In 2006, Chaz Allen, Newton mayor and current director of the Jasper County Economic Development Corporation, woke up in Washington, D.C., and picked up the newspaper. The mayor was in the District with business leaders from the Greater Des Moines Partnership to discuss the looming closure of Maytag Corp. headquarters and manufacturing facilities in his town of 15,500. He opened the Washington Post to the business section, and “Newton was the story,” he said.

Allen was elected in 2004 and currently is serving his fifth and final term at Newton City Hall. Due to Maytag’s departure, Newton felt the effects of the economic recession earlier than many other municipalities in the United States. The company’s Fortune 500 status and the nearly 4,000 jobs it took with it, Allen has presided over the city during an unprecedented barrage of national media attention.

In his JEDCO office Thursday, Allen compiled a list of media outlets that have told Newton’s story since 2006. It includes headlines from “Good Morning America,” the NBC Nightly News, CBS “Sunday Morning,” The Washington Post, USA Today, The New York Times, The Boston Globe and, arguably the most exposing, “60 Minutes” in the Scott Pelley piece “Anger in the Land.”