I've left Sioux City three different times, and moved back all three times! I love Sioux City, it's so easy to live here. The people are friendly, and something truly is ALWAYS going on. It's a great place to raise my son, and there is a significant amount of investment and positive leadership in our community, moving it in a new direction.

I grew up in Sioux City and left to get my degree in Interior Design from Iowa State. I returned to Sioux City to stay close to family and friends, which turned out to be a very beneficial decision. Now I work with PLaN Architecture on the newly developed Pearl Street downtown. I feel lucky to live in Sioux City at this age because it is big enough to have access to everything and small enough to actually be able to get involved in everything! I am very happy I decided to begin a career in downtown Sioux City. 

My wife and I grew up in rural northwest and north central Iowa. We then moved away to college, took transfers with work and had an opportunity to move back in 1999. We have lived in Minnesota and Texas, and are very glad to call Sioux City home. There have been other chances to move away, but cannot imagine another community could offer us the quality of life like Sioux City does. We enjoy a great neighborhood, great friends, an outstanding parochial school system, and the chance to make a difference in our community. It was one of the best decisions we made - moving to Sioux City.

After graduating from Morningside College, I moved to Connecticut to pursue a Masters in Forensic Science, thinking that I would be a big city girl the rest of my life. When my father became ill, I put my career goals on hold for a short time to come back and be with him. I had worked for Security National Bank in the past and, with my homecoming, they were glad to hire me back. Shortly after I moved back to Sioux City, I met my cousin’s fiancée, Virginia, and she insisted I go out with her to a Young Professional event. She promised I would meet ambitious, career-oriented individuals living in Sioux City that night and she was right! It was that evening I was introduced to the Sioux City Growth Organization and my future husband. He had moved to Sioux City from the farm to become a commercial real estate agent and now manages several real estate development projects and together we own CENTURY 21 ProLink. We each independently made the decision to move to Sioux City less than 10 years ago, and now are the Kelly family of four calling Siouxland home.

When I graduated from Hinton High School in 2001, my plans were to go to college and move to a large metropolitan area. After living in Eastern Iowa for 6 years, those plans changed. My husband and I seriously contemplated moving to a big city after college but we couldn't help but stare wide-eyed at the cost of housing, transportation and entertainment. Finding employment was another challenge. We would be competing against hundreds of other applicants for most of the jobs we were looking to apply for. In 2007 we came to the conclusion to move back to Sioux City after visiting a friend in Phoenix, AZ. Even though our friend lived in a huge city, most of the places they frequented were within a small radius of where they lived or worked, similar to the size of Sioux City. We both made the commitment to move back where we would be closer to family, didn't have to sit through hours of traffic, could afford to buy a home and really get involved in the community. My husband and I picked up our entire lives to move back home to Sioux City. We both dropped great jobs and moved back with our parents (in the middle of a snow storm to top things off). After only two months we were able to buy a house, find employment and joined several volunteering groups. Three years later and I'm so glad that we made that decision. It's always fun to visit places around the country but in the end, I'm always happy to come home.