The Daily Iowan

Preaching to empty pews

With aging populations and a clergy shortage, small-town Iowa churches struggle.

in the area have taken a toll on Sunday attendance.

Most Sunday mornings, Marcia Barker walks out of her house just before 8 a.m. and meets her friend in the middle of the road. Together, they walk across the quiet main street to church. The retired women, who admit they hate waking up early, sneak into the back pews of the old white church just after the service starts to join a handful of other churchgoers. On Sept. 14, only nine members were in attendance.

On a good day, the Batavia United Methodist Church in Batavia, Iowa, holds a congregation of 17 people. The church used to be a significant part of the community in the rural town, but an aging population and lack of job opportunities

According to the World Population Review, 418 people live in Batavia as of 2025; the population has decreased by roughly 3.5 percent since 2020. Just under 15 percent of the town’s population is senior citizens.

During the fellowship — a time after the service for members to catch up and eat together — held in the back of the single-room church sanctuary, Kurt Bechert, 61, a farmer who has attended Batavia UMC for about 40 years and serves as the current worship leader, joked that the church used to be full, with about 100 people in attendance a week. But things have changed, he said. Now, he notes, “Everyone’s now out in the cemetery.”

Barker recalled when the church community was still active, she sent her kids to vacation bible school during the summers. She said the church held auctions

regularly in order to raise funds for the church’s upkeep and events. But over time, the few remaining members were the only ones buying anything.

“After we’re gone, there probably won’t be a church here,” she said flatly, between bites of her chocolate chip cookie.

Despite Barker’s concerns that the church may close one day, she said the small congregation, with only four members at fellowship, has thoroughly bonded over the years. She said she lost her granddaughter a while back, and the members helped support her through a difficult time.

“If we go through a crisis, we’re there for each other,” Barker said. This sense of community and joy that the current

UI microfarms create pathways for sustainability

The microfarms grow pounds of vegetables for students.

At the entrance of a University of Iowa

dining hall sits what the UI Burge Market Place Operations Manager David Van Hol -

ten calls the “centerpiece” — the dining hall’s own microfarms.

Burge Market Place is one of two dining halls on the east side of the UI campus, and according to the university’s website, it serves about 10,000 meals a day in collaboration with Catlett Market Place and Hillcrest Market Place, located on the west side of campus..

From 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., students flock to Burge Market Place for all their dietary needs.

Hydroponic microfarms as a way to access sustainable, year-round food production is not a new concept, having roots in ancient Aztec chinampa techniques. The American Society for Horticultural Science describes chinampas as ﬁelds that have been raised to improve productivity. They typically dwell on a freshwater lake, surrounded by ditches or canals depending on where the chinampa is located.

According to the U.S. Agriculture Department’s National Agricultural Library, hydroponic farms don’t utilize soil but instead use waterbased nutrient solutions to grow plants.

Companies like Babylon Micro-Farms, based Richmond, Virginia, have been able to modernize the process, making the small-scale farms more accessible to companies and organizations that want to prioritize sustainability in their food production. The company does not

utilize pesticides.

Babylon Micro-Farms offers 45 varieties of herbs, greens, and edible flowers for consumption, and uses 90 percent less water in its production, according to its website. Universities across the U.S. are utilizing Babylon Micro-Farms including, but not limited to, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of South

Carolina, and Western Carolina University.

The hydroponic farms at the UI are controlled by a remote management app, making it easier for users with less experience to manage and help grow the farms. Van Holten said the Babylon app is marketed as a “guided growing app,” and monitors

Johnson County sees increase in STIs, syphilis

Cases in Johnson County remain one of the highest in the state.

Johnson County was found to have one of the highest rates of sexually transmitted infections, according to Iowa’s Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS.

The majority of the reported cases peak in the 20 to 24-year-old age range — the average age of most college students. With the University of Iowa reporting over 32,000 students in 2024, the issue of sexually transmitted diseases and infections is a lingering conversation on campus.

Iowa HHS has a sexually transmitted infection, or STI, program that works to reduce the spread of STIs and other sexually transmitted diseases. The program partners with many organizations, such as Johnson County Public Health, to bring testing and other resources to those in need across the state.

Iowa Code requires clinicians and laboratories that have ordered or performed STI testing to release the name and patient demographics to Iowa HHS. This information is protected under Iowa law and can only be released to the aﬀected individual. The types of STIs reportable to Iowa HHS are gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, and human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, according to the department’s website.

The county is working to reduce these rates, especially among young people. Fatoumata Traore,the Johnson County Public Health educator assistant, works with others in her field to spread the word about community resources

“Our ITS [integrated testing services] program is a sexual health and wellness and harm reduction program,” she said. “ e oﬀer a wide variety of services at no cost to the public. You can call to schedule an appointment or walk into our Health and Human Services building, go to the

front desk, and tell them that you’re there for an STI screening or if you’d like to meet with ITS.” UI Student Health

members get from attending church and participating in the community is something folks at Batavia want to share with others. Bechert said he’d love to see the sanctuary full week to week, and the congregation is happy to take anyone.

“I’d give up my front parking spot,” he joked. Mike Mitchell, 74, a long-time member at Batavia, shares similar sentiments with Barker. When asked what his hopes are for the future of their church, he said, “Just that it survives.”

Although the future seems grim for Batavia UMC, with less than 20 current members, the parish is luckier than others, as it’s been able to stay open. Bechert said he takes care of all the records and checkbooks for the church and another member has been able to handle all the electric and handy work, keeping costs relatively low.

For Savannah Waechter, a third-year student at the University of Iowa, and her younger sister Isabelle Waechter, a firstyear UI student, the closure of their church in their hometown of Livermore, Iowa, was painful.

In a town of 381 people per the 2020 U.S. census, Savannah said there was very little to do besides work on the farm, go to school, and go to church. For most, she said, the tradition of going to church every week and engaging with the community was the only thing folks had to look forward to in the isolated, rural area.

The sisters’ mother worked at Livermore’s Sacred Heart Catholic Church as the parish’s secretary and kept all the books and records, just as her grandmother did before her. The Waechter’s father managed all the music for Sunday services, and Savannah said it was never difficult to have other members step up in his absence or fill in for anyone from week to week.

Applied Research in the Apostolate, the number of priests in the U.S. has declined by 40 percent between 1965 and 2021.

“I think almost everyone in that church cried because that was so much of a family,”

Savannah said. “Yes, we were a close community because we're all farmers and because we're a small town, but it just was amplified by the church.”

When the sisters are home during school breaks, they now have to drive about 40 minutes out of town to go to a different church that’s much larger and less connected than the one they grew up in.

Isabelle said all the former “church ladies” from Sacred Heart approached her family to help out and volunteer at her high school graduation party because,

building is empty.

Isabelle said the sign advertising the church's final sale has not been touched in three years and still reads: Sept. 2, 2022.

“We look at it [Sacred Heart] every single time we would leave our house — something that used to be so alive,” she said.

The Catholic and Methodist churches in Iowa, much like around the nation where the number of elders in the UMC has decreased from 21,500 in 1990 to just over 10,000 in 2023, a nearly 50 percent decline, according to the Lewis Center for Church Leadership, are both facing clergy shortages in rural

She said since she was 3 years old, the diocese in her area had been warning the town that Sacred Heart may close, but regular attendance from roughly 50 families in the area and the tight-knit congregation led her to believe otherwise. Until 2021.

Despite numerous fundraising events, resulting in upwards of $50,000 just before the church’s closure, and pleas from the parish members, a priest shortage in the area ultimately forced the church to shut its doors, Savannah said. In the Catholic Church, a priest can only give up to three services per day, and there weren’t enough priests in the area to keep Sacred Heart afloat.

The loss of the local priest fit a pattern in the country: According to the Center for

without the church in town, they felt they needed to find another purpose.

Savannah added that any walk around town can result in chatting with all their neighbors on their porches for hours at a time.

“When you're retired and you don't have anything else, they're like, ‘I want to help out. I want to have a sense of belonging and a sense of importance and identity.’ And you just lose that,” Savannah said.

Now, the building just sits vacant in town.

Savannah said the church had one final sale of all the sacred memorabilia for people in town to keep a piece of what was lost, but now the lot is overgrown with weeds, and the

areas — to the point that, oftentimes, a single priest or pastor is giving a service at multiple churches every Sunday.

Savannah and Isabelle’s church ceased operations for this very reason, but the Batavia UMC is still hanging on under the leadership of Pastor Dave Peterson.

Every Sunday, 68-year-old Peterson wakes up around 6 a.m. at his home in Sigourney, Iowa, and drives 40 minutes south to Batavia UMC for the 8 a.m. service. He hangs out for fellowship for a while, then jumps back in the car and drives 12 minutes south to Eldon UMC in Eldon, Iowa, and does the whole service and fellowship over again

at 9:30 a.m.

He added that all his early morning work is always followed by a nap before his wife gets home from the church she attends in Sigourney.

“In retirement, I’m getting up earlier on Sunday morning than I ever did when I was in full-time ministry,” he said.

This hectic Sunday routine is not how Peterson expected to spend his retirement, but says he’s loved every moment.

“It’s good people at Batavia and Eldon, and it’s been a joy,” the pastor said. “It’s been fun. In fact, I’ve told some people, if I didn’t know any better, I’d do it for free.”

Starting his career working in insurance, Peterson said he made some unwise business decisions and found himself regularly going to see his pastor for guidance. Soon after, he realized he had a calling to become a pastor himself and was encouraged to go back to school and “go the full boat” by his own pastor.

He got his first full-time pastor positon at Fairfield UMC in Fairfield, Iowa, and is now an ordained elder, the highest position in the UMC, and says he can serve at any Methodist church in the world if he wanted to. But Peterson has a soft spot for small-town Iowa.

The pastor was born and raised in Altoona, Iowa, just outside Des Moines, and said when he was growing up, the town was mostly gravel roads and didn’t have a single stoplight or even a stop sign. He said I-80 wasn’t complete yet either. Now, the town has expanded and developed greatly, much to Peterson’s dismay.

“Altoona now, I don’t even recognize it as my hometown,” he said.

His small-town connections are what Peterson said have made his time in Batavia and Eldon even more enjoyable. He relates to the folks in his congregations and said he’d rather serve in a church of just a handful of people than ever work in a big-city church.

