TAMA-Richard Dallas Pulse, age 91, of Tama, died Sunday, July 26, 2009, at Marshalltown Medical & Surgical Center in Marshalltown. A Memorial Service will be held on Thursday, July 30, 2009 at 11:00 AM at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Tama. Interment will be held at a future date at Bloomington Friends Church Cemetery in Muscatine, IA.
Richard was born on December 18, 1917, in Muscatine, Iowa, the son of Lysle Jasper and Bernice Verla (Dallas) Pulse. He had no brothers and sisters.
He received his education in Muscatine city grade school, rural Locust Grove grade school, then at Muscatine High School, graduating from there in 1935. He enrolled at Iowa State (then College) and received a degree in Agricultural Education in 1939.
He was united in marriage to Marie Hilda Esther Rueckert in 1939. Richard taught Vocational agriculture in West Virginia and Iowa, farmed from 1946 to 1949, and then was employed by Iowa State University and Hardin County as the County Extension Director. In Eldora, the county supervisors named Dick as a member of their first County Conservation Board. In 1959, he went to work for Hubbard Milling Company of Mankato, MN and became a branch sales manager, then sales training manager for the company, and finally the manager of the Mankato and Cedar Rapids profit centers and plant operations.
In 1973, Dick returned to the Iowa State University Extension Service at Toledo, Iowa, serving as the Tama County Extension Director until retiring in 1983. He often stated that he was at his best and was happiest during the years as an Iowa County Agent, working with rural and small town people in a variety of adult education programs and with 4-H and the county fairs. He was, for some time, a member of the Iowa State University Committee for Agricultural Development, involved in decisions regarding the proceeds from and distribution of new plant and crop varieties developed through research at the University.
Dick was an active member of Toledo-Tama Kiwanis Club and Toastmasters, served six years on the South Tama County School board, was president of the Tama County Mental Health Board during its organization phase, and was on the Tama County Foster Care Board. He served as president of St. Paul Lutheran congregation in Tama for two different periods separated by several years.
He was preceded in death by his parents.
Dick is survived by his wife, Marie of Tama; by his two children, Douglas Wayne Pulse of Ft. Dodge, and Margery Elaine McAlpine Guarnera of Mahtomedi, MN; five grandchildren, Douglas Pulse Jr., Alison Forrest, Daniel Pulse, Tafara Pulse, and David Pulse; four great-grandchildren; a cousin, Naomi Wiegand Young and her sons Tom and Jim of Muscatine, IA.
A memorial fund has been established.