Norvan D. Brown

Norvan D. Brown was the fourth child born to Roscoe and Lillian (Burkhalter) Brown. He was born in Creston, IA on August 5th, 1952. Starting in country schools, Norvan was primarily raised and schooled in Lenox, IA. He attended college in Maryville, MO.
On July 2nd, 1972, Norvan met the Love of his life, Linda (Fulton) Brown. His proudest achievement was gaining her hand in marriage. He loved and cherished her every single day of his life, and plans on continuing to do it every day through eternity.
After college, Norvan returned to the family farms to work with the family on the multitude of enterprises they embarked on; Farming, drainage, Sales and Manufacturing of Drainage and Pipeline trenching and Backfill equipment (Brown Bears) through Roscoe Brown Sales Corporation. Norvan was heavily involved with retrofitting hydrostatic transmissions into mechanical bucket wheel trenchers. These conversions ultimately set the standard and paved the way for all modern equipment of this type. In the mid 1980’s, Norvan started his own hydrostatic repair business. He came full circle and returned to his love of agricultural drainage work and Pipeline trenching in 1996. From 1996, the operation became a family affair, with all three of his sons working with him over the last 23 years.
Norvan was many things to many people. He served for 25 years as an Adams County Reserve Deputy Sheriff, providing service to his community, safety to his family, an incredible role model to his sons, and the occasional touch of authority to keep them on the straight and narrow. Which he did, as all three of them followed in his footsteps to serve that organization as well. He was an outdoorsman, who through his love of fishing and hunting, inspired his sons to love the land and nature as much as he did, and managed to get his granddaughter to touch a fish, and even a worm on occasion. He was a staunch believer in the rights of the people, individual freedoms, and a great lover of the United States of America. One only had to see one of his caps, or spend five minutes talking to him to know that. Through his work in drainage and water management, he considered himself a steward and protector of the land. There was no one more proud of the work they had done than Norvan when he showed you a piece of land that once had been unusable, and now would provide a crop to help feed the world.
Norvan was a man who contained an uncontainable love. He showed it every day, if not always in the most overt ways. His family was the most important thing in the world to him and every decision he made was to do what he thought was the best for them. He forgave, he forgot, and knew that the bonds and love of family were the only things that truly mattered. To truly see how much love he was capable of, you only had to watch him spend some time with his granddaughters. The duties of fatherhood fell away and the pure love (and indulgence) that was shown was blinding.
Preceding Norvan in death were his parents, Roscoe and Lillian Brown; his step father-in-law, Roland Rienke.
Norvan is survived by his loving wife of 46 years, Linda Brown of Lenox, IA; 3 sons: Darran Brown of Lenox, IA, Jason Brown of Redfield, IA and Justin (wife Sheena) Brown of Adel, IA; 2 grandchildren: Savannah Jayne and Kaylee Jo Brown of Adel, IA; 3 brothers: Steve Brown, Stan (wife Jolene) Brown and David Brown, all of Lenox, IA; a sister, Elaine (husband Carl) Israel of Lenox, IA; mother-in-law, LaVaun Rienke of Creston; several nieces, nephews, other relatives and many friends.