“When it comes down to it, I’m a small-town Iowa boy. I don’t care for big metropolitan stuff,” he said.

For Peterson, in retirement, he can step away from his pastor responsibilities at any point, but unfortunately for the Batavia and Eldon churches, that would likely mean facing a closure just like Sacred Heart in Livermore.

However, the pastor said he still has a few more years left in him, and rural flight for young people is as big a risk for the two churches potentially closing.

“One of the bigger issues is that congregations are getting smaller because they’re getting older. People are dying off,” Peterson said. “But also, the other thing is that you have an awful lot of people that are moving away from those rural communities in a larger area, strictly from an employment standpoint.”

Population movement to larger cities is a major contributor to church decline in Iowa.

According to the 2020 Census, 68 of Iowa’s 99 counties lost population, with growth concentrated in urban and suburban areas. Additionally, 2.2 of every 1,000 residents in rural Iowa migrated away from their small town, according to the 2024 Iowa Small Towns Project from Iowa State University.

In addition to rural trends, religious participation and church attendance are down nationwide.

According to the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, smaller churches nationwide are facing a clergy shortage as the more lucrative jobs for pastors and ministers are in larger, and usually more urban, churches.

National church attendance has also been declining for years, according to the Pew Research Center. The UMC specifically has seen decreased attendance, with Methodists making up a mere 2.7 percent of the U.S. population in 2024 compared to 5.1 percent in 2007.

In the state of Iowa, Pew reports that as of 2024, 21 percent of the population attends church at least once a week, and 50 percent seldom or never attend. Pew also reports that in 2024, 25 percent of Iowans identify as mainline protestant Christians, which includes the Methodist denomination.

In general, however, church attendance is beginning to “level off” as it’s creeping back to the same numbers seen in the mid-2000s, according to Pew.

A driving force behind this resurgence is young people.

Christine Wissink, director of Outreach and Faith Formation at the UI Newman Catholic Student Center, said she’s seen participation at the center nearly triple over the last 10 years.

Wissink was unable to provide specific participation data.However, she said she’s seen more young people

signing up to go on retreats, come to community building activities, or just coming into the church to pray or read the bible. She said she’s specifically seen young men become more engaged than ever.

“It seemed in the past there was the stereotype sometimes of people being involved in churches not being cool. I think a lot of people here are young –they’re attractive, normal people,” she said. “And I think that attracts more normal people to be involved.”

Wissink said she’s also seen UI students’ involvement with their faith increase, and says more students are interested in getting involved with seminary or are simply coming into the church daily to pray or go to mass.

Popularity and high participation at the Newman Catholic Center have filled the gap for the Waechter while they’re in Iowa City for school.

“Having a community pushes you to be a better person because it’s a whole group striving towards the same goal of wanting to be better, and it’s a refuge when you’re stressed,” Isabelle Waechter said. “It’s a place you can go to where you’re accepted and appreciated, whereas sometimes when you’re out in the world, you just feel lost and stressed and maybe don’t know where you’re going, but then go back home and feel comforted again.”

OPINIONS Charlie Kirk’s complex legacy

Confronting the nuanced reactions to the conservative inﬂuencer’s death.

It’s not often an opinion columnist is at a total loss for words.

I have plenty of thoughts and opinions whirling around like a twister, but they contradict and consume themselves until I can’t put them into words. I’m not sure what I think. I know I’m not the only one. Charlie Kirk’s death was brutal. It was horrifying — the way his body went limp, the way blood began to gush. No one deserves that fate.

But there’s this little voice in the back of my head that’s pounding to be let out. It is screaming all the things I know I’d otherwise condemn a person for saying.

aybe I condemn myself, but I ﬁnd it ironic that the very man who advocated for gun deaths as a simple cost to protect freedom ended up being the one to pay.

“I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year, so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights,” Kirk said in a 2023 Media Matters interview.

It’s hard to feel much for his death when I know he felt so little for all the other victims of gun violence; when he could have spoken out against it. There’s a cognitive dissonance between my established beliefs toward gun violence and my reaction and beliefs toward Kirk’s death.

He was still a person. He had a family. He was utilizing his First Amendment right to free speech. But Kirk did not die because he was spreading his opinion. He was spreading hate.

“Charlie Kirk was a victim of the exact rhetoric he built a career oﬀ of. e did not deserve to die. But neither did the thousands of people, including children, who died as a result of his rhetoric,” University of Iowa alum Grace Tigges said in an Instagram story post. Ultimately, gun safety is not just to protect those who agree with it; it’s also to protect those who don’t. Gun violence spares no one — no matter their social standing or political a liation.

Right-wing followers and supporters

should’ve changed his mind and words, not lost his life. I stand with the people who don’t think his hateful views should be forgiven, but I also don’t think his death was right or necessary.”

of Kirk have been quick to blame the left for his death and radical political violence as a whole while excusing their own violence. They’ve condemned those who celebrate his death.

“Time to bring back the death penalty,” U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R- S.C., posted on X before the shooter’s identity was determined.

When the shooter’s identity was discovered to be Tyler Robinson, a white, cisgender male from a Republican family, her new stance became dramatically diﬀerent.

“We know Charlie Kirk would want us to pray for such an evil and lost individual like Tyler Robinson to ﬁnd esus Christ. e will try to do the same,” Mace posted two

days later.

The hypocrisy is deafening. It is particularly irksome to see the number of people reposting and resharing media praying for Kirk and condemning political violence who have never given a thought to sharing an extra post for the people starving in Gaza or for any of the other thousands of victims of gun violence in the U.S.

On the same day Kirk was shot, a high school shooting in Colorado injured at least three people. Two weeks prior, a shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic school killed two and injured 17.

“Do not become the ones you ridicule,” fourth-year UI student Kylen Phillips said. “I know that man wouldn’t give a s- - - if I were shot, but I think he

It is important not to be hypocritical about gun violence and cheer when it claims the life of someone with whom we disagree. We need gun safety reform. Not gun “control.” The referral of gun safety legislation as “gun control” imposes fear of infringement on personal liberty. We just want more precautions in place to protect against what violence we can without infringing upon personal liberty.

It’s about safety, not control, and these shootings should be a turning point in gun safety legislation. Kirk's death needs to be a wake-up moment that pushes far-right conservatives to see the reason for gun safety.

IC police review board dissolved

Statewide restrictions on review boards will damage police and community relations.

On Sept. 6, Iowa News Now reported o cers had shot and killed a teen after he advanced on them with a weapon at the end of a vehicle pursuit in Greene County.

On Mar. 18, KCRG reported on a video captured by a bystander of an Iowa City Police Department o cer punching a man after attempting to deliver an arrest warrant. The footage depicts an ofﬁcer pinning a man to the ground and repeatedly hitting him as an onlooker ﬁlms the incident from their car.

Both incidents sparked heated conversations online about the ethics of each confrontation — the exact conversations meant to be held within community police review boards. Without these boards, the review of these situations and the integrity of the cops involved lies completely in the hands of the police department.

The Iowa City Community Police Review Board, or CPRB, is set to be dissolved after twenty-eight years, as reported by The Daily Iowan. Other community police review boards around the state were resolved following Iowa Senate ile 11, signed into eﬀect by our American Margaret Thatcher, Gov. Kim Reynolds.

The law restricts cities with a popu lation of over 8,000 from establishing any entities to review any local o cer s conduct.

The CPRB was established in 1997 to independently oversee claims of mis conduct and abuse of power in the Iowa City Police Department. Citizen review boards don’t have actual power to dish out punishment, but they can apply pressure to keep these issues from being swept under the rug.

These boards make sure departments take conduct issues seriously. Without them, complaints will fall to police departments. It's hard to imagine police would be particularly thrilled to punish their own colleagues and friends.

Perhaps the most important role of the CPRB is the sense of cooperation it builds between the community and the police. We should have the right to feel like we’re involved in our own protec tion, freedom of choice, and ability to guide our protectors, which is what separates them from being our wardens or overseers.

I was in Minneapolis during the George Floyd protests, living just six or so miles away from Lake Street. The smell of smoke was strong in the air, and the feeling of ignored tension snapped even stronger. What happened was a complete breakdown in the city's faith in its protectors. We require connection and transparency to maintain civil order and prevent violence. There was a noticeable surge in police review boards around the country the year following Floyd's death. 25 new

police oversight boards were formed across the country in the ﬁrst few months alone, according to a study from the University of Chicago Law School. Arguably, these boards aren't as effective as they could be. According to Governing, a study in Chicago revealed an increase of only ﬁve percent in complaints against police being sustained with the introduction of police

review boards. But when people's lives and freedom are on the line, 5 percent is still a sizable number. The responsibilities of a police department’s community outreach are too much to bear on their own. If the rest of the U.S. government is meant to be a series of checks and balances, our police should be held to the same standard.

Mosaic Iowa City’s downtown debut

The former Ten Thousand Villages facility now collaborates with local artists.

Ten Thousand Villages, a cornerstone of the dowtown artisan scene, expanded from its previous space. Rebranded as Mosaic Iowa City, the store’s mission is to include products from local immigrants and refugees.

Ten Thousand Villages, a nonprofit fair trade retailer that sells goods from international artisans around the country, Mosaic now operates solo in Iowa City, shifting its product line to feature local, handcrafted goods.

The past facility operated on 105 S. Dubuque St. for nine years before the Mosaic rebrand and moved to 109 S. Dubuque St.

Mosaic opened equipped with dressing rooms, indicative of the nonprofit’s new emphasis on clothing.

Liz Precadio, the executive director of Mosaic, and her colleagues noticed the international focus of Ten Thousand Villages was limiting the facility's community outreach.

Before the rebrand, the organization’s mission worked strictly with immigrants and marginalized communities outside the U.S. The new mission now focuses on supporting artisans in under-resourced areas, both domestic and international.

The new facility will host a new menagerie of handcrafted goods. New artisanal clients come from countries like Ukraine, Turkey, and Sudan, supplying watercolor art, and from the country of Georgia, supplying wine salt.

Precadio expects the new products to arrive sometime in October, which nearly lined up with Mosaic’s official grand opening on Sept. 21 from 2 to 4 p.m., where customers can sample food and tea.

The old 105 S. Dubuque St. location was approximately 760 square feet. The new location offers around 970 square feet.

