Lawton neighborhood suits young family

LAWTON, Iowa | Jesse and Tara Pedersen lived in Correctionville, then Sioux City, and then a home in the older, more established portion of Lawton.

Seven years ago, Jesse mentioned to his neighbor, Roy Perry, that he'd like to have a home built for his growing family. Perry had constructed only his own home at that point. He has since built several others.

"Roy and I tossed the idea around and we didn't shop around at all," Jesse said. "We found plans of two houses and merged the ideas."

"All decisions were based on us being a family of five," said Tara, motioning toward their sons, Cade, Kyle and Jake, boys who are involved in all sorts of sports and extracurricular activities in the Lawton-Bronson Community School District.

As Tara talked about their sons, nearly a dozen other boys and girls from Lawton filed into the home before spilling into their backyard where they quickly began a game of basketball on the cement court.

"We didn't want a fancy house, but rather something that's open for everyone," Tara said. "That basketball court can be full when we're gone and that's great. The neighborhood knows it's open."

Small-town life is something the Pedersens sought in 2004 when they relocated to Lawton. The former Tara Thompson grew up in Correctionville, Iowa, while Jesse is a native of Anthon. After the couple wed, they made their home in Correctionville before moving to Sioux City when Jesse accepted a position with Sioux City Fire Rescue, a post that required him to reside within 10 miles of the city.

"We lived in Sioux City a couple of years and then found a house in Lawton and moved in 2004, just as Cade was starting preschool," Jesse said. "Both Tara and I had come from smaller towns and we liked the idea of living in one."

The L-B school district rated highly in state standards, the Pedersens said, and being in Lawton put both closer to their hometowns.

Their first home in Lawton, a three-bedroom house, measured 1,200 square feet on the main floor and 800 square feet downstairs. It served their family as it grew. As time passed, though, the Pedersens and their sons outgrew the space.

Perry worked with the couple as they devised a five-bedroom floor plan consisting of 2,200 square feet on the main floor and 2,050 square feet in a finished basement. The basement, which has two bedrooms for the older sons, has a bar, a giant flat-screen TV and plenty of room for foosball, air hockey, bumper pool and ping-pong.

"We have very competitive tournaments here," said Jesse, who coaches junior high football and high school track at Lawton-Bronson.

The main floor features two bedrooms, three bathrooms, an office, a living room, dining room and kitchen. The kitchen, said Tara, is where the eating and homework get done.

"We wanted a kitchen island, something that offered the ease of sitting around," said Tara, an X-ray technician. "We're so active that we're rarely all here at the same time."

The boys' activities range from football to basketball to cross country to baseball to track to speech, choir, jazz choir, student council and more, making the 60-second drive to the school in Lawton something the family has done thousands of times.

Not only that, the family frequently hosts special "Team Night" feeds for the squads on which their boys participate. The football team, for example, has dined in their home in the past, as have both the boys' and girls' track teams (twice per season), all at once.

The only time the activity here slows? When Nebraska plays football. That's when Jesse takes a seat outside near his gas-powered fire pit and watches the flat screen TV he mounted above their cement patio.

"I was coaching at the state track meet in 2016 and our coaching staff spent nights during the meet outside the motel sitting around the fire," Jesse said. "I came home and told Tara that we had to get a gas fire pit."

Jesse tapped into the line that heats their garage and fanned the flames, so to speak.

"And then the Olympics came on that fall (2016) and Tara mentioned how neat it would be to watch the Olympics on a TV outside," Jesse recalled. "When she came home from work the next day, the TV was in place."

The kitchen TV, they said, receives the most viewing hours, followed closely by the patio TV.

Kids can play while adults watch the Huskers or gather on a Friday night following an Eagles football game, a rotating tradition shared among families of Lawton-Bronson players.

"We love getting together with coaches and other parents on a Friday night after a home football game," Jesse said.

There are times when the children spill over into the neighbors' swimming pool, and that's OK. Heck, when neighbors Adam and Jen Carlson erected a fence around their pool, they purposely put in a gate that connected their space to the Pedersens' backyard.

"Yup, they did a fence with a gate just for us," said Jesse, a comment that illustrates how close residents of the West Creek neighborhood have grown.

The Pedersens estimate their home was the 15th built in this development, just north of Highway 20. There are now around 40 homes in their neighborhood with a few lots remaining.

As children filed in and out, the Pedersens called each by name. And soon, the pick-up basketball game morphed into a ping-pong battle downstairs for some, a video gaming session for others. The family of five, in a sense, had grown to a family of about 20.

Tara Pedersen smiled as Oreo, the family's cock-a-chon greeted yet another child who walked through the front door.

"I hope our house is an extension of us," she said, "warm, friendly and inviting."