As a journalism professor at Iowa State University, Barbara Mack has a reputation for toughness and candor, sprinkled with her own brand of tell-it-like-it is humor. 

Students appreciate her, especially looking back on their classroom time. They recall her as teacher, mentor,  counselor,  confidante, mother, friend. Colleagues rate her as a master instructor.

Mack, who previously worked as a reporter and attorney for the Des Moines Register but eventually decided she could make a bigger difference as a teacher, doesn’t put up with classroom distractions. She doesn’t hesitate to remind students that  “multi-tasking” with cell phones, personal digital assistants and other devices is not allowed. She demands excellence, she develops thinkers.

She also wasn’t shy about reminding Muscatine business and community leaders about how good we’ve got it here — and how quickly it can be lost —  during her keynote speech at the  Greater Muscatine Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s annual meeting Tuesday night.

She reminded us of Muscatine’s “great” history — first as a major lumber producer and center of the state’s largest black population, then as the world’s pearl button industry leader, then about the post-World War II “renaissance” era when Fortune 500 companies Bandag and HON and other major local companies took root.

Mack waltzed through many other Muscatine historical highlights, and even led the crowd through a local and state trivia quiz. 

Then, “I’ll be you didn’t know this  one,” she challenged. “What’s the next biggest city {after Muscatine, population about 23,000} with at least two Fortune 500 companies?”

 The answer: Omaha, population 390,000.

“How fortunate you are,” she said. “Other cities in Iowa have watched their industries leave, either because they shot themselves in the foot (i.e., bad management) or someone else took them away.”

Then some more challenges from Mack: Don’t ever take things for granted. Twenty years from now, who will be running local businesses and keeping the community vibrant? How will Muscatine retain its young people and engage them in community building?

All of which spurs this nagging question: Is the pending acquisition of Bandag by world tire giant Bridgestone a warning sign or an opportunity — or both?

Sometimes it takes an outside observer to help local folks keep the big picture in mind. Thanks, Barbara Mack, for the reminders.