Photo courtesy of Matt Wetrich

Jefferson Matters was recently recognized with another award for their efforts with other individuals and organizations.

The Iowa Tourism Office announced Jefferson Matters as the recipient of the Outstanding Marketing and Collaboration Award for the promotional Barbie By The Bells event that took place all of last June. Jefferson Matters Executive Director Matt Wetrich says this was a huge effort by their organization, along with the Greene County Historical Society and others that put together 120 Barbie dolls in their original boxes from the 1980s through the 2000s on display at the former Sensibly Chic building on the downtown square in Jefferson, with another 300 vintage Barbie dolls on display at the Historical Museum.

Wetrich gives his impression of the hard work of everyone who was involved to make that month-long event a success.

“We were proud of that and thought, ‘This is a category that we had something that would fit in there nicely.’ Really proud of the representation that came to Jefferson from literally across the country, and they raised a little money for the Greene County Historical Society. But it was really neat to see the kind of attention that event got, and just again coming back to collaboration of partnerships here in the community making big things happen. So (I’m) really proud of that.” 

According to the Historical Society, after the event was over this past June, about $10,000 was raised for their non-profit organization, over 1,900 people visited, which represented 34 states and six countries. Last year, two Iowa Tourism Awards went to Jefferson, including Outstanding Community and Outstanding Dining Business went to The Centennial restaurant, both in the rural category. The 2025 Outstanding Marketing and Collaboration Award was announced Thursday evening at the Iowa Tourism Conference at Prairie Meadows in Altoona.