January/February 2013

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P LUS The Iowa Opera House Project Cutting Edge Design in Fairfield Quilting Retreat in Conrad

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Robert Polidori SELECTED PHOTOGRAPHS, 1983–2007 On view January 25 – March 17, 2013 The artist’s first museum retrospective in the United States, featuring photographs from Amman, Beirut, Havana, Pripyat, New York, New Orleans, and Versailles.

Image: Doorway, Samir Geagea Headquarters, Rue de Damas, Beirut, Lebanon, 1994. 40 x 50 inches. © Robert Polidori

FAULCONER GALLERY Faulconer.indd 1

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GRINNELL COLLEGE 11/19/12 12:49 PM

contents January / February 2013 volume 61 | number 3 iowan.com

features Modern roller derby has been powered almost exclusively by women, all of whom bring a variety of style and skill to the

24

Johnson. THIS PAGE Old Capitol’s Jen

Fairfield’s Creative Edge Designs the New World

sport. ON THE COVER Old Capitol City Roller Girls’ Fiona “Ophelia Fracture”

Transcending Cornfields

30

Divine Intervention

“Jenna JAMisON” Bays. Photos by Jason

A Live Music Revival Inside

Bradwell. Story begins on page 38.

Iowa’s Historic Opera Houses

38

Roll Models The Power and Passion of Women’s Flat Track

departments 5

contributors

6

letters Our Readers Weigh In

10

potluck Dishing Up News, Events, People, and Ideas

14 at work

Mighty Milestone The Power of Big River

18 dimensions

Warming Body and Soul Retreats with a Distinct Pattern

20 roadside

Meskers on Main Uncovering Architectural History in McGregor

49 heritage

When Walls Can Talk Bringing George Allee’s Story to Paper

52

last word Thought for Food Conservation Is Fair Game January/February 2013 | THE IOWAN

3

from the editor A Clean Start A sense of optimism flows over me each time I hang a brand-new wall calendar. January marks the

Proudly PublIShed aNd PrINted IN Iowa

beginning of another year’s possibilities. Time and money requirements too often squelch too many aspirations, but Iowa is launching the new year armed with a welcome holiday gift: a projected $750 million state surplus. Surely this bodes well for 2013.

As with every session, the Iowa legislature reconvenes January 14 with unfinished business.

None is perhaps more pressing than water quality. Iowa voters voiced their concern for state waterways with approval of the Water and Land Legacy amendment in 2010. More than two years later, lawmakers have yet to give life to a dedicated

Publisher Editor Art Director Graphic Designer

Copy Editor Image/Photo Specialist Administrative

Associate Advertising Account Executives

Gaela Wilson Beth Wilson Bobbie Russie Ann Donohoe Gretchen Kauffman Jason Fort Mary Ann Flanagan Tim Burke Tom Smull

Subscription Services Katrina Brocka

funding source to protect and enhance water quality — such inaction despite a 2010 Impaired Waters List that cites 628 impairments in 474 water bodies (iowadnr.gov > Environment > WaterQuality > WaterMonitoring > ImpairedWaters; at press time a draft 2012 list is anticipated by January 2013); a 2011 report of unsustainable rates of soil loss in parts of Iowa carrying sediment, fertilizers, pesticides, and manure into local creeks and streams (ewg.org/losingground); a continuing and sobering saga linking Iowa to the Gulf of Mexico (desmoinesregister.com/section/dead-zone); and most recently an informal investigation by the Environmental Protection Agency (epa.gov/region7/water) that could ultimately eliminate certain elements of state control in enforcing the Clean Water Act. The recent 40th anniversary of that landmark legislation finds Iowans living in our not-so-new normal: disrupted aquatic life, threats to public health, lost recreational opportunities and revenue, and higher water treatment costs. Iowans have a reverence for productive soil, but such pride of place doesn’t always flow along the state’s 71,665 miles of streams and rivers or into its 161,000 acres of lakes, ponds, and wetlands.

Returning from a conference last fall, I enjoyed a brief ride and conversation with a Scottsdale-area taxi driver. He pursued the typical visitor inquiry, and when I revealed my destination, his response surprised me. “Ah, Iowa. The land of rivers and corn.”

When nonlocals get the geography right, the cultural identifier almost always involves corn. That’s expected (yawn). But this was the first time I’d heard the image described with water. The vision buoyed me.

On a not entirely unrelated note, I was traveling that day in possession of two awards bestowed on The Iowan at the 2012 International Regional Magazine Association conference. Fittingly, it now seems, the recognition (Silver, Environmental Feature, “Changing Course: Voyage to the Future of Lake Red Rock,” March/April 2011, and Award of Merit, Art Direction of a Single Story, “Hooked: The Allure of the Lure,” March/April 2011) highlighted stories thoroughly immersed in Iowa waters.

We’ll be keeping the topic afloat in 2013. Stay tuned, thanks for reading, and happy New Year.

