Left Hand Laurels: Dallas And Mary Plese

BY LIZ EMMETT-MATTOX
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QUESTION: What do a pub in Niwot, a local church and a refugee village in Afghanistan have in common?

ANSWER: they are all places that Dallas and Mary Plese have worked their particular brand of community-building magic.

Dallas and Mary met many years ago when they were both working for IBM. When Mary retired in 2000, she had only one day off before beginning her second career as a bar-owner. Mary had always wanted to own a bar, and the Pleses agreed that Niwot really needed a place where people could come together and connect with each other.
 
Peering into vacant windows, they noticed that one empty storefront already had a bar in place. Once they figured out how to enlarge the space and add a kitchen, Dallas (who had retired a few years earlier) went to work restoring the bar. But Dallas was unable to complete the work right away. “Before we had a name, I didn’t know what it was supposed to look like. Once we decided to call it Flannagan’s Pub, it all came together.”

Dallas and Mary Plese                        Photo by Liz Emmett-Mattox

They ran the pub for five years and then decided to sell it. The new owners renamed it Niwot Tavern. “It was a great experience,” said Dallas. “We wanted a deeper connection to the community and it really was that. We got to meet so many people in that time.”

The Pleses weren’t the only ones to make new connections at the pub, however. Ever the community-builder, Dallas said he would always make a point of introducing people from behind the bar. “People would find out that they lived in the same neighborhood or even shared a backyard fence,” said Mary.

During their pub-owning days, the Pleses got involved in Flatirons Community Church. Dallas had been a regular at Mass for many years, but they had not found a church that suited them both until Dallas had some friends suggest to Mary that she might enjoy Flatirons. It didn’t take long before Mary was inviting Dallas to join her, and they have since both become dedicated members of the volunteer team at Flatirons.

Michael Koehn, CFO at Flatirons Community Church has known the Pleses for over ten years and described them as, “volunteers extraordinaire. If you ever need something done, they’ll just jump on in.”
Whether it means re-setting chairs between church services, being part of Flatirons’ recovery ministry, or leading teams of volunteers on church trips to Afganistan, the Pleses are always willing to lend a helping hand.

The Pleses have both found their trips to Barek Aub, a refugee city about 60 miles from Kabul, transformative and inspiring. Sozo International, a Non-Governmental Organization that Flatirons Community Church has partnered with, describes Barek Aub as a desert camp for “internally displaced persons.”

By most any measure, this is a community suffering extreme deprivation. But what strikes the Pleses is not what the residents of Barek Aub lack, but what they have. Dallas said, “They are an incredibly resilient people. They want to go to work and make their country whole again.”

After several visits, Mary is still impressed by the social fabric of the community she found there. “The highest value there is hospitality and relationships. Honestly, I think they live much healthier lives than we do here in many ways.”

Dallas has been to Barek Aub twice, but Mary says she just can’t seem to stay away. She’s been there four times and has a fifth trip planned. One of the things that makes her repeated visits so satisfying is seeing the progress that the people have been able to make, with the support of Sozo and Flatirons Community Church.

“The first time we came, there was nothing but tents,” Mary said. “Now we’ve built a school and a clinic and the people are starting to build themselves houses. Of course they are eight by 10 square foot adobe huts, but they are so happy to have them.”

The Pleses are eager to dispel any notions that they are overly altruistic. “I do this for me. Not for them. For me. I get way more out of it than anyone else does,” said Mary.
Dallas also takes a quiet pleasure in serving others. “I’ve been honored to be part of people’s lives when they are in a really hard place. Sometimes all you can do is just let them know they’re not alone.”