Glory Days: Kelly and Keith Daniel
“Don’t go chasing waterfalls. Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you’re used to.” Does this song ring a bell? It would in Kelly and Keith Daniel’s time as students. The famous hit by TLC, “Waterfalls,” received a Grammy Award for Record of the Year in 1996, a time very different from now. Keith and Kelly, a couple at Grand View College, were just beginning to make their mark at Grand View in 1996.
Kelly and Keith at their Formal
They both met at Southern Cal High School, now known as South Central Calhoun High School in Lake City, Iowa. They began their relationship in high school and made the long-distance relationship work when Kelly chose to attend Central College and study elementary education and Keith chose Grand View.
Kelly DeVries (now Daniel) transferred to Grand View College midway through her college career and graduated from Grand View in 2000 with a degree in graphic journalism. “I was an elementary education major, and halfway through the first semester of my junior year I realized that I didn’t want to do that,” Kelly said. “So, I called Keith about it and found out they were starting a graphic journalism program at Grand View and transferred to study that.”
Keith was a graphic journalism major with a mass communication minor and originally wanted to be a radio DJ but soon realized DJ work wasn’t his true calling.
“I grew up in a small town in Iowa, so my idea of a DJ was to provide news and stuff to the community,” Keith said. “When I worked part of a semester at KGGO and The Hawk, I realized it was a different industry than I thought.”
Grand View’s Alumni Magazine
However, Keith found more direction in his two on-campus jobs — as a member of the newspaper staff and as a member of GV’s web team.
Kelly and Keith worked on the editorial staff for the school newspaper, The Grand Views. The newspaper files were originally stored on zip disks, which held around 100 megabytes. The disks were kept in the Cowles Communications building to be picked up early in the morning and printed in Nevada, Iowa. Along with being on the newspaper staff, Keith also worked for the school by designing and updating Grand View’s website.
Keith would eventually take a job at Grand View in the information technology department, where he is a Mac specialist.
Keith and Kelly in the present
Currently, Kelly works in the marketing department at Grand View University, where she oversees the alumni magazine. Kelly uses her graphic journalism knowledge on a daily basis in her work here at Grand View.
During the 1990s, Grand View’s campus looked a lot different from what it does today. Imagine Grand View without the plaza. According to Kelly and Keith, there was only a non-drivable road that went through the Grand View campus instead of what is now known as the plaza. The Rasmussen building also did not exist and was a parking lot instead.
“There were houses all behind Cowles and Krumm (where commuter parking currently is),” Keith said.
Imagine commuters trying to park on campus now.
Whether Keith is “chasing waterfalls” or chasing down new technical issues on campus on his bike, he certainly makes an impact on campus. Kelly is an essential part of Grand View’s marketing team, and her work can be seen through the publications she makes. Grand View’s media and technology have seen tremendous improvements over the past two decades, with a lot of credit going to this power couple.
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