AFTER THE WAR

Ben Jaspers’ unending interest in electric power continued even after many had power in their homes. From 1945-1950 Ben was director of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association and acted as national vice-president for two of those years. 

Ben was the first president of the Corn Belt Power Cooperative, a position he held from 1947 to 1961. 

Ben owned and operated an insurance agency on his own known as Ben Jaspers, Agent, from 1949 to 1953. Prior to that time it had been owned by J. A. Holmes and Ben together and was known as Holmes and Jaspers from 1943 to 1949. Prior to that time Henry Janssen had been Jim Holmes’ partner from 1941 to 1943. From 1929 to 1941 Holmes’ partner had been Elda Christians. In 1953, Robert R. Ruppelt and Doris K. Ruppelt purchased the insurance agency from Ben Jaspers. 

Ben was involved in real estate and insurance with the bank until he retired in 1954. He continued in real estate until his death in 1968. 

Ben served as mayor of Steamboat Rock, for several terms and as a long time member and secretary of the Steamboat Rock Board of Education as well as a member of the Hardin County Board of Education. 

In a book published in 1952 about the REC entitled The Farmer Takes A Hand: The Rural Electric Power Revolution in Rural America, It’s author Marquis Chills wrote: 

“It would be hard to imagine anyone more Iowan than Ben Jaspers…He sits behind a big plate glass window of the Farmers Exchange Bank (Farmers Savings Bank) from which he runs not only the bank…but the business of the town (as mayor). He is Republican and what is more, a conservative Republican. I would imagine that he agrees about ninety-five per cent of the time with the stand taken by the Republicans in Iowa’s conservative delegation in congress.” 

“Yet this is the man who has been largely responsible for pioneering rural electrification in central Iowa…. 

“He and other farmers wanted power on their farms and they had to get a low rate…. 

“Jaspers had been rebuffed, and so many others had been, by the attitude of the private power companies. Somebody had to take the lead.”