CEO Jim Slife Production Manager Twilla Glessner Accounting Manager Allison Volker

The Iowan, ISSN (0021-0772), is published bi-monthly by Pioneer Communications, Inc., 300 Walnut Street, Suite 6, Des Moines, Iowa 50309. This issue is dated January 1, 2013, Volume 61, No. 3. All content © 2013 The Iowan/Pioneer Communications, Inc., and may not be used, reproduced, or altered in any way without prior written permission.

Periodicals Postage Paid in Des Moines, Iowa, and at additional mailing offices. We cannot be held responsible for the loss or damage of unsolicited material. POSTMASTER: Send change of address to: The Iowan, 300 Walnut St., STE 6, Des Moines, IA 50309.

Prices: Subscriptions — Special rate when ordered direct or by mail: six issues per year for $21. International orders require additional postage. Call for rates.

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New Subscriptions, Renewals, Gifts: iowan.com > SUBSCRIBE subscribe@pioneermagazines.com 877-899-9977 x211 Change of Address: iowan.com> CONTACT > Address Change subscribe@pioneermagazines.com 877-899-9977 x211 Past Issues: subscribe@pioneermagazines.com 877-899-9977 x211 Mail Orders: The Iowan Subscription Services P.O. Box 2516, Waterloo, IA 50704 Advertising Information: 515-246-0402 x202 or 877-899-9977 x202 advertising@iowan.com iowan.com 2012_IRMA_member_emblem.jpg (JPEG Image, 1500 × 1466 pixels) - S...

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10% PCW Paper Made in the USA

THE IOWAN | iowan.com

1 of 1

3/5/2012 11:54 AM

contributors

Nick Bergus is a writer,

Jason Bradwell’s adventures

Jim Duncan (aka The

multimedia producer, and

in photography took an

Food Dude, Art Pimp, The

teacher. He lives in Iowa

unexpected direction after

Good Steward) is a fourth-

City with a wife, a daughter,

friends talked him into shooting

generation Iowan who

and a dog. He spends his

their wedding. Expanding a

writes about food, art,

free time eating good food

hobby into a career, he now

sports, business, and ideas

and officiating roller derby

photographs a wide variety of

for numerous publications,

as Uranus Escheating. Find

people and places, including

including The Iowan.

him online at nbergus.com.

sports action for the NBA, NFL, and AFL. moonsphoto.com, pictureiowa.com

Paul Gates became a

After graduating from ISU,

Growing up on the family

stringer photographer

Waukee native Jon Lemons

farm in the southwest region

for the Associated Press

began shooting for The

of the state, Terri Queck-

during the 1988 presidential

Omaha World-Herald and later

Matzie began her love affair

election and later that year

KCCI News Channel 8. Today

with Iowa at an early age.

joined Business Publications

he shoots both photography

Today, as a freelancer, she

Corporation as Photo

and video for Des Moines

photographs and writes

Director. He shot his first

Public Schools as well as

about the state’s people and

assignment for The Iowan in

freelance assignments.

places from her home in

1995, going freelance a few

(jonlemons.com)

Fontanelle.

years later. (piphoto.com)

January/February 2013 | THE IOWAN

5

letters

Buy the Book Regarding the Letter to the Editor critiquing The Iowan’s listing of Amazon as a resource (“Problems

bookstores whenever I can. But the sales, and if Amazon.com helps keep

O u GH

key to keeping books in print is

NH E GR E E

p. 5): I certainly buy from independent

G E O RG

with Your Editing,” Nov/Dec 2012,

books in print and accessible to us readers, that’s a good thing. We need independent bookstores for their

by computer much faster. Part of my

individual customer service. We need

job was to test batteries for use when

giants like Amazon to keep as many

there wasn’t enough wind.

books in print as possible because

From the Editor: The staff of The Iowan

It’s interesting to see how that

takes pride in the ideas, information,

they drive sales like no one else can.

source of energy has flourished so

and stories we deliver each issue in our

Keep printing and I’ll keep

much in recent years. We even have

editorial well. But it’s amazing what

several units on Fire Island in Cook

you can learn on the Letters page.

Inlet (near Anchorage). If only the

Readers like Jean continue to be a

Albers brothers could see now what

wealth of information and inspiration,

they started so long ago.

providing intriguing pieces of Iowa

reading.

Joe Taylor, President & CEO Quad Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau

Jean White

Back to the Future

history — which sometime turn out to

Anchorage, Alaska

be part of the state’s future.

Your Nov/Dec 2012 issue (“Power Players: Jefferson Fuels Its Own Future,” pp. 30-37) brought back memories of my brief career in Sioux City with Wincharger Corporation. I worked for the manufacturer on defense production

Decorah

during WWII, then was transferred to the

McGregor

Research & Development Department in postwar planning.

We built Winchargers, the forerunner of today’s “Greene Energy.”