Coinciding with the rebrand, the move, catapulted by the organization's signing a new lease, allowed Mosaic to display products more effectively and create a better shopping experience.

Precadio said as customers come in to look at the new space, they often mistake previously overlooked products for new ones now that staff have more space to adequately present each piece.

“It's just been night and day as far as having the space to spread out and curate it more like an art gallery rather than a store, to really show off the work of the artisans,” she said. “It's true art and craft.Everything's handmade, so it's nice to be able to really showcase it.”

The addition of 200 square feet also allows Mosaic to host “pop -

-ups” in the store, where artisans set up a booth inside for a limited time to sell their goods.

All of these changes have been a big rush for Mosaic sales associate Nina Helewa, who was hired a month before the rebrand and is particularly excited about the new name.

The name change was championed by Mosaic assistant director Deb Manning, who has been with the original store since 2016.

The new name serves as a nod to Ten Thousand Villages, which used to have a blog named Mosaic about the arti -

sans the store collaborated with around the world.

“I was so excited about the name Mosaic because I felt like it was so fitting of being able to bring a bunch of different cultures and groups together,” Helewa said. “Our store is so colorful, and it just creates a beautiful picture of the world and the people we’re helping.”

the grant program provides as much as $15,000. Looking ahead, Mosaic is planning for the launch of its annual fair-trade rug event, which displays and sells hand knotted heirloom quality rugs from Pakistan.

The rug event runs from Oct. 1 to 5, with half the proceeds going directly to the artists.

Precadio emphasized the nonprofit is looking for volunteers for the event. Those who wish to volunteer can pick up applications in-store.

Betsy Potter, the district’s executive director, said she was excited Mosaic chose to rebrand because it now counts as a new lease, allowing the organization to award them the grant, which is only available for new stores that mainly sell items like clothing, jewelry, rugs, or home decor.

Although Mosaic now stands on its own two legs, it's far from alone.

The Iowa City Downtown District awarded Mosaic a retail build-out grant to help open the new facility. The amount Mosaic received is undisclosed, but

“We are just thrilled to have [Mosaic],” Potter said. “I think the opportunity with their new, bigger space is that they're carrying more product, so that just allows more opportunities for people to engage with their mission of fair trade under their new local brand.”

Hawkeye-born ANF movement 40 years strong

The foundation has long upheld Iowa farmers’ contributions and resilience.

The Iowa football team traveled to Ohio State University on Nov. 2, 1985, debuting a new helmet with the letters “ANF” located just above the iconic Tigerhawk symbol. Forty years later, the Hawkeyes continue to sport the letters in solidarity with farmers not just in Iowa but across the country.

Former Iowa head football coach Hayden Fry founded the America Needs Farmers movement, or ANF, to bring awareness to farmers who faced extreme hardships during the farming crisis of the 1980s.

Today, ANF still holds the same mission: to support every farmer and educate those who don’t understand the impact they have on the country.

Andrew Wheeler, public relations manager for the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, said Fry, who grew up in Texas, created the organization to emphasize how the 1980s farm crisis was impacting many farmers throughout the nation.

According to Iowa PBS, the 1980s farm crisis was a period when many U.S. farmers faced bankruptcy due to falling crop prices, high interest rates, and heavy debt from borrowing during the 1970s boom, leading to rural poverty.

“Coach Fry grew up on a farm, had many farm kids on his team, and knew the farm crisis was impacting farm families and rural communities, particularly in Iowa,” Wheeler said. “He wanted to bring awareness and America Needs Farmers' message to a national audience.”

Former sports information director at the University of Iowa Phil Haddy worked at the university from 1971 to 2012 alongside Fry and saw ANF emerge and evolve over the last 40 years.

Haddy said Fry did everything with a purpose, one of those being the promotion of ANF through the Hawkeyes' 10-2 season in 1985 that produced a Rose Bowl opportunity.

“It was to make the people and farmers of Iowa feel good about something,” Haddy said. “And at the same time, it was another reason to motivate his team to prepare and play better for the sake of the farmers in Iowa.”

Colin Johnson, a farmer from Batavia, Iowa, said ANF continues to recognize Iowa farmers for the work they do, just as it did for the movement’s original purpose four decades ago.

“It's a great way to recognize the

contributions of not just the food and the items we produce, but also just what we as farmers contribute to the local community,” he said.

Johnson encourages and urges people to think about how many different products farmers contribute to society, from

“People don’t think about where it comes from and all the effort and financial means it takes to get there.”

After 40 years, Wheeler said the campaign continually tries to ensure farmers are getting the recognition and awareness they deserve, as agriculture

same challenges still exist — obviously economic pressures and challenges that we're seeing today,” he said. “There's so many different things to have in agricultural products, so it's an opportunity to show that agriculture touches our lives in so many different ways.”

Fry, who retired from coaching in 1998 and died in 2019, considered ANF part of his legacy.

“The thing I'm most proud of here at Iowa is putting the ANF on our headgear,” he once said.

Haddy noted how successful Fry was in his ability to make the campaign stick and how well-known it is in the country four decades later.

items at the grocery store to gas.

“We take everything that's in the grocery store for granted,” he said.

impacts people’s lives every day.

“Farming today looks much different than it did 40 years ago, but a lot of the

“It's evolved to where now everybody who knows [college] football knows what ANF stands for,” he said. “The legacy of Hayden Fry and the logo he put on those helmets will live into inﬁnity. ou know it s going to last for a long time because there will never be a time when the world doesn't need farmers. He was a spellbinder.”

Few protections remain for transgender Iowans

Iowa was first to protect gender identity, now the state leads in removing those rights.

Sean c oberts of Iowa City ﬁrst came to terms with their gender identity almost six years ago while in their upper 0s and has felt freer and more like themselves since.

c oberts, a transgender nonbinary person, said growing up, they did not have the language available to understand what they felt.

“It has really been empowering and freeing to come to that self understand ing,” c oberts said. “I m really grateful, especially for the people who have walked with me in that, and the people who have helped to give me the language.”

They said younger people in their com munity gave them the language for how they had intrinsically felt for most of their life.

“I ve been so grateful for people young er than me for ﬁnding the language and moving that into the public conversation, so folks like me and people older than me can ﬁnd ourselves through gender conver sation,” c oberts said.

Iowans like c oberts, whose gender identity diﬀers from their sex assigned at birth, are now vulnerable to discrimina tion after Iowa epublicans removed state civil rights protections for gender identity from the Iowa Code as of uly 1.

ithout state level protections, trans gender Iowans are left without a remedy for discrimination under state law. ow ever, experts say transgender Iowans can turn to federal civil rights laws and local ordinances in their stead.

Iowa became a leader in T civil rights in 200 when, under the control of Democrats, the state was one of the ﬁrst to enshrine sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes in Iowa s civil rights law.

ow, Iowa has become a leader in a different regard after Iowa epublicans pushed through Senate ile 1 , a bill removing gender identity as a protected class, changes the definition of man and woman in the Iowa Code, and re uires birth certificates to show sex assigned at birth. The bill careened through two subcommittees, two committees, a pub lic hearing, two floor votes, and to the governor s desk in less than one week in ebruary.

ith historic majorities in both cham bers, Iowa epublicans were a mostly uni ﬁed front on the bill, with only six ouse epublicans defecting to vote with all Democrats against the bill. Iowa epubli cans argued the bill was necessary to pro tect a plethora of anti trans laws epubli cans have enacted since 2021.

Those laws were being legally threat ened by the existence of civil rights pro tections for gender identity in the Iowa Code. In an eﬀort to prevent them from being overturned by Iowa courts, epub licans sought to remove the protections this session.

“Every Iowan deserves to have their human rights protected and to be treated with dignity and respect,” Iowa ep. Ste ven olt, Denison, said on eb. 2 . olt was the ﬂoor manager and original spon sor for the bill.

“That may have been the intent in 200 , but that was clearly not the result. Cur rent Iowa Code with gender identity as a protected class does not accomplish this, and it stands in the way of Iowans trying to implement common sense policies and exercise their rights,” olt said.

olt did not respond to multiple re uests for comment from The Daily Iowan for this story.

The move by Iowa epublicans also comes after a general election fraught with anti transgender messaging nation ally, and where epublicans won by wide margins in most of the state. It also comes while President Donald Trump has target ed transgender people nationally through

executive orders, banning them from the military, declaring there are only two sex es, and re uiring transgender mericans to denote their sex assigned at birth.

c oberts was one of thousands who lamented the Iowa bill during protests outside legislative hearing rooms and during public hearings where T Iowans and allies showed up in force to oppose the bill.

They said watching the bill be intro duced and eventually passed into law was a gut punch.

“The reali ation that our state was sin gling out trans people for the removal of civil rights protections like that,” c ob erts said. “ e had been in the Iowa Civil ights Code for decades, and now this is going to be taken away, that we would be the ﬁrst state in the nation to take away civil rights from a protected class.”

ow, transgender Iowans lack state protections against discrimination in em ployment, public accommodations, wages, housing, credit, and education.

In 200 , when the protections were enshrined in state law, it was a biparti san vote, according to archives of the Des Moines Register. ine ouse epublicans joined all but three ouse Democrats in voting for the bill.

The protections existed for 1 years and were used a number of times by Iowans seeking to remedy discrimination since their inception.

ccording to data obtained by the DI

10 Iowans have sought a remedy from the Iowa Civil ights Commission for dis crimination based on gender identity since the law was created in 200 . complaint to the Iowa Civil ights Commission is the ﬁrst step in the complaint process before litigation can be brought, according to the Iowa Civil ights ct.

The number of complaints filed citing gender identity as a protected class upon submission to the Iowa Civil ights Coun cil, has risen steadily over the years, peak ing in fiscal 201 with complaints filed.

Iowans can no longer submit com plaints for discrimination occurring af ter uly 1, 202 . Those who have experi enced discrimination before uly 1 have until pril 2 , 202 to ﬁle a complaint as

long as it is within 00 days of the alleged discriminatory incident, aitlin Smith, a spokesperson for the Iowa ce of Civil ights, said.

Since enacted, Iowa s protections for gender identity have protected transgen der Iowans from discrimination and have been used as a framework for many vic tories for transgender rights in court over the years.

