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Marge Tarplee watches with pride as Indianapolis gets dressed in its holiday best. She should. She helped create the city's holiday magic in 1978 when she became a civic Martha Stewart by spearheading a drive to light the trees Downtown for the holidays.

The long-time Downtown beautification advocate recalls, "I was at a convention in Birmingham, Ala., and I had to walk through a city park to get from my hotel to the convention center. They had lights on all the trees and I thought to myself, ÔWell, we've got a park in the middle of downtown Indianapolis. Why can't we do that?'

"Before I even came home, I called Mayor (Richard) Lugar and told him my idea. But then the economy got bad and that was the end of that. It took us 25 years since I first suggested we light the lights Downtown.

"Sid Weedman, Mary Huggard and I got in the car and with Sid driving, Mary and I counted trees in the downtown area. We counted 626 trees that day and we didn't complete the count," Tarplee laughs.

Adorning the trees with twinkle lights was her vision. And she helped decorate "The World's Largest Christmas Tree" by chairing a campaign to raise $1.7 million for new dŽcor when light strands on the Indiana Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument needed to be replaced in 1999. The huge Christmas wreaths flanking Central Library's front doors are a tribute to her.

But she is a woman for all seasons. Tamara Zahn, president of Indianapolis Downtown Inc., credits Tarplee with the beautification of University Park. "She was instrumental in improving the gateways into Downtown. We have 190 flower planters Downtown; she helped grow and fund that program. Her vision for a beautiful Downtown is as large as her heart. And the results of her vision and hard work are obvious throughout Downtown and put smiles on all of us who live, work and visit."

An Indianapolis native, Tarplee is the youngest of three children born to research chemist Wilbur Lewis Clark and teacher Maude Richey Clark. "All my family came from Boone County. My first cousin is Dave Richey, who is an attorney. At one time, we had 22 teachers in our family. Dave and I were the only ones who didn't go into teaching. And we were the only ones who made any money," laughs the bouncy, brown-eyed blonde.

Raised in old Irvington, Tarplee attended School 57 with her sister Rosemary and brother Lewis. "Of all the kids, I was the most shy," confesses the now outgoing civic leader. "I was active in the theater at Tech High School. If I thought somebody else was going to get the part in the play, my competitiveness overcame my shyness. I was also involved in the Student Council and sang second soprano in all the choirs at school and in church. Now when I sing in church, I think, ÔThat's not me. That doesn't even sound like me!' " she says with her customary self-deprecating humor.

When her father was transferred, the Tarplee family moved to Bryan, Ohio. "I was 16 years old and it was a terrible time for me to move. I cried and cried." During the summers, she returned to Indiana where she was a camp counselor at a Presbyterian Church camp located at Winona Lake. "I did that until my last year at Bryan High School. That summer was spent going to parties and dancing at Lake James while I was deciding what I was going to do with my life. By this time, World War II was coming on."

She went to Ohio State University for one year but dropped out after getting married when she was 19. "I suppose I was married for four years.

"I've put that part of my life out of my mind. I can't even remember what he looked like but he was from a political family in Bryan. When he went into the service, it was wonderful," exclaims the funny lady, "because I already knew I wanted a divorce!

"I also knew that I needed to get more education. So I went to the Fort Wayne International Business School and graduated from there. By this time, my parents had moved to Greenville, Ill." With her toddler daughter, Sharon, Tarplee moved to Greenville where she became a bank teller and "went to church 100 times a week," she howls with laughter.

"There were a bunch of us war widows and we would play bridge and go to church just for something to do. It was a dry town, so Daddy joined the country club where you could have a bottle. Needless to say, we played bridge at the country club!"

Longing for Indianapolis, she moved back and got a job right away as a bookkeeper at The Indianapolis Star. One night while standing on a street corner waiting for a bus, a man with two women in the car pulled up. "He said he had seen me standing there every day and he wanted to know if I wanted to join their carpool. Gas was being rationed in those days, you know. I accepted his offer and that man, Frank Tarplee, became my father-in-law!"

Marge and divorced Navy veteran Robert E. Tarplee began a 50-year love affair when they married on Sept. 5, 1948. A week later, "Tarp" - as she endearingly calls him - entered the Indiana University School of Dentistry.

To augment their income, the newlyweds ran a successful photography business called Night of Fun. "Bob was a professional photographer and we had a great business going doing weddings and dances. We were the official photographers at the Riviera Club.

"We would come back to our little apartment and Bob would develop the film while I would type everything up. And then we would go to the post office at 5 a.m. and mail the photos to our customers. That was back before you had instant developing so everyone thought it was great and we really made a lot of nice money."

Bob operated a dental practice in downtown Indianapolis for more than 45 years. In the meantime, Marge was in the right place at the right time the day she rode the elevator with newspaper owner and publisher Eugene C. Pulliam (1889-1975). "I laughed at something he said and the next thing I knew, he hired me to be his secretary. I worked for him and Nina."

(Nina Mason Pulliam was Eugene C. Pulliam's third wife. Pulliam married Myrta Smith in 1912. They had one child, Eugene S. Pulliam, before she died at age 30 in 1917. Two years later, he married Martha Ott and had two daughters, Corinne and Suzanne. They divorced in 1941 and he married Nina.)

"Myrta died of tuberculosis," Tarplee explains. "So Mattie (Martha) raised Gene Jr. At the time, Gene Sr. owned the Franklin Evening Star and the Lebanon Reporter and Mattie didn't want him to buy any more newspapers. But he had too much ambition not to."