We manufactured wind-driven

Akron Sioux City

Newell Webster City Conrad

Sergeant Bluff Jefferson

generators for farmers prior to the Rural Electrification Administration, when the farmers had no other electricity. My job was to write letters

Iowa City West Des Moines Greenfield

Des Moines What Cheer Fairfield

to cities around the country to learn their prevailing winds to figure out which of our units were most appropriate. Today this could be done

6

THE IOWAN | iowan.com

Donnellson Points of Interest in This Issue

Ft. Madison Keokuk

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to manage your risk.

“Our people make the difference” Excellent Service! Competitive Costs!

Insurance Agents & Brokers 300 Walnut Street • Suite 200 Des Moines, Iowa 50309-2262 800-767-1724

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In Iowa, consumers start their search with trust Better Business Bureau Lots of companies say they are trustworthy. Those with the Better Business Bureau Accredited Business Seal have proven it. The next time you look for a business, find one you can trust.

When you see the BBB Seal, it means that business has agreed to: • Tell the whole truth All policies are clear, with no hidden exceptions or fees.

• Keep its promises Whether a written contract or a verbal agreement, commitments are kept.

iowa.bbb.org Check us out online. We have many tools to help consumers make wise decisions about the companies they do business with.

• Check out a business or charity • Find a BBB accredited business • File a complaint • Browse our Resource Library • Read the latest at our News Center

• Be responsive Resolve any concerns in a timely manner.

800-BBB-1600 or 515-243-8137 info@dm.bbb.org

Better Business Bureau

®

potluck compiled by CArOl BOdENsTEINEr and MAry GOTTsCHAlk

If You Build It . . .

Field of Dreams touted baseball, but a wetland habitat Ty sMEdEs

promotes the coming of trumpeter swans. Wetland drainage and unregulated hunting brought these majestic, once-common birds to near extinction by the 1880s. restoration efforts begun in 1993 are taking hold as wetland habitat is reestablished.

“Habitat is key,” says david Hoffman, the swan restoration Coordinator with the Iowa department of

expect to return to historical populations, but we hope to have self-sustaining populations,” he says. “A tremendous public effort has made it happen.” — C.B.

Natural resources, highlighting both public and private efforts. “Through the Wetland reserve Program, people enroll marginal wetlands on their property. And within two years they can attract the swans.”

Learn more about the DNR’s trumpeter swan restoration efforts online: iowadnr.gov > Environment > Wildlife Stewardship > Non-Game Wildlife > Diversity Projects.

In 2012 the state recorded 45 nesting pairs. The most popular nesting spot is Beemer’s Pond near Webster City.

East central Iowa (Jackson and Clinton Counties) also supports many nesting pairs. Most areas of the state see swans at some time during the year.

The drought in 2011 and 2012 has reduced nesting areas and exposed birds to more lead, and birds still fall prey to hunters, but Hoffman remains optimistic. “We never

Mother Working Wetlands are Mother Nature’s water filters. They also act as sponges that provide natural flood control. “When Iowa lost 80 percent of the state’s wetlands, it was like we lost 98 percent of our kidneys,” says the dNr’s david Hoffman. so when we bring back wetlands, we do something good for swans and for ourselves.

360 Degrees of Home

For most of his 40 years as an artist, Carl Homstad worked in a variety of media to capture landscapes in not only Iowa but also sites around the world. A few years ago Homstad was looking over the photographic record he keeps of his creations. He was struck by how many of his landscapes — reflecting different seasons, different times of day, different moods — were near his home in decorah. Working with a map of his land, he noted each place that he’d captured in a painting, drawing, woodcut, etching, or just a casual study; he used arrows to identify the direction he’d been facing as he did each piece.

“Nearly 80 works were views from the house itself,” says Homstad. “I suddenly realized I had a visual diary of my artistic life and the places that inspired me.”

That visual diary is the heart of A sense of Place, the current exhibition at observed them from his house. For example, scenes to the east of his home are on the east wall of the gallery. “you see not only the amazing variety of techniques he’s used,” says Chief Curator laurann Gilbertson, “but also so much of what inspired him as he went along.” — M.G.

For information on the exhibition and museum hours, visit vesterheim.org or call 563-382-9681.

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THE IOWAN | iowan.com

COurTEsy CArl HOMsTAd

the Vesterheim Museum in decorah. All the landscapes are displayed as Homstad

potluck day in May,” says Jenni Mccrory, elementary principal at sergeant Bluff-Luton (sB-Luton). “There are close to 800 K-5 students, cOurTEsy JENNI MccrOry

and almost half of them participate. Even the bus students.” using materials provided by Iowa safe routes to school, sB-Luton educates parents on ways their students can get safely to and from school, engages students with giveaways and speakers, and involves businesses to sponsor and man critical traffic corners.

A related issue is traffic congestion before and after

Student Body in Motion

school, says Mccrory. “Encouraging students to walk or bike helps ease the congestion and increases their wellness.”