The merican Civil iberties nion of Iowa has led in challenging several an ti transgender state laws using the state s civil rights protections for gender identity. These include Iowa s ﬁrst lawsuit using gender identity as a protected class, and a series of lawsuits challenging restrictions on edicaid covering costs of gender a rming care.

ollowing these lawsuits, Iowa epub licans have passed several laws aimed at restricting access for transgender Io wans. This includes passing a ban on gender a rming care for minors, pro hibiting transgender Iowans from using a restroom aligning with their gender while on public school property, and prohibit ing transgender students from competing on the sports team that aligns with their gender. Iowa lawmakers also passed a ban on using state edicaid to fund gen der a rming care at the end of the 202 legislative session.

In ctober 202 , the C of Iowa ﬁled a lawsuit on behalf of Iowa City parent innegan eadows, who was denied ac cess to a bathroom that aligned with his gender identity during a school event at iberty igh School.

This came after Iowa lawmakers passed a law re uiring persons to use the bath room aligning with their sex assigned at birth in Iowa public schools in 202 .

The lawsuit said the Iowa City Com munity School District violated ead ows civil rights by denying access, vio lating the state s civil rights laws, and the state constitution.

Iowa epublicans argued the existence of Iowa s civil rights protections for gender identity would jeopardi e state eﬀorts to ban transgender Iowans from using bath rooms aligning with their gender identity, eﬀorts to prohibit state funds from paying for gender a rming care, and ban trans gender girls from girls sports.

“ ll of these common sense policies are at risk so long as gender identity remains in the Iowa Civil ights Code identity is based on feelings, not biology,” olt said during remarks on the Iowa ouse ﬂoor on eb. 2 . owever, advocates say the bill sends a message to transgender Iowans They are not welcome.

ollowing the ﬁnal legislative vote on the repeal of the protections for transgen der Iowans, Iowa ep. ime ichtendahl, D iawatha, said she has seen folks in her community feel ostraci ed.

“It makes us feel less safe, less valued, as Iowans, and that this government isn t going to stop doing these anti trans bills anytime soon,” ichtendahl said, Iowa s ﬁrst openly transgender lawmaker. “So I think there s a real pessimism and there s a recognition that Iowa is no longer safe.”

ixmer rai , a ohnson County su pervisor and the only openly transgender person of color elected to o ce in Iowa, said recent legislative action has sought to vilify persons like them throughout the state. It has taken a toll on their mental health.

“It s been devastating,” ixmer rai said. “It is really trying to vilify and de humani e people. nd whenever you see that, I think it s usually out of fear, out of

not understanding something or someone. nd I think it s unfortunate.”

ixmer rai said they have been working on supporting those in ohnson County who are threatened by state leg islation and working to support those in the community.

“It is incumbent upon me and my col leagues to make sure that we are doing everything we can, to provide any pro tections we can, and also to look at dif ferent ways to support people,” ixmer rai said.

hile advocates work to support their communities, experts say despite the re moval of gender identity as a protected status, other legal protections remain for transgender Iowans.

ithout clear protections in state law for transgender Iowans civil rights, legal experts say they will have to seek protec tions in other parts of the law.

athan axwell, a senior attorney at ambda egal, a legal organi ation that works on T issues, said transgen der Iowans can still ﬁnd protections on the federal level in some cases.

These include Title II, which protects transgender Iowans from employment discrimination, Title I , which protects transgender Iowans from certain dis crimination in education, and the meri cans with Disabilities ct, which protects transgender Iowans from discrimination based on gender dysphoria.

owever, the legal landscape on the state level remains untested, axwell said. ith protections based on sex ce mented in Iowa law, attorneys could argue gender identity might be akin to a sex ste reotype and would e uate to discrimina tion based on sex.

ut it remains unclear how Iowa courts would interpret such an argument.

“The removing of transgender, gender identity as a category of protection from the Iowa civil rights laws is largely unprec edented,” axwell said. “There is some amount of mystery that will ensue.”

There are also many municipalities Iowa City, mes, Cedar apids, aterloo, Davenport, and ohnson County that have enacted their own civil rights ordi nances, which include provisions on gen der identity.

axwell said these local ordinances can also give protections to transgender Iowans unless they are preempted by state law.

axwell said this kind of law is mostly about sending a message to transgender Iowans.

“It s the ﬁrst kind of step towards even tual complete erasure, which is what they re really going for here, and it makes trans people sort of fundamentally unsafe in society,” axwell said. “It transmits the message again that it s to discriminate against trans folks.”

Even though protections might have been erased from chapters of the Iowa Code, it does not make discrimination legal, axwell said.

“It doesn t force any discrimination,” axwell said. “Someone s going to try to use the removal of those protections as a reason that they re allowed to vio late the law, which I don t think is the case.” hile transgender Iowans are no lon ger able to rely on state law for protec tions, ichtendahl plans to continue to ﬁght for a better Iowa for them.

“I m a stubborn enough person to keep ﬁghting, because I know, at the end of the day, not all of us have the privi lege or ability or means to go ahead and just simply pack up and move,” icht endahl said. “So for those who are still in Iowa, I m still here, and I m still going to be ﬁghting for our rights and to stop whatever they re going to keep doing.”

Coralville church expands in size and faith

St. Thomas More Catholic Church funded a $12 million remodel after five years of renovations.

rowing ore in aith Campaign,” St. Thomas ore business manager atie Schneider said.

St. Thomas ore Catholic Church, located in Coralville, recently completed a 12 million renovation project, concluding its parish s six year commitment to its rowing ore in Faith Campaign.

The campaign was created in 2019 to address the church s growing numbers. The campaign focused on fundraising eﬀorts for expansion. The church added onto its worship space while completely renovating the existing building and basement.

The worship space now seats 1,100 people, nearly doubling the original capacity of the old church.

St. Thomas ore has experienced growth in its parish, a primary factor in why it deemed the expansion necessary. The church moved to Coralville in 200 , with 00 households o cially registered in the church, according to the church’s website. s of 2022, the parish now has over 1, 00 registered households.

“ ith so many new families coming in, we were starting to outgrow our church,” St. Thomas ore priest Chuck dam said.

“ e add around 100 families a year to our parish.”

In 2019, the parish decided to start the fundraising campaign to renovate and expand its place of worship. t the time, the estimated cost of expansion was around million.

“The Diocese of Davenport requires parishes to have 0 percent of the total project costs in hand before breaking ground. That’s when we started the

The campaign came to a halt in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In person mass was not available, and the cost of expansion rose due to inﬂation. The initial project cost of million was then projected to be around 12 million.

ecause of these obstacles, the church started searching for new ways of fundraising. ne of their eﬀorts was the Dance ore athon.

“It was a good party, and it was the evening of an Iowa football game. e had those games on television in addition to dancing,” dam said. “This really got us going again after the pandemic.”

In addition to hosting events, the campaign hosted telethons, where they called members of the parish to ask them to pledge money toward the renovations. Schneider stressed the important role each donation played in their fundraising campaign.

“ lot of times fundraisers will just go after large gifts, but we were making calls to all parish members,” Schnieder said.

Schneider said traditionally, in Catholic fundraising campaigns, fundraisers are lucky to get 0 percent of the parish to give to their campaign. St. Thomas ore had around percent of the parish contribute to its campaign.

“ e told people it doesn t matter what you give, just make a gift. e want everyone s involvement,” dam said.

dam said St. Thomas ore, namesake of the church, is known as a man of all seasons due to his role in the enaissance period. e maintained his

morals and religious integrity amidst the political pressures of the time. The design of the new church reﬂects this, with ﬂoor to ceiling windows bringing in natural light and displaying the nature surrounding the church.

“ man for all seasons has kind of been a theme for this parish since it was founded, since this is a parish for people in all seasons of life,” dam said.

Coralville resident Carla irui has been a member of the church, since 2022 and is excited for the additions to the worship space.

“It is so beautiful. I love the natural light in here it feels like home,” irui said.

St. Thomas ore held a dedication ceremony for the new space on ug. 2 . Schnieder said she is proud of the work that has been done to get the parish to where it is now. aving spent over five years on the project, she said it is very fulfilling to see the finished product.

“I was blown away it was just breathtaking,” Schneider said. “It is just unbelievable to think that this space is ours.”

UI revamps campus meal plan options

University of Iowa Housing and Dining removes ﬂex swipes, ushers in new payment methods.

food trucks at ubbard Park, according to previous reporting by The Daily Iowan , the pre existing ﬂex swipe system was unfeasible as the businesses would not take a ﬂex meal.

The University of Iowa’s dining administration introduced a wave of new food options and a revamped payment system for the 2025-26 academic year, aiming to increase ﬂexibility and convenience for students dining on campus.

According to the UI, there are 5,561 first-year students, which is the second largest in the history of the university.

Don Stanwick, director of dining services at the UI, said the university has 1 locations on campus that accept meal plans, including the three marketplaces at urge, Catlett, and illcrest residence halls.

This year, dining has shifted from ﬂex swipes to dining dollars to purchase food at other locations on campus. Stanwick said the department decided to get rid of the ﬂex swipe system because it was limiting to students.

“ ith ﬂex meals, you could only use those in a couple locations, and you could only get certain items,” he said.

Stanwick said in tandem with a recent push to bring a greater variety of brands onto campus, such as brand

Stanwick said while this switch took a while to integrate, in a survey sent out by I dining of over ,000 I students, the overwhelming majority said they would prefer a dining dollar system.

The dining dollar system, which are pre purchased funds that act as a declining balance for food purchases on campus, will stay in place for the foreseeable future, as the system s integration took up much of the last two years, he said.

“It s not an easy switch,” Stanwick said. “It involves all aspects of the campus and involves a lot of diﬀerent moving parts. nd to be able to do that, we want to do our due diligence and research and get as much feedback as we possibly can from students.”

The I s meal plan options, Stanwick said, are relatively cheap, with the unlimited meal plan costing 2, 0 per semester. I ousing and Dining, he said, wants to keep it that way.

“ e want to make sure meal plans remain aﬀordable for students,” he said. “So we want to do it in a way that enhances their experience as well as gives them access to all the locations that we possibly can.”

Some I students utili e diﬀerent options and use dining dollars to pay for items outside the market places.

