of other Iowa State faculty and staff she comes in contact with on a daily basis. "I can't begin to count the number of people (associate deans academic department chairs dean's office staff) I have worked with over the past 13 years," Honold said.
When Honold started at Iowa State, LAS had its offices in Carver Hall. In 1995, the College moved to its present location in Catt Hall. During the renovation process of Catt Hall, Honold served on the building's renovation committee and later also was a member of the campus committee that planned the dedication of Catt Hall. "We would put on hard hats and come into this building and it was such a mess," she recalled. "It was just awful. But when it was finished it was absolutely beautiful."
Once Honold begins her retirement, she plans to work in her yard, spend the summer months with her grandkids and winter in Arizona with her husband. But after such a hectic life in the Dean's Office, she knows life won't be the same anymore. "I know I'm going to be bored," she said.
"But I have come to a time in my life when I don't want to get up at six in the morning. I want to be able to go out on my deck drink a cup of coffee, read the paper and watch the birds. I'm really going to miss everyone I work with," she said. "We really have a neat bunch here in the office."
updated: 3/13/2014