WATERLOO - Challenge is nothing new to the Tysons of Hoff Road.

Bob Tyson, after all, spent most of his 33-year career as an educator as an activities director, program coordinator and school administrator. Even beyond his retirement - he retired in 2004 after six years as principal at Central Middle School in Waterloo - Tyson is still in the trenches, working with young black men who are at risk, trying to teach the importance of living up to responsibility and pass along his gift for setting goals and seeing them through.

Miriam Tyson, Bob's wife of 32 years, has been busy herself. She fills a plethora of roles for state government as a recruiter and business coordinator. One of her passions is Hawkeye Community College, a local institution that serves as a gateway to the workforce for thousands of young people. Miriam Tyson was a student there herself and ultimately served on the institution's board. Someday, she says, she'd like to go back to the college and teach.

In 2007, the Tysons completed perhaps one of their toughest challenges: Moving into a $330,000 dream home, the construction of which Bob Tyson supervised while bringing in small, independent minority contractors, where possible, in a part of town that black families simply didn't occupy years ago.

But, Tyson said, that kind of pioneering isn't anything new to him.

"My dad, John Tyson, was probably one of the first black real estate salesmen in Waterloo," Bob Tyson said. "In the early '50s, he told me at one time all of East Fourth Street was all-white."

John Tyson also was one of the first black real estate brokers in Waterloo, his son said.

At 60, Bob Tyson is "retired" but still continues to serve as teacher, mentor and coordinator. Tyson puts in full-time hours at Waterloo's Seeds of Hope branch, which provides education and comprehensive services concerning domestic violence and sexual assault.

"I'm kind of a domestic violence educator for male prevention," he said, adding that his work is helped by a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice's "Iowa Accountability Program," an initiative aimed at preventing domestic abuse, particularly against women.

"The goal is, what can the system do to protect the women?" he said, listing prosecuting attorneys, police and other government agencies. "The goal is to bring this issue to the forefront."

Tyson also works with men in a Battery Education Program.

"I can be another person to talk about domestic violence and how it affects families and issues," he said. "I do a lot of outreach."

But, he said, that's only one of his jobs. He also works for Wise Guys, a program that focuses on abstinence as a way to reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

"Black Hawk County leads the state in STDs; it's all connected - the birth rate, STDs, incarcerations," he said.

Tyson also works with kids at Devonshire School in Waterloo, which services students with behavior problems.

"We talk about goal setting, violence, guns and talk about values and what it's going to take," Tyson said.

In addition, Tyson does outreach at the Hub at Jubilee United Methodist Church in Waterloo and works with the Grundy-Black Hawk Domestic Violence Coalition.

"I've got a lot of hats," Tyson said.

Decades of connections with the local school systems has helped Tyson in his "second life," he said.

Meantime, Miriam Tyson said, she has plenty on her own plate, all in the name of building a better community in the Cedar Valley and Iowa in general.

She currently is a representative of the Iowa Career Consortium at the Iowa Department of Economic Development, where she organizes the Iowa Venture Capital and Entrepreneur Conference, which brings businesspeople together to learn from each other and learn about opportunities across the state.

Having been senior advisor on Gov. Chet Culver's transition team after he was elected in 2006, Miriam Tyson now serves on Culver's Iowa Diversity Council, for which she recruits minority entrepreneurs as part of the state's effort to diversify its business landscape. She also serves as a representative from the executive branch as a representative from the Iowa Career Consortium at DED.

The efforts are bearing fruit, she said.

"We've gotten a lot of resumes," she said.

A native of Jamaica, Tyson, a minister's daughter, moved to Mason City in 1967, where she attended Mason City High School, graduating in 1972. She worked while in high school at what was then Northwestern Bell. Her job eventually was transferred to Waterloo.

She was president of 200-member Communications Workers of America Local 7108 in Waterloo from 1984 to 1999 and was part of the CWA's national negotiating team in labor contract negotiations with the telephone company then known as USWest, a forerunner of Qwest.

Tyson has twice served as an Iowa delegate to the Democratic National Convention. In 1996, Tyson sought the Democratic nomination to run for Congress in what was then the U.S. Second District, but was defeated by Dubuque County supervisor Donna Smith in the primary, who then lost to Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Jim Nussle.

Miriam Tyson, 54, studied marketing management at Hawkeye. She and Bob married about that same time.

Later, she served on Hawkeye's board. She said she hopes to return to the school to teach, at some point.

In the last couple of years, the couple had yet another life - this one, more as a team, but it was also focused, in a sense, on the community.

They built a house on Hoff Road, on the southern fringe of Waterloo.

It wasn't their first new house, but this time, Bob opted to act as general contractor. And, the couple made a concerted effort to hire small-scale contractors and minority firms to do as much of the work as possible.

The house also went up in a part of town that, not many years ago, had no minority residents.

The process was a lot longer than it might have been, had a general contractor been brought in to oversee the job, Bob said.

"Usually you should build a house between seven or nine months, depending on how big and complex."

This one was big, and, as it turned out, complex, with 2,000 square feet on its main floor, 1,000 finished square feet on a ground level, and 800 unfinished on that level, Tyson said.

"We worked with President Homes out of Minneapolis, and it's one of those things you can save $20,000 dollars by being your own general contractor," said Tyson, who had no such experience in his background. "You can pick and choose who works on your house."

That's what he wanted.

The Tysons hired two minority contractors - Ernest McClellan, for sheet rock, and Obie Saddler, for painting.

Both did the jobs right and cost less than large-scale contractors' work, Tyson said.

There were limits, though, he added.

"There's not a lot of black contractors working with the home-building business," Tyson said.

Building the house took about a year, due to delays brought on largely by weather, Tyson said.

The couple got to move in in September 2007, Tyson said.

"This is the third house we built, but this one was so much fun, I thought," Miriam Tyson said. "It had had plenty of problems, but this was really special for us."

Bob Tyson estimates he saved $10,000 to $15,000 on the project by supervising the job himself.

"I don't think we could have built the house we did with a general contractor, as far as square footage," he said.

But, what went into building the house is the real payoff, he said.

"There were a lot of goals - working with good people, keeping my house close to Hawkeye and finding a place where we could get 2/3 of an acre."

Contact Jim Offner at (319) 291-1598 or jim.offner@wcfcourier.com.