“I live in ayflower, and we have a market downstairs,” I ﬁrst year student ary Strommen said. “If we re hungry, we can just go downstairs and get something with dining dollars, which is really nice.”

I second year student ngel ata said he preferred the ﬂex swipe system.

“I was a little upset ﬂex meals went away because I felt like you got more food with one swipe compared to the new dining dollars system where you spend up to 1 at market places and restaurants,” he said.

The I also opened ella s at lack and old rill, a new restaurant located in Petersen esidence all, featuring milkshakes and hamburgers on the menu.

Stanwick encourages students to explore new dining options on campus.

“ e get a lot of people, especially ﬁrst years, who go to the same places,” he said. “ e want people to be able to go out and try diﬀerent locations.”

Stanwick also said they are renovating the Iowa emorial nion to bring in national brands, which have yet to be announced. The iver oom in the I is

closed due to these renovations, with renovations slated to be complete by spring 202 . “ e re working to try to ﬁnali e contracts and bids for who can come into that piece, but we re hoping to have two more national brands coming on campus that we ll be able to put onto student meal plans,” he said. I nutrition specialist aura Croteau ope said starting this year, she, along with the executive corporate chef, nne atson, has been getting feedback from the marketplaces to give students as many options as possible.

“I think having diﬀerent perspectives and knowledge on diﬀerent topics within food and nutrition has helped and has changed the menu,” she said. “ e re trying to make sure there s balanced vegetables, entrees, and vegan items.”

the more complex variables that come with the farms.

“It’s part of our commitment to sustainability, and it is a great way that’s very customer-forward facing for our customers to see some of the ways that we try to be sustainable,” Van Holten said. . According to the National Institute of Health, hydro

ponic microfarms can grow and house ﬂowers, herbs, fruit, vegetables, and microgreens. Recently, microgreens have gained popularity in the upscale dining world and in premium grocery outlets.

The farms in Burge Market Place have already produced six pounds of microgreens and eight pounds of Thai basil, which have been served to students.

Microgreens, according to the National Library of Medicine, are immature plants containing partially

expanded leaves. They are often developed from other crops whether that be in the form of vegetables, herbs, or grains. Seven to 21 days after germination, the microgreens are able to be harvested and can be used in a variety of diﬀerent foods.

UI first-year student Olivia Benjaminson said she finds UI Housing and Dining’s use of fresh ingredients comforting.

“The dining hall is trying to use homegrown, authentic ingredients in what they’re feeding us,” Benjamison said. “ t home, I grow a lot of my own stuﬀ. So again, it s just kind of reassuring that they’re using real food.”

Shealy issner, a I ﬁrst year student who fre uents urge arket Place, said at ﬁrst she was confused as to what the farms were but was pleasantly surprised to learn what they are used for.

“Obviously I want to make sure it’s safe and good to eat, but I think it is really great that we’re sourcing our own food,” Kissner said.

Van Holten, who is currently the microfarms’ primary caretaker, said he hopes after this initial trial period is over, individual students or a campus student organization could help manage the farms.

prescriptions. Trisha Welter, associate director of UI Student Wellness, detailed the sexual health services the university offers.

“The mission of Student Wellness is to support student success by promoting sustainable health behaviors and fostering a culture of wellness,” Welter said.

Welter said Student Wellness heavily focuses on sexual health, even offering workshops and related events to promote safe sex on and off campus.

According to Iowa’s HHS, the total number of syphilis cases in Iowa has increased. The state saw 877 cases of syphilis in 2022 and 943 cases in 2023. Johnson County reported increased rates of syphilis between 2022 and 2023, with 61 cases in 2022 and 89 cases in 2023. Johnson County also accounted for 911 chlamydia cases and 216 cases of gonorrhea.

However, state data from 2024 has shown a new downward trend in these infections.

Alex Murphy, director of communications for Iowa’s HHS Department, said Johnson County has seen a decrease from 2023 to 2024 in the three main bacterial STIs: gonorrhea, chlamydia, and syphilis.

Chlamydia cases in Iowans under the age of 24 fell by 12.6 percent, going from 8,447 to 7,381 cases. Gonorrhea cases declined even more as numbers dropped 25.4 percent from 1,477 to 1,102 cases. In comparison, the syphilis cases increased by 6.5 percent, from 124 to 132.

“Our strategy emphasizes prevention, early detection, and rapid response. We promote routine testing because many infections cause no symptoms, and early treatment prevents further spread. We support a network of safety-net clinics across the statem providing affordable access to STI testing and treatment,” Murphy said.

He said the department has a commitment to keep all communities safe, responding to national issues that affect Iowa, such as the recent shortage of Bicillin L-A, an antibiotic used for treatment of syphilis.

“We continuously monitor for outbreaks and are prepared to partner with local health professionals to expand testing and treatment uickly if cases begin to rise,” Murphy said.

Johnson County has taken preventative measures against the spread of STIs by installing vending machines providing free safety and health items, including condoms.

Johnson County Public Health announced the new initiative at the end of August.

The county has already installed three of these machines and is planning on installing one more in future months.

Individuals across the community can now access these machines for free at the North Liberty Library, the Coralville Library, and Deadwood Tavern on Dubu ue Street in Iowa City.

Johnson County Supervisor Mandi Remington issued a statement regarding the county’s decision to implement these vending machines.

“This initiative reflects Johnson County’s commitment to finding real solutions to our community’s health and safety challenges,” she said. “Reducing the risk of fatal overdose and disease transmission protects our whole community. Harm reduction is a part of public health, and it’s how we save lives while building towards long-term solutions.”

With the rise of syphilis specifically, health care agencies suggested increasing access to syphilis screenings to help the overall population in the long run, Traore said.

She said the county is flexible on its testing methods, with patient comfort being key to drawing in residents who need to be tested but may feel hesitant about navigating the process.

“We used to do blood draws for syphilis screenings, and a lot of people are afraid of needles, so it was kind of a turn off,” she said. “We switched to a rapid screening, which is an easy finger poke. The results are back within 20 minutes.”

He is optimistic about the farms’ future and what the next couple of years could look like as more students learn about the farms.

“It’s not just there to look pretty. We are producing this, and it’s going to be in the items they [students] are consuming, so we’re really excited about that,” Van

In terms of goals for the farms, Van Holten mentioned a possible expansion of the project to other market places on the university’s campus and possibly getting community involvement.

In the UI’s sustainability goals and framework — outlining ways in which the university is working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase sustaand more — the university states it will “use the UI campus as a ‘living laboratory’ for sustainability education and explo -

Van Holten hopes these farms will be a piece of that laboratory and highlight this value to students as the UI looks to expand the new technology.

“The sky s the limit. It s just really kind of ﬁguring out what it can do and how to schedule around it,”

Sustainability and waste management are key goals for UI Housing and Dining, and he views the development of new approaches, like the microfarms, as proof of an ongoing work toward green dining practices.

“I want students to know this is our commitment to sustainability, and it’s right here in front of you,” Van

SPORTS

Persistence on and o the pitch

Ba ling through physical and emotional adversity, forward Kelli McGroarty continues to excel.

record can be broken, Iowa head coach Dave DiIanni understands a scoring magnitude like this could stand for time to come.

interest to stay close to New Jersey by attending a Salle niversity a member of the Atlantic 10 Conference in Philadelphia.

After battling through physical setbacks and mental hurdles, graduate student forward Kelli McGroarty has refused to let those obstacles deter her play on the ﬁeld cementing her name in Iowa sports history.

McGroarty accounted for four goals in Iowa’s 5-0 shutout win against Missouri State. McGroarty broke Iowa’s program record for most goals scored in a game and is the 10th Hawkeye to record a hat trick.

McGroarty’s four-score game is the second most goals scored in a game this season, with only Alivia Scott of Tennessee edging McGroarty out with a remarkable ﬁve score game of her own.

While still hopeful McGroarty’s

“Four goals is a lot,” DiIanni said. “When we play as hard of a schedule as we do, game in and game out, I think it’d be very di cult to think that will be topped.”

Before rewriting the Hawkeye record book, McGroarty attended Eastern Regional High School in her home state of New Jersey. Here, McGroarty was awarded the 2018-19 Gatorade Soccer Player of the ear an honor only awarded to 610 high school athletes nationwide.

Upon graduation in 2020, McGroarty found herself in a position of uncertainty due to the ambiguous ramiﬁcations of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

McGroarty felt it was in her best

McGroarty recalls spending the majority of her ﬁrst year of college athletics in the dorms and social distancing due to strict quarantine regulations.

Despite the irregularities and challenges COVID-19 brought to the college athletic world, McGroarty still found success on the ﬁeld. t a Salle, she was named to the conference’s all-rookie team in 2020, led the Explorers in goals during her second season, and earned a spot on the all conference ﬁrst team the following year.

Regardless of the accolades and honors on the pitch, McGroarty found herself struggling to communicate her mental health. With few resources and the negative stigma surrounding mental health,

Jess Barne ’s quiet legacy on Iowa field hockey

to one of the

evolve from a

McGroarty continued to bottle up her emotions at La Salle.

“[Communication] might seem like the easiest thing for some people,” McGroarty said. “But it was genuinely something that was so hard for me. My mind would go blank, and I genuinely could not think. Just speaking in general was the scariest thing ever. And so being able to do that one is the biggest growth I’ve had.”

At the end of her third year, McGroarty felt she was still looking for more, so she decided to enter her name into the transfer portal in search of a new home.

“That’s where Dave [DiIanni] reached out to me. I had a few other schools that I was going to visit, but I came here and kind of fell in love with it right away, even with no one on campus.”

Instant impact

Iowa men’s cross country firstyear Elias Arbuckle opens season strong in Hawkeye Invitational.

Coated in sweat with their spikes shredding up the grass with every step, first-year Elias Arbuckle and fourth-year Carson Houg were hip-to-hip with 2,000 meters to go. With eyes dialed on the jerseys ahead of them, Arbuckle knew the pair needed to make a move. Houg raised his arm and pointed forward, and that’s all Arbuckle needed to see. The two took off into the next gear and

“We closed really hard and caught a ton of guys,” Houg said. “Coming up the last hill, Elias took off.” Arbuckle moved from 12th to sixth overall in the final 3,000 meters of the Hawkeye Invitational. The first-year finished in 18:09, receiving a warm embrace from his family that was there to support him. Houg finished two spots behind him in 18:12.