In 1969 more than 40 percent of kids walked to school.

Mccrory is looking for more ways to encourage students

By 2001 that number had dropped to 16 percent — likely

to get moving. “We hope to tie into the statewide 100 Day

driven down by a variety of forces, including fewer

Wellness challenge involving adults and schools this spring.”

sidewalks, greater travel distances (sometimes to schools

The Iowa Bicycle coalition’s Matt Wyatt says the safe routes

located along busy state highways), fear of crime, and

program makes walking and bicycling to school a secure and

inclement weather — while traffic congestion grew, air

appealing option. “Whether your object is to add life to your

quality deteriorated, and childhood obesity increased.

years or years to your life, it’s important to start moving.” — C.B.

Many Iowa schools are working to change that trend.

“We do a walk-to-school day in October and a bike-to-school

Get moving: iowasaferoutes.org.

Everything But the Kitchen Sink covered wagons are an iconic image

so families could travel with their

way west seeking better agricultural

of American pioneers moving west

household furnishings, farm

opportunities. According to family

to settle new lands. central to that

equipment, and farm animals. railway

lore, as recounted by his grandson

image was the pioneers’ decision to

regulations allowed the head of

James Andrew of Jefferson, Holloway’s

leave behind anything that wouldn’t

household to travel in the boxcar

first venture west was in 1900, when

fit into the wagon. A less well-known

to maintain the animals. The rest of

he used a boxcar to move his entire

but significant mode of transport

the family rode in the passenger car

family — including their upright piano

between the 1870s and the 1930s was

(though there are stories of family

and pets — to Elk city, Oklahoma. He

the emigrant train, a railroad boxcar

members stowing away in the boxcar to

returned to Iowa the same way in 1909

that was shunted from train to train

save money).

and settled on a farm near Jefferson.

depending on the traveler’s destination.

Boxcars were modified with bulkheads and sometimes windows

Holloway utilized the emigrant train

The emigrant train was the preferred transport for Henry Holloway,

once again in 1913, when the pioneer

a native of Linden who made his

spirit moved him to head for Oregon to raise fruit. In 1917 he returned to Iowa for good.

For many years the boxcars were referred to as zulu cars. One source suggests the name harks back to British homesteaders in Africa who used wagons to flee from Zulu raiders.

Another source, says Andrew, refers to “the trains used to exhibit Zulu warriors and their families on a rail tour of

cOurTEsy JEAN WENDELL/JAMEs H. ANDrEW rAILrOAD MusEuM AND HIsTOry cENTEr

England.” — M.G.

January/February 2013 | THE IOWAN

11

potluck

Read to Succeed

Fort Madison teacher Debbie Moeller is well aware of the challenges children face while learning to read. She’s trained as a reading recovery teacher (one of 600 in Iowa), specializing in helping first-

grade students who have extreme difficulty learning to read and write. “The work we do is intensive,” says Moeller, who meets with each child for 30 minutes each morning, generally for 12 to 20 weeks.

The effort pays off. Moeller reports that across Iowa, 75 percent of the students who receive this attention come to read at peer level. reading recovery teachers nationwide use books specifically

cOurTESy OF HAMErAy A Ay PuBlISHINg grOuP, INc.

written to teach reading strategies and acquire vocabulary. Moeller’s first book, Snow Fun, was published in 2010, and she’s since had 10

The Kaleidoscope Collection is published by Hameray Publishing Group. hameraypublishing.com

more fiction and nonfiction books accepted as part of the 150-book Kaleidoscope collection. “They not only help students read and write, but my students are inspired,” says Moeller. “They think, ‘If she can write, I can, too.’ I feel I really have an impact.” — C.B.

Reading Recovery was developed in New Zealand and arrived in the United States in 1984. Learn more at readingrecovery.org.

schoolhouse. He put it on a post in front of his house with a sign inviting neighbors to take a book and return a book.

People who saw the little library liked the idea so much the little Free library (lFl) concept was born. “We’re about creating a common ground of literacy and community,” says cOurTESy cArOl BODENSTEINEr

Bol, who serves as executive director of little Free library. “A lFl is like having a porch that extends to your sidewalk.”

Individuals such as the Vilmains install many of the mini libraries, but lFl partners with groups, too. libraries got a boost in Iowa city last fall when lFl teamed with uNEScO to install lFls in nine neighborhoods. Iowa city organizers hope the actual number of lFls grows as they organize volunteer labor and donated materials.

With just a single shelf, Steve Vilmain’s library became Iowa’s smallest when it opened on the front yard of his Des Moines home in 2011. “The idea just made sense to us,” he says about the mini drive-by libraries in Wisconsin he had read about. “It’s amazing how much neighborhood traffic there is.

People taking and giving books. It’s a conversation piece that brings the neighborhood together.”

Vilmain and his wife, Shannon, had their granddaughter in mind when they stocked their library with children’s books.

