A  lifelong conservationist and educator who has lived in Newton for 59 years was honored Saturday morning when the Jasper County Conservation Department dedicated Kramer Park. The park is named after Carol Kramer, who taught elementary biology in Newton, and has been a member of the Jasper County Conservation Board since 1987. The Dana King Ceretti Environmental Education Center is being built at the site on Newton’s eastern edge, and is scheduled to be completed in November. Ceretti was a former student of Kramer. Kramer says Ceretti, who also became a teacher and died from cystic fibrosis at the age of 30 in December 2009, was one of her favorite students. Her parents, Jeff and Jodi King, donated $100,000 towards the construction of the Environmental Education Center through a Community Challenge Grant. Kramer has also donated and raised money for the new Jasper County Conservation Department Facility. She and her husband, Reverend Fritz Kramer, started dreaming about having enough money to build something like it long ago. 

“And it’s now come to fruition, and I was shocked at the number of people that came. I did not think this would be this big of a celebration. I am so humbled by it. But I also want to say “we are not finished.” We still have to have funds to really develop it and the ponds, so we have not stopped.”

Kramer says anyone who would like to make a donation to the Dana King Ceretti Environmental Education Center or Kramer Park should contact the Jasper County Conservation Department. Many of Kramer’s family members traveled from Minnesota for Friday’s Park Dedication. Kramer is a member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe who was born on the White Earth Reservation in Northern Minnesota. She and her husband, who passed away in March 2022, moved to Newton in 1966.