Perrien Brings Blystone on Air to Explain a Statewide Appointment

Perrien Brings Blystone on Air to Explain a Statewide Appointment

 

Senior Owen Blystone was appointed last week by Gov. Kim Reynolds to the Iowa Commission on Volunteer Service, the state board that does business as Volunteer Iowa. Perrien said he knew just enough about the appointment to know he did not know enough — and that the public should hear it from Owen, not from a principal summarizing it.

 

 

 

Volunteer Iowa is Iowa’s state service commission. The governor appoints the members. The board’s largest practical job is administering federal AmeriCorps money and other federal grants, then sending that support to programs across the state.

Blystone said Iowa has about 700 to 800 people in those programs. He said AmeriCorps grants alone run about $8 million to $10 million in a given year, with other federal grants on top of that. He has not sat a meeting yet; those figures are his working understanding heading into training.

He said the commission has 11 members, including him, and meets as a full board six times a year, plus committee work. The seat is unpaid. The appointment runs through June 30, 2028.

One seat is reserved for a young commissioner. Blystone said there is one other youth member. In the commission’s usage, youth runs 16 to 26.

He found the opening about a year ago while researching volunteerism, which he called a huge part of his life. Applications used to run through Talent Bank. The state moved them to IAppoint. He filed a letter of interest seven or eight months ago and got the notice last week.

This week is Iowa open-meetings and appointed-official training. Next week is new-commissioner orientation. The week after that is the first full commission meeting, on Zoom at 1 p.m. Some later work will be at the Capitol. Perrien said those absences are excused.

“I’m hoping to take the first few months to learn from all the other commissioners who have more experience in the sector,” Blystone said. “But then definitely give my two cents.”

 

Perrien did not talk about Blystone as a résumé. He talked about him as the student other students try to get on their team.

“If you ask anybody in his grade, particularly the kids who’ve been in his FORGE classroom,” Perrien said, “they’ll tell you, ‘Owen’s the doer.’”

“If anybody knows Owen, he’s not the rah-rah guy who’s over there fist pumping and hollering at people to get going,” Perrien said. “He just leads by example. He’s one of those people that leads in the dark.”

Perrien has been a high school principal about eight years, and a junior high administrator before that. He said he has never seen a student at school events more than Blystone in his entire administrative career — and Blystone is not getting paid for any of it. Photography for school social media started in the FORGE PBL class and has grown into athlete work and the start of a photography business.

He also said Blystone pushes the boundaries, in a good way. That was the point. The appointment, to Perrien, is not a surprise. It is the same pattern with a statewide letterhead on it.