Honors for longtime Perry High School Principal Dan Marburger continue to grow, as Elizabeth Marburger, wife of the educator slain in January, learned last week in a flurry of ceremonies.
No sooner had Perry’s Wall of Witnesses in Soumas Court acquired its newest member Wednesday in the person of Dan Marburger than he was inducted Saturday into the Easton Valley Hall of Fame in ceremonies held at the Downtown Pub in Preston.
The Easton Valley Hall of Fame is designed to honor impactful, positive contributions to the eastern Iowa communities of Miles, Preston, Sabula and Spragueville. Perry’s Wall of Witnesses comprises local figures with a tie with Perry, an impact on the area and an interesting story.
The Maquoketa Times Sentinel outlined Marburger’s accomplishments as an Easton Valley Hall of Fame inductee, noting that he was a:
• 1985 Graduate of East Central
• Football player at Central College
• Social studies and computer teacher at East Central for six years
• PE teacher in Sabula
• Coach of East Central football, girls basketball, golf and baseball
• East Central athletic director
• Associate principal at Perry High School from July 1995 to June 1997
• Principal at Perry High School from July 1997 to January 2024
• 2007 Administrator of the Year for the Iowa High School Athletic Directors Association
• Hero who died after protecting his students in a school shooting at Perry JH/HS in 2024
Caroline Bredekamp, reporting for the Preston Times Online, said Elizabeth Marburger “had the room’s full attention” at the Saturday ceremonies, when she described her husband’s “special skills as an educator and administrator from the beginning of his career until the last day in which he did what he would always do protect his students and work with those troubled students to find a way to make poor choices back into good choices.”
