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Wheelock dances into retirement

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Barb Wheelock

DARIEN TOWNSHIP — Don't think of it as losing a town clerk so much as gaining a clogger.

Darien Town Clerk Barb Wheelock has retired after 18 years of service in the rural township on the western edge of Walworth County.

Her retirement party was Saturday.

Deputy Clerk Marilyn Larson has taken over as clerk.

Nearly two decades of municipal services is "a tremendous tenure," Walworth County Clerk Kim Bushey said.

Town government is often considered the closest form of government to the people, and Wheelock personifies the local, elected official, Bushey said.

"That's the grassroots, 18 years as the town clerk," Bushey said. "Barb's a civil servant who's really put her heart and soul into the job."

The job—and the equipment needed to do it—has changed a lot in 18 years, Wheelock said. When she was first elected in 1991, "the town chairman brought me over a copy machine and a typewriter and said, 'Here you go,'" Wheelock said.

In 1996, Wheelock's office moved from her home to the newly built town hall on Foundry Road.

Computers and electronic voting equipment also have changed the job. Town hall has wireless Internet access.

The Help American Vote Act made voting "a much tighter thing," although it sometimes seemed a bit much in a small township such as Darien, Wheelock said.

"When we basically know practically everybody that walks in, it makes for a lot of added paperwork," Wheelock said.

That's not to say Wheelock never had fun on Election Day. She was known to demonstrate her clogging abilities from time to time at the town hall.

Now she'll have more time for clogging and working with her husband, Dale, on their farm on Highway 89 in the township.

"I've been a clogger for lots of years," Wheelock said. "I'll be going back to that and just things that I had to set aside for a while."