“I went into that race thinking that anything could happen,” Arbuckle said. “I’ve never raced a 6K before, so it was fun to have my first mark in a collegiate race.” Houg was there alongside Arbuckle for all 6 kilometers and couldn’t have been more proud of his new teammate.

“I could tell from the gun that [Arbuckle] was eager to go,” Houg said. “It put a smile on my face to see how happy he was after the result.”

Arbuckle had the support of his teammates as well as head coach Randy Hasenbank. Hasenbank said he was pleased with Arbuckle’s strategic running.

“He was patient and deliberate early in the race,” Hasenbank said. “I expected he’d run a good second half of the race, and he did.”

the assistant coaching position opened in

knew one person who would

the role perfectly though it took a few persuasive phone calls. “She said ‘no’ to me three times, and I would not take ‘no’ for an answer,” Cellucci said. “I knew she would be an unbelievable asset for us on the coaching staff.” ow, five years later, that can be confirmed. arnett has played a key role in Iowa’s successes, leading the Hawkeyes

While Arbuckle’s race strategy was successful, the Hawkeye Invitational will be the only time the Hawkeye men race the 6K. Arbuckle felt it would be best to not get too comfortable with the distance.

“My thought process when I crossed the finish line was like, ‘That was fun for a 6K,’ and now I’m excited to see what the 8K is like,” Arbuckle said.

The adjustment to new distances comes with the adjustment to a new team as well. With the roster size down to 12, the team has been tight-knit since training began in the summer.

Iowa golf struggles on the links

Two tournaments in, improvement is needed for the Hawkeyes.

The Iowa men’s and women’s golf teams have both played two tournaments and have left room for improvement.

The women s team ﬁnished middle of the pack in both of its events, placing sixth and seventh out of 14 teams in tournaments in West Lafayette, Indiana, and Madison, Wisconsin.

The answer to the Iowa women’s golf team’s struggles is simple: Ximena Benites.

Benites is a third-year player and has ample talent and potential to lead this squad. Last season, Benites averaged 74.81, second on the team behind former Hawkeye Paula Miranda. If Benites can shoot even a little better, there is no doubt she can be a top golfer in the Big Ten.

Benites opened up her 2025 season with a 69 in round one of the Boilermaker Classic, which tied her career-low. Since then, Benites has still shot solid scores but has yet to break 70 since. Shooting in the 0s is no easy feat, but is deﬁnitely within

the realm of possibility for a player of Benites’ caliber.

Third-year Maura Peters is another factor to lift the awkeyes. Peters is coming oﬀ a ninth place performance at the Badger Invitational, where she also tied her career-low of 69. Peters currently holds the hottest hand on the team, and if she can continue her great play, the whole team will beneﬁt as a result.

The Iowa women’s team’s next tournament is the Diane Thomason Invitational at Finkbine Golf Course in Iowa City. The Hawkeyes won this tournament last season, and a tournament with home field advantage is the perfect formula for starting the spark for the rest of the season.

The Iowa men’s golf squad has also competed placed eighth twice this year.The awkeyes first tournament was the Knoxville Collegiate, where third year ax Tjoa shined. In the first round, Tjoa carded a 67. Tjoa ended up placing tenth on the leaderboard and ended the weekend two-over par. is first three semesters saw he played in all but one tournament, and last spring his stroke

Q&A | One on One with Iowa football’s Brevin Doll

The Daily Iowan: How would you describe yourself as a running back?

Brevin Doll: I think a combination of speed and power. I put on a little bit of weight in the offseason, so I’m looking to increase my power from that standpoint. I went through the winter program for the first time, and that was really good. I saw a lot of growth in my weight room numbers and also my weight and body composition as a whole.

What do you hope to prove this season in a crowded running back room?

We lost Kaleb [Johnson] last year, so we’re looking to fill the gap where the team needs, just becoming the best football players that we can.

What’s your goal for this season?

We all have a growth mindset when it comes to that. We’re really trying to get faster, stronger, and be better football players.

average was 73.06, ranking him No. 26 in program history since 1991-92. Another way the Iowa men’s golf team can improve is if fourth-year Gage Messingham can get back to his old ways. Messingham is in his second year at Iowa after transferring from Northern Colorado. During his second year in Greeley, Messingham was named the Big Sky Player of the ear and was ﬁrst team all conference. So far this season, Messingham hasn’t posted his usual statistics. Messingham’s highlight of the year came in the second round of the Highland Invitational where he shot a 67. Messingham also has two eagles on the year, the only player on the team to have one. The past numbers are there to prove Messingham is an elite golfer — he just needs to show it this season. The Iowa men’s golf team has a long break and will compete in the Fighting Irish Classic in South Bend, Indiana, on Oct. 6-7 — marking the next opportunity for improvement this fall season.

What’s the biggest thing you’ve learned so far at Iowa?

I would say learning how to take in information and really comprehend it. Practice is what you think of when it comes to football, but the classroom is a really big component of it as well.

What’s on your bucket list?

I want to someday travel to Europe. I see a lot of stuff on Instagram about Switzerland, so go to the Alps, take that in.

What’s your most prized possession?

Well, right now in fall camp, I’ve got a scooter that I scoot back between the hotel and the facility. So I’d probably say my scooter, because it gets me from Point A to Point B.

What’s your Chipotle order?

I get white rice, then steak or chicken, depending on what I’m feeling. Then, pico de gallo, shredded cheese, lettuce and the smoked chipotle sauce they have there. I like

it so much that I bought a bottle for my house.

What’s your dream concert?

I went to Zach Bryan about a year ago. That was really good. One I haven’t seen before is Charley Crockett. I’ve been listening to him a lot recently.

What’s your country music Mount Rushmore?

For me, I’m just gonna go personal preference. Zach Bryan, Charley Crockett, Morgan Wallen’s always good. That’s the three I have in rotation, the fourth one is up for grabs.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

I’d probably go super speed. You can always be faster, you know? I think that’d work out really well on the football field.

What’s an irrational fear?

I don’t like being up high. Heights, I don’t like them.

Which fall sport is o to the best start?

After an illustrious 2024 campaign resulting in a Sweet 16 appearance in the NCAA tournament, Hawkeye soccer has resumed its dominance on the pitch. No. 10 Iowa has accumulated an impressive 5-1-2 record thus far. The Hawkeyes opened up the season with a statement 3-2 victory over a top-10ranked Arkansas squad on the road.

Iowa’s lone loss of the year came against then No. 7-ranked Texas Christian University in a narrow 3-2 decision. Since the loss, the Hawkeyes have rebounded with a 4-0-2 record. Iowa has had nine different players ﬁnd the net, outsourcing its opponents 17-6. The Hawkeyes have

made it extremely hard for defenses to stop multiple Iowa threats. Graduate student forward Kelli McGroarty leads the team with four goals, recording all four scores against Missouri State, setting a school record for most goals scored in a game. Defensively, the Hawkeyes have had the one-two punch with Taylor Kane and Fernanda Mayrink defending the net. Kane has recorded nine saves and has only allowed two goals on the year. Mayrink has also been productive anchoring the Iowa defense, recording 13 saves and only allowing four goals on the season.

The two combine for ﬁve shutouts and an average save percentage of .786. For reference, opponent goalkeepers against Iowa this year have recorded one shutout and have a save percentage of .717. While much of the season remains undecided, the Hawkeyes will aim to build on their success for the remainder of the season.

While they may have struggled last season, Iowa volleyball has had the hottest start of any fall sport.

Iowa volleyball struggled last season, finishing 10-22 overall and only clinching four conference contests.

Outside of the Big Ten, the Hawkeyes struggled against teams they were well-equipped to beat.

Fast forward to this year, where the Hawkeyes started 6-0 for the first time in over a decade.

Had it not been for a 3-2 road loss to SEMO, Iowa would have set a record for the best start in program history.

In the ﬁrst three invitationals the Hawkeyes went 7-2 overall, with six

of their wins being sweeps. The Hawkeyes had some returning talent, such as current fourth-year setter Claire Ammeraal, who eclipsed 2,000 career assists last August. There’s also thirdyear hitter Alyssa Worden, who nabbed 11 kills in Iowa’s homeopening sweep over Butler on Sept. 4.

Head coach Jim Barnes also made sure to load the roster with new talent, such as first-year Carmel Vares and sixth-year Charde Vanzandt as strong oﬀensive players, and fourth year Milana Moisio to lock down the defense as a starting libero. The program is consistently elevating, using several lackluster seasons as motivation to fuel the program.

Despite past hurdles, Iowa volleyball is still managing to do something special with what they’ve been given, and that’s the most impressive thing of all.

After making the transition from Philadelphia to Iowa City, c roarty ﬁ nally found the help and resources she needed. At the University of Iowa, McGroarty visited with mental health professionals and athletic trainers to get her mind and body on the right track.

c roarty s fi rst year at Iowa was nothing short of outstanding, recording seven goals and four assists for Iowa soccer earning offensive P. nfortunately, c roarty only saw action for two games in the 2024 season, with ongoing ankle and back injuries preventing her from getting on the field. DiI anni and McGroarty decided it was in her best interest to medically redshirt — another challenge in her career. or c roarty, acupuncture treatment from Iowa s athletic department provided a new kind of relief, which had been previously foreign to her.

“I went from thinking my career was done,” McGroarty said. “I had a breakdown the night before and then decided to tell my coaches just exactly how much pain I was actually in, because I was trying to hide. nd two days after acupuncture, I felt like I was a little kid again.”

c roarty continues to receive acupuncture treatment as a part of her pain management routine. This new routine, along with improvement in men tal health, forged McGroarty into a better version of herself.

fter receiving the help she sought, c roarty s progress — both physically and mentally — has been clear to DiIanni.

“Every week, every training session she s been with us has grown her into a more complete version of a soccer player than what we maybe got,” DiIanni said. “She s always been a pretty pure goal scorer in the box and around the box. Every year with us has given her an opportunity to grow as a player and become a bit more complete overall.”

to a pair of Elite Eight appearances and the 2021 Big Ten championship — Iowa’s ﬁ rst outright title in 22 years.

