A familiar face steps into a new role

MARENGO — A familiar face, but in a completely new role.

Ashton Linnell has been a teacher at Iowa Valley High School since the fall of 2012, teaching junior high and high school business and computer technology courses.

She’s also been the coach of the school’s Esports team.

Now Linnell will serve as the school’s athletic director. Her contract started in July.

A pillar in the Marengo community, Ray Cooling, will be retiring following this school year. Cooling also recently retired as the long-standing Marengo recreation director.

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Cooling will still teach and help Linnell this year through the transition.

“It will be nice to have Ray still around helping out,” Linnell said. “I have taken every opportunity to learn from him.”

Linnell is also not stepping into this position blindly, having already been helping out in athletics and handling some of the AD duties in recent months.

All the team posters and digital media on Tigers’ athletics has been done by Linnell.

“I do the photography and the posters you see all around town and the programs you get at games,” Linnell said.

Already acquainted with some of the duties, being a former athlete herself and the recent technology changes with services such as Bound, Linnell felt ready to step into this role.

“When the job came open, it felt like a natural next step,” Linnell said.

Iowa Valley athletics are coming off a solid year and look to continue the momentum on the boys side and the new-found confidence on the girls side coming off a historical postseason run in softball.

“Overall, I just want to create excitement and celebrate them,” Linnell said. “We don’t do this for ourselves, we do it for the kids.

“We want to set the bar high [for performance] but also in how we conduct ourselves,” Linnell said. “I want to make Iowa Valley the gold standard.”

Linnell hopes community support and engagement continue to grow.

“We have a really great community and the people are great,” Linnell said. “I want to help serve them and make athletic competitions community events.”

The first home event of the 2025-26 athletic year for the Tigers will be a football game Aug. 29 against Don Bosco.