And while Pocahontas Mayor Dick Gruber does sign off on paperwork and help make decisions, he does much more.

Serving as mayor for nearly eight years, Gruber does a lot of work with the local Hometown Pride group on making the town look nice for both residents and visitors.

One of the biggest recent projects Gruber contributed to was the remodel of a log cabin next to the Pocahontas statue just off Iowa Highway 3 coming into town.

Gruber said he not only helped with the remodel, but he also did much of the work on the front porch himself.

-Messenger photo by Peter Kaspari
Pocahontas Mayor Dick Gruber looks out from a log cabin near the Pocahontas statue in town. Gruber helped to restore the log cabin and personally invested many hours in building the front porch.

That wasn’t the only work he did, either.

“We got a new restroom facility built in that, from the very ground up in procuring all the things that go into a restroom that size,” Gruber said. It’s a free-standing, wheelchair-accessible bathroom.

But he’s also worked on cleaning up the town.

“We’ve also had numerous tree plantings around the community,” he said. “We walk down Highway 3 and (Iowa) Highway 4 throughout town here, picking up refuse and trying to keep the beauty of the place up to snuff.”

Gruber really enjoys working to help beautify Pocahontas.

-Messenger photo by Peter Kaspari
Dick Gruber, the mayor of Pocahontas, poses next to a statue of the real-life Pocahontas on display in town. Gruber actively works to help clean up the town he has spent much of his life and career in.

“I just like things to look nice, and if I’m going to live in a community, I want it looking nice,” he said. “I want good streets. I want yards picked up, lawns mowed. Those kinds of things that tend to actually define the character of the community, so I’m interested in that definition of the community as far as being a neat, clean place to live and work as much as we can.”

He added that he takes “a lot of pride in that and feeling that we can promote that to other people going through our community.”

In particular, Gruber really loves seeing when young people get involved with the community.

Gruber spent 45 years as a middle school and high school social studies teacher.

“I retired here, taught here,” he said. “I raised five daughters here and I thought it was time maybe I gave back to the community a little bit and maybe this was a little way I could do it.”

-Messenger file photo
Pocahontas Mayor Dick Gruber sits on a bench that was dedicated to him by his children. Gruber said he enjoys helping to clean up the town and working to improve it.

A number of young people have helped out with Hometown Pride projects.

“We have a May term each year, which is about a week and a half at the end of the school year in which other courses are provided,” he said. “Gardening, Bob the Builder, those types of things. We’ve gotten kids on those projects that have helped us down in our parks.”

Among the work the students did was build a small train for the playground and helped out with the teepee next to the Pocahontas statue.

“These things were all done by kids involved in helping out with the community,” Gruber said. “But that’s a big deal with me. I want to get those young people as much as we can, and hopefully it’ll have some carryover value when it comes to them getting out on their own and giving back to their communities.”

Gruber said he wants to be a part of the town’s future and the success that comes with it.

He’s especially proud of all the street projects recently.

“I like to think we have some of the better streets of a community our size anywhere,” he said.

Additionally, a declining and aging population are impacting the town. Gruber wants to make sure the quality of life in the Princess City is high.

“We have an aging population,” he said. “We have a population that we’re losing in numbers, and we have to be constantly vigilant to that point and try to maintain those life values that will make this community sustain itself.”

As mayor, Gruber said what makes him happiest is when he gets to honor local people and organizations.

“You many times have little proclamations or declarations that you have to sign or read,” he said. “I take great pride in doing that when it concerns entities with our own community. I like to always be on top of those people that are working in our community for us.”

“Therefore, I’m more than happy to get the word out on them as much as we can,” Gruber added. “I like to toot our own horn a bit as far as what we have to offer.”

He believes that, to be a successful mayor, he needs to be visible.

“I think that, as a leader in some way, fashion or form of our community, it’s incumbent for me to be out there and be visible,” he said. “And I like it that people notice that I’m out there, getting my hands dirty or whatever it takes to get the job done.”

It’s also important to be a good listener. He said every morning he goes out to get coffee and spends his time listening to what the community tells him.

When his children were younger, he would always give them advice that applied to both them as school-aged children and as adults in the workplace: “Get it done in a timely fashion with some quality. That’s what I live by, anyway.”

“I really enjoy the community, and I feel I get tremendous support from the people in town,” Gruber said. “Sometimes it’s not always the things they want to hear, but at least they’ll listen, and I appreciate that.”