March 28, 2024

Creston adds three to hall of fame

Another Creston High homecoming and the school’s hall of fame grows with more diversity and representation of what the school has produced.

The 2021 hall of fame inductees, Dr. Larry Tilley, Kyle McCann and Jim Lippold were honored during the ceremony held Friday at the high school in conjunction with the naming of the homecoming queen.

McCann, a 1997 graduate, made the headlines as being part of a Creston High basketball team that won a state title, the first since 1939. McCann would put down the ball and pick up the golf clubs that also took Creston to the state golf tournament in 1997. Recruited by the University of Iowa, McCann would eventually become the starting quarterback.

McCann credited his Creston football coach Dick Bergstrom for encouraging him to continue with football. McCann said he had considered putting more into basketball as he was also invited to try out for the Iowa basketball team.

“It was him who told me to stick with football,” McCann said.

McCann took the Hawkeyes to the Alamo Bowl in 2001 and a win over Texas Tech. That capped off a college football career that McCann said was always supported by his family.

“There were times I didn’t even sniff the field, but my family was still there,” he said.

After college, McCann was a free agent for the NFL’s New York Jets. Although he did not make the team, McCann did play a season in NFL Europe in Barcelona, Spain.

McCann returned to school and earned a law degree from Creighton. His wife, Maggie, who ran track at the University of Iowa, acquired her law degree from Iowa. They have three children.

Dr. Larry Tilley is a 1962 Creston High graduate and has had an extensive career in veterinary medicine. After Creston, he attended Creston Community College, now known as Southwestern Community College, and transferred to Iowa State University for his degree. His career has turned into authoring multiple books and articles about the science. Some of his research was based on doctors treating people and how it converted to animal care.

His most recent work has been working with pharmaceutical companies. His work also includes studying how the MMR vaccine, typically administered to children, could be a prevention for COVID-19 in youth.

Tilley offered some words of advice to the students in the audience encouraging them to read as much as possible and not be afraid to engage in conversations with others.

“Listen to your head but follow your heart,” he said about pursuing goals and dreams.

He also encouraged the students to value all their experiences. He also reminded the students to not be afraid to share what they have been through.

Lippold, who retired from Creston in 2005 as speech, drama and English teacher, was from Pottawattamie County. Following his 1967 graduation from Avoca High School, he majored in speech and theatre and earned a minor in English from Dana College in Blair, Nebraska, graduating in 1971.

Lippold started his career teaching at East Monona in Moorehead, where he married his wife Mary in 1972. After five years in Moorehead, he joined the ranks at Creston High School in 1976, where he taught for nearly three decades.

At CHS, Lippold directed many plays and speech contests. At contests, his entries were named “Outstanding Performers” with four chosen for the “Critics’ Choice Award.”

In addition to teaching, coaching and directing, Lippold served as president of the Southwest District of the Iowa High School Speech Association, a member of the IHSSA Large Group All State Committee, and worked with Trees Forever and Creston FFA in planting projects on campus and in the community.

Lippold was chosen by Southwestern Company to serve as a consultant on their advisory board. After teaching, he worked as a consultant with Skills Iowa.

Lippold was humble accepting the honor and thanked the people and students he worked with during his career.

The other part of the ceremony was naming Morgan Driskell as homecoming queen. She is the daughter of Scott and Melissa Driskell and was escorted by Tyler Loudon.

John Van Nostrand

JOHN VAN NOSTRAND

An Iowa native, John's newspaper career has mostly been in small-town weeklies from the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi River. He first stint in Creston was from 2002 to 2005.