“Kids’ books are so expensive. People often don’t want to go buy them,” says Shannon. “With this neighborhood library, kids have easy access to a lot more books.”

Todd Bol of Hudson, Wisconsin, created the nation’s first mini library — a waterproof box that looked like a one-room

12

THE IOWAN | iowan.com

with sites in all 50 states and 45 to 50 countries, making lFl the largest library network in the world. — C.B.

Read more about Little Free Library, order a built model, learn how to build your own, and explore experiences around the world at littlefreelibrary.org. cOurTESy cArOl BODENSTEINEr

Check It Out

little Free libraries have “gone viral,” according to Bol,

potluck There are dozens of prayer shawl ministries across Iowa. Many, such as the one at Sacred Heart in West Des COurTESy ANDIE HOEFINg

Moines, are parish-based. Others like the one at Mercy Hospital in Sioux City have no specific church affiliation.

All rely on volunteers who love to knit or crochet and appreciate the value of prayer.

Each ministry has its own story. The Mercy ministry began when a member of the hospital’s auxiliary heard about the shawls through her church. “Initially we made

Knitting a Prayer While a shawl can keep you warm, a prayer shawl offers a

them just for oncology patients,” says auxiliary member Florence Campbell. “But we make enough shawls now to give one to anyone who asks.”

In just two years the Mercy auxiliary has given out

different kind of comfort, according to Kathy Hoefing of

nearly 200 shawls to hospital patients, employees, friends

Des Moines, who received several shawls from friends and

of auxiliary members, and even people outside of the

family — as well as one from complete strangers — while

community.

she was battling cancer last year. “It was very humbling to think someone said all those prayers just for me.”

Prayer shawls took on a life of their own in 1998, when

The Sacred Heart ministry is part of the Parish Nursing program run by Nancy Carlson, who routinely delivers shawls to church members in need of nursing care. “But it

two graduates of the Women’s Leadership Institute at The

doesn’t have to be someone in the parish,” she says. “If I

Hartford Seminary in Connecticut combined their love of

have a shawl, I will accommodate any request.” — M.G.

knitting and crocheting with a spirit of compassion. The result was a prayer shawl ministry — reaching out to those needing solace or celebrating a joyous occasion.

Visit shawlministry.com to learn more about the history and interpretation of the prayer shawl.

Looking Under the Hood Odds are you treat your computer like you treat your car

In 2012 his project won second place in Iowa’s regional

— you expect it to perform when you start it but have little

competition for the Junior Science and Humanities Symposia

interest in what happens under the hood.

(JSHS). Weirather’s award enabled him to attend the national

Not so Wesley Weirather. The sophomore at Central Lee High School in Donnellson wants to know what

JSHS as a freshman.

Weirather typically enters one or more of his projects in

makes a computer run and how to make it work better.

half a dozen science and/or technology fairs every year. “I

Since sixth grade, he has been working on a series of

don’t know exactly what I want to do,” he says, “so the fairs

increasingly complex program schemes — what he

and the JSHS national expose me to new ideas in fields that

calls “binary error correction schemes” — to reduce the

interest me.”

probability of errors in computer messages and, even better, to correct errors that do occur.

Alicia Schiller, his mentor and advisor at Central Lee, applauds his participation in these fairs. “Wesley loves a

COurTESy CATHy WEIrATHEr

challenge.”

Weirather plans to enter the 2013 JSHS but is reluctant to reveal his project. His goal, of course, is to win another trip to the nationals. — M.G.

Explore the path-breaking work that Iowa’s middle and high school students are doing in STEM education at the JSHS in Iowa City in February. For more information, visit uiowa.edu > search Junior Science > select The Belin-Blank Center.

January/February 2013 | THE IOWAN

13

Mighty Milestone The Power of Big River

by BETH WILSON

early 2,400 vessels and more than 20 million tons of cargo cruised past Keokuk in 2012 (slightly more than half of it southbound). Traffic is down somewhat, according to Lockmaster Bill Poulter, but today’s volume of grain, fertilizer, coal, wind turbines, and scrap iron is a vision of commerce only dreamed about in the 1800s.

COURTESY KEOKUK AREA CONVENTION & TOURISM BUREAU

at work

Lock & Dam No. 19 is located on the Mississippi at River Mile 364.

The near-mile-wide dam, which turns 100 this year, can pass 60,000 cubic feet of water per second through its 15 turbines, generating 142 megawatts of electricity — enough to supply a city of 15,000.

Visit mississippiriverpower100.org for more history and updates on the anniversary celebration, June 28–30.

The 110-foot-wide lock, reaching its centennial in 2014, enables passing vessels to step down (or up) 38 feet from entry to exit.

At 1,200 feet in length, it is one of only three on the Mississippi that can handle the largest barge tows.

