Dolores Clarke DoBell

Honored by:David Dobell
Brick location:C:12  map

Dolores was born to Robert and Genevieve Clarke in DeKalb, Illinois, on February 13, 1931. Her youthful years were spent in Olney, Illinois. At Olney Area High School, she was first chair flutist and often featured in band, drama and choir activities. She was a member of the National Honor Society, editor of the school newspaper and feature editor of the school yearbook. As a senior, she was chosen as the recipient of the Julius Gregory Memorial Award, presented to an outstanding senior voted on by the faculty. She graduated as valedictorian of her Olney High School class in 1949. She received a scholarship and attended Bradley University, where she majored in music education. She was a member of Pi Beta Phi social sorority, Sigma Alpha Iota music honorary, and Chimes, a junior women's honorary society. She was a flutist in the Bradley University concert and marching bands and active in drama productions as a member of Mask and Gavel.

In 1953, she married David DoBell and followed his advertising career in Syracuse, New York; Council Bluffs, Iowa; and Fairfield, Iowa, before moving to Ames in 1964. She spent five years as a teacher in the public school systems of Illinois, New York and Iowa. She became a teacher's assistant and a resource secretary in a media resource center in the Ames Public Schools for four years. Dolores then helped put three sons through college by taking a position at Iowa State University as a secretary to two department heads and Dr. Velmer A. Fassel, deputy director at the Ames Laboratory.

In March of 1985, she applied and received the job of program assistant to Dr. J. T. Scott, associate dean and director as his program assistant in the College of Agriculture's International Programs Office. She remains in this position today, acting as contractor liaison for sponsored international students and as programmer for international visitors to the College of Agriculture. Dolores will be remembered as an "ambassador" of the highest caliber. She became the liaison for international students and dignitaries as they were introduced to the College of Agriculture at Iowa State University.

As the years go by, these students and visitors will probably forget who was president at Iowa State at the time -- be it Dr W. Robert Parks, Gordon Eaton or Martin Jischke -- but none will ever forget Dolores. She served on the University Human Relations Committee for six years and is a member of the National Association of Foreign Student Advisors (NAFSA) Professional Society. Recently she was elected to membership in the ISU Alpha Delta Chapter of Phi Beta Delta Honor Society for International Scholars. During her career, she was honored by the ISU African Student Association with an award for service to international students.

Her smile, her caring attitude, her remarkable mastery of unusual names, her meticulous attention to detail and excellence will be remembered by many students and guests from around the world, particularly in the third world countries of Pakistan, Peru and Costa Rica. Her home, too, was the only American home that some of these international guests had an opportunity to visit.

Dolores is also active in the Ames community as a member of the Bethesda Church Choir and Band and the Pi Beta Phi Alumni Club, and is a member of KR Chapter of PEO. This remembrance has been placed in loving respect by her husband, David, and her three sons, Dwight, Dan and Don DoBell.

 5/16/94