Pulliam purchased The Indianapolis Star and the Muncie Star in 1944. In 1946, he bought the Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette, and in 1948, The Indianapolis News. Still against his wife's wishes, "He bought newspapers from Oklahoma to Daytona Beach when the papers were going under during the war. He put the newspapers back on their feet and then sold them back to the people."

Pulliam eventually owned and operated 46 newspapers - 23 at the same time. "I stayed with him until he died and I stayed with Nina until she left. I lacked 18 days of being there for 50 years when I retired in 1994," says Tarplee.

By the time she retired, she was president of the Central Newspapers Foundation. "That was an educational foundation so I worked with all of the journalism schools here and in Arizona," she says.

Board positions for females aren't easily come by in good-ol'-boy Indianapolis. Margaret McKinney found that out in the 1960s when she was the first woman president of the "500" Festival board. Margaret Clark followed her. Then Marge Tarplee in 1981, followed by Betty Stilwell last year. Tarplee shakes her head in dismay at the paltry number of women.

Why only four women? "It was a male-dominated organization. I think the only reason I got it was because of the newspaper. And then it took 25 years again to elect another female. Even though I was on the nominating committee for two or three years after I was president, I didn't get anywhere naming another female."

Tarplee is disarmingly candid about her clout. "Being at the newspaper gave me an edge. There is no question about it. You learn real quickly that it's not you; it's your contacts. And I knew that É particularly when I worked for Gene Sr. People knew they could go through me and I could get to him. He was like a father to me. He took care of Bob and me in ways that are unbelievable. He was so kind to us. Bob and Gene were great fishermen. And each summer, we would go on fishing trips to Canada with him."

Remembering Nina Pulliam, Tarplee laughs, "If she were sitting here, she would say, ÔNow, Julie, I like you. But I love your dogs!' She gave a lot of her money away while she was alive, but because there was so much of it, we're having a wonderful time with it now. She gave a lot of money to mental health É both here and in Phoenix. Whatever she did in one place, she did in the other, too.

"One day, years ago, she was working in the pressroom where the ink was and she went blind for two weeks. It turned out she had an allergy to printers' ink. It really scared her! Until she died, she was very interested in the local and national Prevention of Blindness organizations.

"She put a lot of money into a lot of things. But as she got older, she didn't want to take the responsibility. She wanted Frank to guide that."

Frank is Frank Russell, former chairman of the board of Central Newspapers Inc. "I've known Marge for almost 40 years," he says with the loving warmth of an old friend. "Her impact on the city has been tremendous, starting clear back to her hard work on the Ô500' Festival, which was the keystone to Downtown activities."

Tarplee tells funny anecdotes about incidents that happened when she set the pace for the "Merry Month of May" social season. One involves the situation that her charges, the "500" Princesses, had to sit on top of convertibles while being driven around the track for the parade lap. "I didn't realize what those girls had to put up with when they got around to the pits. Men would be hooting and hollering, ÔShow us your t--!' I remember saying, ÔFor God's sake, can't the track do something to make them stop?' " she says, throwing her head back in laughter at her naivetŽ.

Her devotion to the city includes serving as annual chairman of the Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Association's Recognition of Service Excellence (ROSE) Awards to the city's hospitality industry.

She has been a board member of the Women's Fund of Central Indiana, Rotary Club of Indianapolis, Greater Indianapolis Progress Committee, United Way of Central Indiana, Marion County Public Library Foundation, Mental Health Association in Marion County, Crimestoppers of Central Indiana, the American Cancer Society, the Indiana Repertory Theater, and Indianapolis Downtown Inc.

The latter received a $100,000 grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust to launch the new Marge Tarplee Downtown Beautification Fund. It's a matching grant, which hopes to raise $1 million.

The Indianapolis Chapter of Executive Women International has also honored her for her leadership as president of the local and national chapter. In 1993, the Marjorie C. Tarplee Excellence Award was founded by the local chapter in honor of her 28 years of exceptional leadership.

'Though she's certainly earned the right, she's not sitting in a rocking chair yet. On Feb. 1, 1999, the man she called "Tarp" - the guy she shared love, laughter and the highways with in their 19 different motor homes - died. Bob was at Marquette Manor for two years before he died.

"We got to have our 50th wedding anniversary just a couple of months before he died. He got wonderful care at Methodist Hospital and Marquette Manor. They were so good to him. But when you see how overworked nurses are, it's pitiful. That's my big project now. I chair the Indiana University School of Nursing Board of Advisers and I'm on the Methodist Health Foundation Board. I have been beating my head against the wall trying to get sponsors for nursing scholarships. Because I want every girl or boy who wants to go to nursing school to have the opportunity to go."

While Tarplee worries about other children, her own daughter, Sharon Rutan, fusses over her. Tarplee lovingly calls her daughter "The General."

Rutan calls her mother "my best friend. I think I'm the most fortunate daughter around to have such a generous woman as my mother. She always thinks of others' needs before her own. We have shared many fun trips and experiences through the years - especially Las Vegas trips. She wins the money and I spend it!" laughs the former teacher.

Indianapolis hit the jackpot when Marge Tarplee moved back to town. Recognizing her achievements, three governors have awarded her the state's top prize, the Sagamore of the Wabash. Friend Betty Stilwell says, "Marge Tarplee has been the renaissance woman for our community in so many ways. She has given to the corporate, civic, not-for-profit and philanthropic worlds. And she has done this with warmth and personal commitment."

Marge Tarplee - a woman who knows how to deck the city halls with boughs of holly. In fact, a woman for all seasons.