The historical duo was listed on The National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

Mississippi River was once a meandering and unpredictable waterway. In its natural state, the river near Keokuk widened over a limestone shelf that produced 11 miles of shallow rapids falling over 24 feet — nearly impossible for large vessels to navigate.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers tried blasting its way through the obstruction in 1838 and 1839, creating a 200-foot-wide, 5-foot-deep channel through the rapids. Four decades later an 8-mile-long canal with three locks along the Iowa side of the river enabled a total lift of almost 19 feet and far better navigation opportunities. The upper Mississippi was now open for business.

It was business opportunity that brought Hugh M. Cooper from New York to Iowa in 1905. The hydroelectric engineer was enticed by the vision of 25 local businessmen — who aimed to harness the power of the Des Moines Rapids to unleash the economic potential of the region — and by the enthusiasm of Washington — where President Roosevelt had signed into law the rights to construct a dam across the Mississippi. When the dam was completed in 1913, it became the largest hydropower project in the world.

14

THE IOWAN | iowan.com

appreciate Iowa’s winter Postcard weather it’s not, but January and February offer some spectacular scenery. Soaring displays of majestic eagles in winter tend to concentrate over open waters like the Mississippi River. Lock and Dam No. 19 is a favorite spot because the facility’s activity keeps the water free of ice and prime for fish hunting. Iowa offers a variety of eagle viewing opportunities, including Keokuk’s Bald Eagle Appreciation Days, January 19-20.

Visit keokukiowatourism.org and greatriverroad.com > Bald Eagles > Events & Programs.

PHOTO BY ERNIE BURCHETT / COURTESY KEOKUK AREA CONVENTION & TOURISM BUREAU

From Lake Itasca, Minnesota, to the Gulf of Mexico, the

ist Series Art

An Evening with John Anderson – Jan. 17 – 7:30 p.m.

Artie Shaw Orchestra – March 8 – 7:30 p.m.

Dallas Brass – American Musical Journey – Jan. 19 – 7:30 p.m.

MindBoggling Variety Show – March 9 – 7:30 p.m.

Avalon String Quartet - Beethoven’s Op. 59 – Jan. 25 – 7:30 p.m.

McFarland - Gaub Duo - Violin and Piano – April 7 – 7:30 p.m.

One Night with the King – Tribute to Elvis – Jan. 26 – 7:30 p.m.

The Marvelous Wonderettes – April 14 – 7 p.m.

Adam Trent – The Next Generation of Illusion – Feb. 2 – 7:30 p.m.

Just Imagine – Tribute to John Lennon – April 20 – 7:30 p.m.

TAIKOPROJECT All-stars – Feb. 9 – 7:30 p.m.

Murasaki Duo - Murasaki Goes to the Opera! – April 23 – 7:30 p.m.

How I Became a Pirate – Feb. 12 – 7 p.m.

Take Me Home – Music of John Denver – April 27 – 7:30 p.m.

Comedian Tom Arnold – Feb. 16 – 7:30 p.m.

Claddagh – An Explosion of Celtic Dance & Passion – May 4 – 7:30 p.m.

The Hunts – Feb. 23 – 7:30 p.m.

Southeast Iowa Symphony Orchestra – May 5 – 6 p.m.

New Shanghai Circus – March 2 – 7:30 p.m.

Piano Men – Music of Billy Joel & Elton John – May 10 – 7:30 p.m.

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Let Me Do Your Shopping For You! As we approach the New Year we owe it to our family to do a little homework and shopping for ourselves.

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Thank you to all – Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

January/February 2013 | THE IOWAN

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COurTEsy THIs dAy PHOTOgrAPHy

Warming Body and Soul Retreats with a Distinct Pattern story by CArOl BOdENsTEINEr

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THE IOWAN | iowan.com

type of quilt pattern. Amenities range from spartan to luxurious.

The most common reasons quilters give for enjoying retreats boil down to time. Time to focus on a craft they love. Time to enjoy the camaraderie of friends.

Time to get away from the demands of family and home. Time to renew.

Since their early retreats, Stalvey and her quilting comrades have opted for locations that offer more amenities. One spot they return to is The Nest at the Hen COurTEsy HEIdI KAIsANd

elissa Stalvey remembers her first. She and her friends arrived at a Lake Panorama vacation home dragging suitcases, sewing machines, materials, notions, and patterns. Plus coolers of food. For two days and nights the four settled in to sew, chat, eat, and take turns bouncing a threemonth-old when she grew fussy. Cool weather and fall colors provided an inspirational setting for the women while they worked on a range of projects, some of which were finished, some of which were still sparking imaginations at the end of the weekend.

The following year, while living in North Carolina, Stalvey organized another retreat, as much to keep up with her Iowa friends as to finish her next quilt project.

She’s attended more than a dozen throughout the country in the last decade. “I know it sounds corny,” says the returned Des Moines resident, who is almost as passionate about retreats as she is about quilting, “but it feeds your soul. The retreats fulfill me.”

