Jasper County Auditor Dennis Parrott ‘flies’ loose

When you first meet Jasper County Auditor Dennis Parrott, you immediately come to the conclusion that he is a very serious man. He is always clean shaven, dressed in a pressed shirt and tie, and can spout sections of the Iowa Code off the top of his head.

Then you find out that this seemingly very serious elected official is a bit mischievous.

“He is a practical joker,” Deputy Auditor Tina Mulgrew said. “Not mean and spiteful, (more) like let’s just have fun and lighten the mode. The things we do here are extremely serious and very important and a little levity comes in handy every now and again.”

Parrott and Mulgrew both agree that one of the best office pranks pulled by Parrott was on another Deputy Auditor Melissa Hartgers.

“Melissa left her cell phone in the bathroom here,” Parrott said. “I picked up and made a copy of the back of it, cut it out, attached it to some foam and threw it in the toilet. Everybody in the office except for Melissa was clued in.”

“(Deputy Auditor) Teresa (Arrowood) goes into the office and screams, ‘Oh my God, somebody’s cell phone is in the toilet!’ It dawned on Melissa that she left (her phone) in the bathroom and she came running in and grabbed it, and it’s not her phone. It’s this little foam thing.”

Parrott has running jokes with several other county auditors and keeps a fake speeding ticket that another auditor had set him up for as a trophy in office.

Speaking of his office, it heavily reflects one of Parrott’s greatest interests, collecting presidential memorabilia.  The Jasper County Courthouse has paintings, busts, campaign buttons and materials of some of Parrott’s favorite presidents decorating the walls and shelves. The newest portrait of Abraham Lincoln in the Board of Supervisors office has turned more than few heads already.

Much like the origins of many superheroes, Parrott’s obsession with all things presidential has a tragic beginning.

“John F. Kennedy was assassinated on my ninth birthday,” Parrott said. “We were a pretty poor family growing up and there were five kids. I had always wanted to take cupcakes as treats to school on my birthday. My mom made cupcakes and I went home for lunch and picked up the cupcakes and walked back to school.”

“When I got back to school the teacher said, ‘Okay everybody we are all going home,’ which meant no one was going to eat my cupcakes and I was devastated.” Parrott continued. “The only thing they said was, ‘The president has been shot and we are sending everybody home and we are closing the school.’ So I carried my cupcakes back home, I don’t know if I cried or not but I was really upset.”

Much like how Batman found the inspiration for his calling after his parents’ death, Parrott found his after Kennedy’s death.

“I sat that home basically that four day weekend and I watched everything on our little black and white TV about the Kennedy assassination and I became a Kennedy fan,”   Parrott said. “That led me to become interested into politics and the presidents.”

Parrott said he has visited nearly all of the presidential museums, some multiple times, and got his minor in presidential history when he received his master’s degree from the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Another obsession of his is baseball. He is an avid New York Yankees fan, played in high school and even umpired for a few years for recreational leagues.

“I got into some tangles with the parents, they were harder to deal with than the kids,” Parrott said jokingly.

Another aspect that is pretty unique about Parrott is that he and his wife, Jasper County Recorder Nancy Parrott are one of the few, if not only married elected officials in the state he said.

The duties in the Auditor’s Office vary greatly and require a lot of teamwork. Parrott expressed a tremendous amount of gratitude towards his current team.

“The people should know that I can’t accomplish all of these tasks by myself,” Parrott said. “I am very fortunate to have one of the best county auditor’s staffs in the state.  I am just one of eight who serve Jasper County. The team includes Deputies Tina Mulgrew, Melissa Hartgers, Teresa Arrowood, and clerks Jenna Jennings, Jill Ingraham, Pam Keenan and Jessie Lindeman. They are indispensable.”

Staff writer Ty Rushing may be contacted at (641) 792-3121, ext. 426, or at trushing@newtondailynews.com.