ABSTRACT
The town of Melbourne is located near the center of Iowa in Marshall County. The town’s unofficial motto is “Not down under, but right on top,” which, Bill Crews noted, has nothing to do with sexual proclivities. The town seal was brought back after Crews and Kehoe traveled to Melbourne’s better-known counterpart in Australia. If Melbourne’s one-story brick city hall looks remarkably like a fire station, it’s because the building originally functioned as a fire station. Mayor Bill Crews believes that had he been more open about his sexual orientation, he might have won the fifty-six votes he lost the election by. The defeat for state senate convinced Crews to be more forthright about his homosexuality. Crews’s homosexuality was never an overt issue in the campaign, but then there was no reason to publicize it since all 700 people in town knew.