An Internet search of “quilt retreats Iowa” will uncover options in every area of the state: retreats lasting one day or two or longer, organized by a local quilters guild at a religious retreat center, hosted by a quilt shop, held on a cruise ship, focused around a

No doorbell.

No TV. Just pure concentration.

cOurTEsy PErry sTrusE

& Chicks Studio in Conrad. Owned by Heidi Kaisand, an expert quilter herself, this quilting haven is housed in an old building that Kaisand bought and updated, keeping the warm feel of old wood downstairs while creating a bright and airy retreat space upstairs.

Quilters who retreat in The Nest don’t have to go anywhere else if they don’t want to. The second-story space includes worktables, bathrooms, a kitchen, and beds. Meals can be made on-site or brought in. If the attendees forget something they need, a well-stocked supply store is right downstairs. Each of the 18 twin beds that fill the dormitory-style sleeping area is draped with a unique quilt (and within easy reach of nightstand and earplugs).

Sharon Jensen of Marshalltown, another quilter and Nester, says the ambiance of a retreat is as important as amenities. “A retreat center has to have a stimulating atmosphere, something that helps trigger your interest. Heidi has project ideas on the walls and she brings in speakers. For me, that’s inspiring.”

Kaisand refers to herself as the mother hen to the quilters and scrapbookers who frequent her studio and The Nest. She offers everything from welcome gifts and plates of cookies to meals and sewing instruction. “I’ll do whatever the group wants,” she says. “I want to make sure that the precious time women have is as valuable and enjoyable as possible. Our lives today are filled with so many busy things. There’s something therapeutic about taking time to be creative, to make something with our own hands.”

“The Nest is peaceful and calm, but the most amazing thing is that we’re all so productive. No one’s

cOurTEsy HEIdI KAIsANd

dimensions

Taking passion to new levels: Quilters can find supplies on the Hen & Chick’s first level (bottom) and cozy workspaces and accommodations on the second.

ringing the doorbell. There’s no TV. It’s pure concentration on something I enjoy. I come home recharged and ready to hit the trail again with my life,” says Jensen. “But the best part of the retreat is being with other women who share a passion for quilting.”

Stalvey agrees. “For 12 hours you can focus on getting something done. That’s so hard when you have jobs and kids and families,” she says. “And it’s a bonus that I don’t have to cook!”

Retreats nourish the women, but family and friends also benefit. “When you quilt, you create an heirloom that may be in the family for generations,” says Jensen.

“There’s something rewarding about giving a gift that’s made from the heart for someone’s heart,” agrees Kaisand.

The end of a retreat brings mixed emotions. “I feel inspired. I’m motivated because I accomplished a lot,” says Stalvey. “I’m sad it’s over but excited, too, because we’re already planning when the next retreat will be.”

Learn more about Hen & Chicks Studio and retreats at The Nest online at henandchicksstudio.com.

Carol Bodensteiner is a Des Moines writer who stays warm on winter nights wrapped in a crazy quilt made by her mother and grandmother.

January/February 2013 | THE IOWAN

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roadside

Meskers on Main

I

“

story by JIm WINNErmAN

knew it was special just by the way it looked,” recalls Barbara Corson, describing the building she purchased and renovated on McGregor’s Main Street in the 1980s.

Though she didn’t know it at the time, Corson had rescued a superior example of what is known as a Mesker building. Today the dwindling number of remaining Meskers are tangible examples of a unique period in American architecture between 1880 and 1910, when elaborate, metal-clad storefronts were purchased out of a catalog.

The stamped metal of Corson’s Mesker forms decorative Greek columns supporting a large ornate cornice adorned with rows of circular medallions and hanging wreaths. Often the appearance is mistaken for sculpted stone or wood.

Several visible nameplates led Corson to believe that the building, which today houses Main Street Mall, an antiques and collectibles shop, had been constructed by the Mesker Brothers of St. Louis. In fact, only its outer shell was. “I knew at street level the facade was made of cast iron, but I never expected that the elaborate facade above was made of thin galvanized tin.” The builder of the actual structure remains unknown.

“Meskers could be custom-ordered to fit any structure size, and they were easily installed with local labor in just a few days,” says Darius Bryjka, principal with IN(ALLIANCe) (specializing in historic preservation and community revitalization) and a national expert on 20

COurTEsy BArBArA COrsON

Uncovering Architectural History in McGregor

THE IOWAN | iowan.com

Mesker buildings. “America was still rebuilding after the Civil War, and merchants wanted their businesses to have an imposing and fashionable front to attract customers. Records indicate they were erected in every state.”

The lightweight Meskers could be shipped inexpensively and installed over older, wooden storefronts.

“Mine was shipped here on a barge,” says Corson, who uncovered the transport details in an old newspaper article. “In 1889 this building was remodeled by John Goedert, who purchased it and installed the Mesker facade over the front of a building that dates to 1850.”

