Pella – Somehow, Curtis Baugh always manages to pull off the unexpected. He was the youngest of 15 children in his Ottumwa family, but managed to get a college education at Central College in Pella. He turned an art degree into a few years in the architecture field in Arizona. He and his wife, Lori, didn’t really plan on being adoptive parents, but now they’re managing the busy schedules of their eight adopted children, ages 3 to 19.

Baugh moved back to his college town, where he’s a distinct rarity as an African-American, and became president of the chamber of commerce. He started his own company, Pella Art & Graphics, and has managed to assemble a list of more than 200 customers, some from as far away as New York and Los Angeles.

Now he’s done it again. From his second-floor offices on the quaint square here, he has managed to establish himself as the marketing representative of a handful of national sports stars from bygone days.

So far, it’s an exercise in Chicago nostalgia. Baugh, 45, has worked with ex-Bears Gale Sayers, Mike Ditka and Richard Dent and ex-Cubs Ferguson Jenkins and — from back in the 1940s and’ ’50s — Andy Pafko.

“We were doing some work for Ron DeArmond in Chicago, and he said, ‘Has anybody thought about marketing retired sports figures?’” Baugh said. That led to a connection with Sayers, who starred the University of Kansas and then had a few dazzling seasons in the National Football League. “He didn’t have anybody setting up his appearances,” Baugh said, “so we said, why don’t we do it for him?”

Baugh and DeArmond formed Legends Sports Marketing Inc. and began penciling in dates for Sayers, who owns and manages a computer sales company in Chicago, Sayers Computers Source. He threw out the first pitch at a Cubs game in August, has spoken at Pella Corp. and “we have him booked through the football season,” Baugh said.

The partners’ next goal is to expand beyond Chicagoland and find more retired stars who would like to raise their profile. “I’m getting some call I didn’t really expect,” Baugh said. “I’ve had probably four calls from big names, and it’s all because of Gale. He’ll pick up the phone and call anybody we all agree would be good for us. We want clean, upstanding people, not troublemakers.”

Baugh likes to bring Sayers and the other sports clients to Pella for their business meetings, rather than going to Chicago. “We think it’s a better place to do business,” he said. “We play golf, talk business, shoot a video of the story they have to tell. They can be here, and nobody knows who they are. They always want to come back.”

The sports marketing concept is only a few months old, but “we’re investing quite a bit to make this happen,” he said. “At some point, we’ll probably have to find investors.”

Remember, this is all in addition to Baugh’s main business. And that business is doing great, by his account. “So far in 2005, revenues are four times greater than last year,” he said. “We have diversified; we do so many more things for so many more people.”

Some business comes from Des Moines, where Baugh counts on word-of-mouth advertising. “We really don’t advertise,” he said. “As long as we do good designs, we get good responses.”

Baugh and the other five employees of Pella Art & Graphics handle company logos, Web site design, photography, design for printed materials and business items such as cards and letterheads. “We’re even doing some Spanish translation now,” he said. “Who would have ever thought we’d get into that?”

The local powerhouse companies, Pella Corp. and Vermeer Manufacturing Co., have gradually become important clients. “We laid the groundwork for years, and it finally paid off,” Baugh said. “We finally got the opportunity to show them what we can do, and now they make sure we get a chance to put in a bid” when new projects come along.

And then there’s the bed-and-breakfast operation. The Baughs bought a Pella house about a year ago and turned it into The Lautenbach Inn, which Lori runs as a B&B.

“There are other businesses we would like to start, too,” Baugh said. “We are definitely entrepreneurs.”

He also serves on the nine-member Iowa Commission on the Status of African-Americans and is the civil service commissioner for Pella and a member of the Pella Community Foundation board.

Plus, he likes to coach sports, attend his children’s games and go to school for lunch with them when he has a chance. “I make sure family comes second after God,” he said.