Obituary of Joanne Stockdale

Funeral services will be held on January 19, 2018 at the First Presbyterian Church in Spirit Lake with visitation at 10 am and the service at 11 am. The family suggests that memorials be made to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. Joanne Stockdale, 71, of Okoboji, passed away peacefully on January 10, 2018, at the Pearl Valley Care Center in Lake Park. Joanne was born on August 13, 1946, in Spirit Lake to John and Dorothy Ottele. She graduated from Spirit Lake High School in 1964. She attended Iowa State University earning a degree in elementary education in 1968. She subsequently attended the University of Iowa Law School, but discontinued her legal education to join her husband who was stationed in Baltimore, Maryland, where she taught in the inner city. She subsequently taught in Hillcrest Heights, Maryland, Wheaton, Illinois and Newton, Iowa. While in Newton she attended night classes at Drake University in accounting. After earning her CPA certificate she joined McGladrey Hanson Dunn & Co. where she became a tax manager, until purchasing Northern Iowa Die Casting in 1984. She remained as president of the company until 2018. In 2003 she was SBA's Iowa Small Business Person of the Year and was the first runner up for National Small Business Person the Year. Joanne enjoyed public service. She served for more than twenty years as a member of the Investment Committee of the Iowa Public Employees Retirement System (IPERS), and served two terms as chair. She was a director and chair of the Iowa Association of Business and Industry (ABI). She served on the special legislative committee that rewrote Iowa's ethics law and was co-chair of the special legislative committee that recommended statutory changes to the IPERS statute. Most recently she served on the committee that selected the statute of Norman Borlaug for placement in Statuary Hall in the United States Capital. She was the co-founder and first President of NEXUS, Iowa's first business women's breakfast club. She led local and state wide efforts to oppose Riverboat Gambling in Iowa and Dickinson County. Locally, she served as President of the Okoboji Yacht Club Sailing School and as treasurer of the Okoboji Yacht Club and the Lakes Art Center. She never missed her sons' swim meets, football or basketball games, track meets or sailboat races. She is survived by her husband of fifty years, Ned of Okoboji, Iowa; her children Morgan (Betsy) of Spirit Lake, Iowa and Owen (Becca) of Eden Prairie, Minnesota; four grandchildren and two sisters Jackie Pakarinen of Half Moon Bay, California and Jeanette Willey of Bettendorf, Iowa. She was preceded in death by her mother and father.