Eight of Barnett’s players have received C ll merican honors, and she also played a pivotal role in coaching cur rent third year and national goal leader Dionne van alsum to the ig Ten resh man of the Year award in 2023. arnett has worked hard and has pro gressed as a coach, growing increasingly comfortable each year with the role. She also always attempts to sneak in any sug gestions she can to her players using her background and past experience to help beneﬁt them.

“ er comfort within our staff and within the team has grown, especially being a good leader on the ﬁeld,” Cellucci said. “She really leads a lot of our defen sive side in our back ﬁeld since that s the position she played.”

To the players, Barnett has become a person they can look to, especially when the game gets overwhelming and tough, knowing she has seen the highs and lows of being a player.

“She is the most energetic person at practice every single day,” third year achel erbine said. “I even think inter nally she is still a player, especially when she refers back to a lot of the things that she had done when she was a player.”

When asked what her fondest memory of arnett is as a coach, Cellucci had one very speciﬁc and heart warming answer. It’s a memory that is often a reality

“I’ve been getting close with the other freshmen since I hope to be here for uite a while with them,” rbuckle said. “Being a good teammate is an immediate expectation and shouldn t just be something that we re working toward.’”

s oug and asenbank raved about rbuckle s running skills, they couldn t leave without mentioning rbuckle s side hobby magic.

Throughout this strenuous process of physical and mental hurdles, c roarty said she learned a lot about herself. c roarty now prides herself on communi cating her emotions, something she couldn t have fathomed in the past.

Seeing a player succeed through so much adversity has been one of the most rewarding experiences of DiIanni s coaching career, he said.

for former players who have turned to coaching.

“ nfortunately, when she was a player at Iowa, she wasn t able to hoist a tro phy. ut when she came back in 2021, we were ranked No. 1 for the majority of the season and went on to win the Big Ten championship. The satisfaction of her holding the trophy at Grant Field when we beat hio State to win that champi onship — was really memorable for me,” Cellucci said.

While McGroarty’s collegiate career has been anything but traditional, the graduate student s determination has remained an instrumental part of her mantra.

“I’m a very determined person, and I’ve been told I can’t do a lot of things in the past, and I set my mind to overcoming all that,” she said. “And so far, I’ve been able to pretty much overcome the downside I ve had in my life.”

“I’ve been a head coach for 23 years, and I think that the wins and losses in the ﬁeld are important, but they pale in comparison to the student athlete development process,” DiIanni said. “It s been very rewarding for me personally, uite honestly, to see how she s grown and developed into her own skin.”

ive years have gone by, but there seems to be a mutual understanding that ar nett will be in the awkeye State for the long run.

“I love coaching because seeing the development of the players, especially as people from the time they are a fresh man to when they leave as seniors, is such an important part of the job to me,” Barnett said. “I like being an assistant coach and don’t necessarily crave being a head coach and would love to be here long term.”

“Card tricks, slight of hand, he is so good at that stuﬀ,” oug said.

“He showed me one of his tricks the other day, and it genuinely blew my mind.”

“ e re expecting a magic show at some point,” Hasenbank said. On top of the magic and stellar start to the racing season, rbuckle feels like he immediately ﬁt in with the team.

“It feels like home,” rbuckle said.

“It s a small group of guys, but they re great, and I love it.”

GUARDIANS OF THE GOAL LINE

The Iowa Hawkeyes defeated Rutgers 38-28 at a sold-out SHI Stadium in Piscataway, New Jersey, on Sept. 19. The win gives the Hawkeyes a 1-0 start to their Big Ten matchups.

'The

wonderful world of beer'

Iowa City’s Northside was full of beers, brats, and breweries for Oktoberfest.

At Oktoberfest, the beer is what brings everyone together; it’s the centerpiece of the celebration. From fruity seltzers to rich Belgian sours, the wide range of brewers at the BrewFest segment of the festivities made sure there was a ﬂavor for every taste.

Over its 29 years of existence, Oktoberfest has iterated on the events, partnering with a variety of businesses in the community, such as the Eastern Iowa Airport and the New Pioneer Co-op.

This year, the annual celebration included not only BrewFest, but also the more relaxed Bier Hall and the family-focused SodaFest. The thriving beer community wouldn’t be possible without the work of BrewFest founder and local owner of John’s Grocery, Doug Alberhasky, who remains dedicated to the festival.

“We made it a top priority to have the experience of the brewers paramount. Without the brewers, we have nothing,” Alberhasky said. Through BrewFest, Alberhasky and the Northside have also been able to raise money for local charities.

Since the festival began, he said, it has raised over $750,000 dollars for donations. For $60, people could get a ticket to BrewFest, where they were presented with a selection of over 1 0 different craft brews from 40 vendors, hailing from across the Midwest and beyond. BrewFest was set up in the parking lot between eorge s uffet and the Bluebird Diner, lined with tents from various brewing companies. Tasters were given a wei en glass, and each table offered a small portion of refreshments.

Our day started with a visit to the Boulevard Brewing Company. The glass was ﬁlled with a uirk selt er, the aspberry omb Pop, an excellent ﬁrst brew. ubbly and sweet, it tasted like a bomb pop in a glass.

This summery drink is a perfect way to cool down in the mid-September heat. Big Grove Brewery was the second tent of the day. The adical Tangerine oney Thyme beer was a crowd favorite, and for good reason. This brew lived up to its name with hints of all the ﬂavors perfectly blended, giving the beer a crisp autumnal taste.

Ophelia Flores has worked at Big Grove for seven years, including ﬁve as a brewer, and has represented the brewery at Oktoberfest for the last four.

“I love that it gets so many diﬀerent breweries. It's not just local breweries,” Flores said.“They do a great job catering to both.”

People often forget Iowa is right in the middle of the country. Flores said Oktober

Town Brewing. The Bavarian-style Marzen

Oktoberfest beer was a star on the menu. Perfect for fall, it had a rich, musky flavor that goes down smooth. In true Oktoberfest fashion, next on the menu was mead. Emery Meadery, local to Iowa City, had a menu of incredible flavors. Black raspberry was tangy, leaving behind a rich, decadent aftertaste. The red raspberry leaned sweeter; it had a classic warm fruit flavor. Emery eadery locally sources its honey from Iowa City, and it shows; the honey mead was fresh and bright.

Wilson’s Apple Orchard showcased its hard ciders. The Cherry Cider was a beautiful combination of flavors. Crisp apple and tart cherry offered a great seasonal mix. This cider was breezy and sweet; regardless of the season, the flavor will always hold up. ast, but definitely not least, was St. ernardus Brewery. All the way from Belgium, this brewery brought a selection of crafted beers highlighting the depth and tradition of elgian brewing. The ed Dutchess was a favorite among BrewFest attendees, drawing a sizable line. Deep red in color with a sweet cherry aroma, this beer bursted with cherry flavor and had a pleasantly thick,

Alex Borges was the representative for St. Bernardus at this year's Oktoberfest. Borges is in charge of representing nine states across the country. This is his ﬁrst year at the Iowa City Oktoberfest.

“It s so nice to just get a diﬀerent vibe,” orges said. “Every festival has diﬀerent vibes, I feel, and everyone here is very much willing to ask questions.”

This curiosity comes from the love of the craft. Beer vendors traveled from all over the country, and even from other countries, to share enthusiasm for their brews.

“I’m so excited, still to this day, that our customers at John’s are some of the best beer customers in the world. People aren’t debating the taste between Keystone and Busch Light,” Alberhasky said.

at the SodaFest stand, said. “We see a lot of friends that we already know, but we meet a lot of new friends every year as well.”

McCall came to Oktoberfest with the Iowa Children’s Museum, where she currently works as the director of development. This year, McCall said the SodaFest tent was set up closer to the main action of the day, a change she enjoyed.

SodaFest was set up just down the street from the main Brewfest tents, with tables arrayed with lines of brightly colored soda bottles.

“The butterscotch soda is very popular,” McCall said. “It’s sort of like butter beer, and everybody’s all about that.”

At 1:30 p.m., one of Bier Hall’s most popular contests kicked oﬀ the annual bratwurst eating contest. Guests were invited to come up to the Bier Hall stage, where they were seated under a large white tent and were each given three brats with buns and several small bottles of water.

Customers’ appreciation for the art of brewing grew after seeing ﬁrsthand the hard work and dedication the brewers put into their craft.

“There are such devoted beer aﬁcionados in Iowa City, and this is our chance to get our customers together with our breweries to make something special,” Alberhasky said.

While in between drinks at BrewFest, participants could purchase strung-together pretzel necklaces from the Boy Scouts of Troop 212. The scouts have long been part of Oktoberfest, as Alberhasky was one of the previous scoutmasters of the troop.

“My favorite part of this festival is probably watching people just being outdoors and having fun in a very stress-free environment,” Jordan Conrad said.

Conrad works as an assistant professor in the communication studies department at the University of Iowa and will soon become the new scoutmaster of the troop. His troop, which had kids working at both the SodaFest portion of the festival and handing out necklaces at Brewfest, was one of the pilot troops for accepting both boys and girls.

Director of Special Events Katie Carpenter played a signiﬁcant role in the organi ation of Oktoberfest. Carpenter coordinated the varied events showcased at the festival.

“I’s really a celebration of craft beer, of the Northside culture, the community spirit, and the kind of historical nature of the Northside neighborhood,” Carpenter said. “Attendees can seamlessly transition from Bier Hall to BrewFest and SodaFest and be with their family the whole time.”

Carpenter is looking forward to the integration of SodaFest into the main festivities. This transition created a feeling of togetherness and community Oktoberfest embodies.

Once the timer started, the contestants used a number of diﬀerent strategies to try to scarf their brats down in the quickest way possible. Eventually, a victor did emerge, Jake Mayer, who avenged a runner-up performance last year by downing his brats in just under three minutes. Mayer works as the student success and engagement coordinator for the University of Iowa's School of Journalism and Mass Communications.

In the week leading up to Oktoberfest, Mayer ate 14 brats in preparation. On Wednesday, in particular, he drove home from work, cooked four brats, ate them, and then went back to work.

He ate the brats before the buns, then drizzling the buns with water in an attempt to make them go down easier.

“My grandma always said, ‘Don’t do something unless you’re going to do it right,’” Mayer said. “I’ve eaten brats for at least one meal the past four days.”

In addition to the brat-eating contest, Oktoberfest included several other games and competitions throughout the day. Keg toss, Hammerschlagen, keg bowling, yard games, beer puppeteering, and the beer slide were all set up as tests of skill. Music underscored the festivities, showcasing both local talent and traditional German culture, as well as interactive performances, such as the ever-popular Maypole Dance.

An award for the “Best Dressed” participants was also in contention the lederhosen and dirndl contest.

Anyone who wanted to enter lined up in front of the BrewFest stage in their best traditional German attire.

“We’ve got a lot of fun stuff, and it’s all about showcasing our neighborhood and showcasing the wonderful world of beer,” Alberhasky said.

Henry Morray speaks on Slam-O-Vision win

At 25 years old, Henry Morray is a two-time SlamoVision winner and a 2023 graduate of Cornell College, where he received a bachelor’s degree in product development and marketing. While at Cornell College, he became president of the Lyrically Inclined Spoken Word and Poetry Club.

He performed at and won the 2025 Slam-O-Vision Poetry Slam held at Public Space One on Sept. 9. Morray will represent Iowa City in the international UNESCO City of Literature Poetry Slam on Nov. 5.

His recorded poem will be judged against other competing international cities from Dublin, Ireland to Melbourne, Australia.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Daily Iowan: How long have you been performing poetry?

Henry Morray: When I became president of the Lyrically Inclined Spoken Word and Poetry club in 2022, I started performing poetry.

My first big performance was at the Cornell College Culture show, which the International Student Association organized. For the culture show, I did a piece called “Love Is Not A Four-Letter Word (4 You or 4 Me).”

The SlamoVision event was my first slam. I truly did not expect to win it, though. That competition was my introduction to the Iowa City poetry scene.

How does it feel to win for a second year?

It felt so good because I remember when I won in 2022; it was a shock for me. When I took it to the global stage, I ended up submitting “Love Is Not A FourLetter Word.”

It’s a four-part piece, but I only did a section of it for the slam back in 2022. I was feeling good about it, but my poem did not perform super well in the rankings.

In 2022, I felt it wasn’t as great as it could be because I was reading from my phone.

This year, I had all my poems memorized, and my hands were completely free. I want both my hands to be free because I use my whole body when I perform a piece.

How would you describe your poetry style?

I love having repetition throughout the piece because it acts as an anchor for the audience to latch onto, and it keeps a constant in all the changing variables of the poem. I like to use my whole being, embody the piece, and be free with my arms, like it’s almost the choreography of the piece.

For example, the second poem I did during this contest was called “Animal Crackers: A Taxidermy Poem,” and the actual poem is a two-part poem, but I did the second part, which I call “Breaking News.”

In it, there’s this taxidermied deer that I personify, where I put my arms up like the antlers, and I stay in that position because I am the deer.

How does it feel to be representing Iowa City in an international

competition again?

I love Iowa City. It is such a beautiful city. The students at the University of Iowa are such a multitude of talented individuals, and Iowa City has such a vibrant poetry scene that’s ever-growing. It has such a deep,

rich writing history. To represent it is an honor and a privilege for me. This town did so much for me and was a key figure in my evolution in my writing and performing. Do you have any advice for aspiring poets?

Some of my favorite poets tell me not to judge what I’m writing. It’s almost like you open up a faucet and some gunk comes out, but it becomes flowing water. You want to enter a

UI library exhibit celebrates rare materials

“Paper Engineering in Art, Science, and Education,” the newest exhibit at the University of Iowa Main Library, seeks to celebrate paper art.

The interactive display showcases rare paper books gathered from various UI libraries. It will be on display until Dec. 19.

“In a library, we think of information encoded only in symbols in the form of words and text, but here the very paper on which the text was printed is also telling a story,” Pervin Saket, visitor and international fellow at the UI’s Obermann Center, said.

In the exhibit’s main glass window sits a blue and green paper compass rose. Viewers can see the process of unfolding it on the interactive screen to the right of the gallery.

Entering from the left, viewers are greeted by an infographic explaining the process of creating European ﬂap anatomies, ﬂap books taken from the John Martin Rare Book Room in the Hardin Library for Health Sciences, UI Art Library, and the UI Special Collections and Archives.

Director of UI Conservation and Collections Care and university conservator Giselle Simón had the idea for the exhibit in 2012 when she ﬁrst visited the John Martin Rare Book Room.

“The curator at the time was able to pull out some of the early ﬂap books you see in the exhibit, and I fell in love with them,” Simón said.

Around two years ago, Simón reached out to the curator of the John Martin Rare

Book Room, Damien Ihrig, and associate professor and historian at the UI Center for the Book, Elizabeth Yale. Together, the three began to plan which materials to use and how they would work next to each other in the limited space of the exhibit.

“Each of us had inspirations, so we would pull those out, take a look at them, and see how do these two things talk to each other?” Ihrig said.

The final collaborative, interactive exhibit showcases ﬂap books from the Rare Book Room, pop-up books from Special Collections, and other items showcasing the technicality of paper, such as a book about paper weaving.

As viewers admired the items encased behind glass, a few were set out in the open, inviting them to interact with items as they had once been meant to.

“They’re fun, and they can tell a story easily,” visitor and UI librarian emeritus Marianne Mason said. “I make pop-up Valentine cards for my grandkids.”

Other interactive materials include paper dolls visitors could dress, a volvelle astrological compass to spin, and a braille map of Russia.

The exhibit features items dating as far back as the 16th and 17th centuries. For co-curator Yale, the more dated items were what drew her to the exhibit.

“I was super fascinated by a lot of the early modern material,” Yale said. “So, things that showed people from the 16th and 17th century engaging in the book and experimenting with the book as a tool for communicating scientiﬁc knowledge.”

For Simón, her favorite item was a flap book she’d done treatment on as the director of conservation care, called

“Catoptrum microcosmicum” by Johann Remmelin, dating back to the 17th century.

“It’s in what we call an original publisher’s binding, which is a paperboard binding, and we wanted to preserve that,” Simón said. “In other words, it’s never been rebound by another binder, but it had those original blue papers.”

The exhibit also features more modern and contemporary works, including the paper dolls, a pop-up shadow book, plants, and more from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.

“We’ve got the obstetrics manual, which shows the development of the fetus inside a woman’s body, and then we’ve got paper dolls,” Yale said. “They’re two separate domains, but you can kind of see how both are about playing dress-up, because the Victorian woman has a cap and a gown.” Simón said she hopes visitors will take away an appreciation for paper arts.

“[I hope] they start to understand and appreciate a little bit more about modern book art,” Simón said. “I hope people enjoy seeing something beautiful.”

IC artist experiments with di erent mediums

Jackson Palmer is carving out a space of his own in the Iowa City arts scene.

Not just behind the counter at Daydream Comics but within the community itself, he uses comics to entertain and challenge readers to think harder about what they consume.

Palmer grew up in the South where his mom encouraged him to pursue art, from taking painting classes to participating in theater. He attended the Mississippi School of the Arts high school, where, at an early age, he learned being an artist is an inherently headstrong profession.

“There’s just the real stubbornness in doing art that I drilled into myself,” Palmer said. “I don’t want to be the one who just puts art behind me.”

As a kid, Palmer dreamed of creating newspaper cartoons. This interest

expanded over time. He wrote prose, dabbled in drawing with Microsoft Paint, and eventually decided to make comics himself. His work balances both writing and illustrating, though he tends to emphasize the visual half.

“When I was younger, I always thought if I made comics, it would be me writing and working with an artist,” Palmer said. “Eventually, I decided I would just try my hand at doing it myself.”

Since then, he’s become both writer and illustrator, putting out his own anthology, “Fungus,” and preparing to release “Corn Smut,” a collection that brings together Iowa City artists.

For Palmer, the goal isn’t just to entertain, it’s to experiment with the medium and to push readers to look at art diﬀerently.

“With comics being a visual medium, it’s so important that your focus is on that,” Palmer said. “If the narrative is the ﬁrst and only priority, you might as well write it as a novel.”

Palmer’s stubbornness is something Nathan Parriott, owner of Daydream Comics, sees clearly in his work. Parriott said he’s watched Palmer grow more focused over the artist’s two years working at the shop.

“He constantly challenges himself,” Parriott said. “He’ll see something in another person’s art and be like, ‘I want to do that.’ Whether it’s trying the De Luca eﬀect or making a silent comic, he just goes for it.”

The Deluca eﬀect is named after Italian artist Gianni De Luca who used tracking throughout panels to create a naturally ﬂowing composition. Parriott said Palmer has a knack for pacing and presentation.

“He just gets an idea, and he follows through on it,” Parriott said. “He has this ability to investigate an idea and ﬁgure out

exactly how long a story should be. It’s a natural skill.”

That philosophy carries over into the kinds of stories Palmer tells. One comic

imagines a parody version of James Cameron’s “Avatar,” where the character questions whether giving up his human body is worth never tasting Cool Ranch Doritos again. Another, “Disneyland Gaza,” satirizes political apathy by showing Disney superfans who refuse to acknowledge the conﬂict around them.

“All of your actions are political, whether you like it or not,” Palmer said.

Accountability, both for artists and audiences, is a main goal of Palmer’s. He doesn’t want readers to consume stories the way studios “like Disney pump out Marvel movies.” Instead, he wants them to stop and

reﬂect on how art shapes culture and the way we see the world.

“Capitalists have created a system that encourages us to consume thoughtlessly, either following clichéd paths or just mindlessly watching the next thing in a franchise,” Palmer said. “I would just encourage people to take art seriously. Think about the media they’re consuming and the eﬀect it has on them and the world around them.”

Although Palmer’s work can deal with serious subjects, there is always a laugh to be had. His eye for detail is clear; each panel is deliberate, and with each look, something new stands out.

For Palmer, Iowa City is the perfect place to explore his creativity. Between performing in “Grease” at the Iowa City Community Theater or ﬁnishing his horror ﬁlm “Pull Some Strings,” in which he built the puppet villain himself, he says Iowa City’s support for the arts keeps him rooted here.

“There aren’t many towns that support ﬁlm, musical theater, and comics the way Iowa City does,” Palmer said. “No matter what art form you’re working in, you can ﬁnd support here.” Palmer knows his work can be weird, funny, and even a little uncomfortable, but that’s exactly the point. He wants readers to laugh and then think about why.