More than 2,500 Mesker buildings in 49 states have been identified, and more are reported and verified

by Bryjka each month. So far 65 have been discovered in 31 Iowa communities. Bryjka estimates that some 50,000 structures throughout the United States were once adorned with Mesker facades. Most have disappeared due to redevelopment, fire, or neglect.

Other firms produced pressed-metal facade storefronts, but the Mesker family was by far the largest supplier, producing a wide variety of motifs on an unprecedented scale. The origin of the business can be traced to about 1844, when German immigrant John Bernard Mesker settled in Cincinnati and trained as a “tinner” working with tinplate. By 1850 he was pro-

roadside mesker minutiae

CO u r T

rIu E S y DA

A S BryJk

In addition to maintaining a list of all known Mesker facade locations, the official Mesker blog frequently posts well-researched Mesker articles. Bryjka answers each inquiry and can confirm suspected Meskers from photographs sent to the website, meskerbrothers.wordpress.com.

Pages from Mesker catalogs and photos of Mesker-clad buildings can be viewed online at gotmesker.com and flickr.com/photos/gotmesker.

Several Facebook pages feature information and discussions about Mesker storefronts.

COurTE Sy

yJkA DArIuS Br

McGregor’s Mesker was installed in 1889 by John Goedert.

His name again crowns the facade on today’s Main Street.

COurTE Sy BArBAr A COr SON

ducing stoves, copperware, and tinware in Evansville, Indiana, and soon taught his sons the trade.

Eventually the sons of John Mesker began their own iron works, concentrating on the production of storefronts. George continued the family business in Evansville; Bernard and Frank Mesker opened the competing Mesker Brothers Iron Works in St. Louis. Both factories concentrated on selling to small-town merchants in rural areas throughout the United States.

Corson renovated her building between 1981 and 1985. (The previous owner, former Iowa Senator John Culver, had started the restoration of the building in 1976, but the work was interrupted and the building eventually sat unoccupied.) Corson says people traveling through the area are always coming in and telling her what a wonderful building it is. “I never get tired of hearing it,” she says.

Several years ago Corson was approached by a man who identified himself as the grandson of John Goedert, the man who owned the building in 1889.

“He asked if I would put the name ‘John Goedert’ on the pediment, just as it had appeared when the facade was installed.”

She did, and the family members who gathered for the unveiling cheered when the cloth that cloaked the historical namesake was dropped. “After the letters were attached, the family had a reunion beneath the sign.”

Jim Winnerman is a freelance writer specializing in articles on art, historic architecture, and travel. His work has appeared in newspapers and magazines throughout the United States.

January/February 2013 | THE IOWAN

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Transcending Cornfields Fairfield’s Creative Edge Designs the New World story by Jim Duncan, photography by Paul Gates

im Belilove’s office looks out on a cornfield. In the morning deer frequently run about his parking lot.

But his company belies cliches about businesses in rural Iowa. Inside Creative Edge Master Shop, Belilove works with a wide computer screen mounted on one wall while on another he checks an hour-of-the-day conversion chart that tells him what time it is where he does business — last fall that meant Las Vegas, Shanghai, Dhaka, Dubai, and Saudi Arabia. While most art-tech industries are located close to their customers in big cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Milan, both Belilove and partner and Creative Director Harri Aalto are quite happy that the divine music of chance brought them together in Jefferson County.

Belilove was familiar with Iowa when that happened. A native of Berkeley, California, he attended Grinnell College before returning to California and becoming a committed volunteer worker for Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s transcendental meditation (TM) program. “In 1973 they sent me out to find a college for them to buy. I found Parsons College right here in Fairfield,” he recalls.

Soon after, Belilove moved to Massachusetts to attend Harvard Business School. He was still working in Boston several years later when he took his “one and only call from a corporate headhunter” looking for someone to run a new technology company in Fairfield. Belilove became part of a team introducing an innovative optical

Creative Director Harri Aalto (above) crossed the pond to help liberate designers.

processor capable of inspecting fastmoving products. The new device was sold to cigarette, beer, and Completed in 2007, a 20×20-foot mosaic tile vending machine companies. floor mural graces the “At the end of the day I figured entrance of the Fairfield it was 50 years ahead of its time Arts & Convention Center because cheaper visual signal proces(opposite, with Creative Edge Director of sors improved dramatically,” he says.

Public Relations The investor sold that compaKumar Wickramisingha). ny’s patents, and Belilove ended up not making much money. He had, however, learned two important things. “First, because of the attraction of the TM community in Fairfield, I knew I could assemble a team that could work in creative new technologies. Second, I knew that I only wanted to work on things that had not yet been done.”

Aalto’s arrival in Fairfield was a journey into new territory. He’s a Finn who attended both high school and college in Canada. He and his wife, Catherine, were living in England when he read about a new technology in a trade magazine. “They were making water-jet machines in Fairfield. I was always looking for new things to do, so I made some prototypes using water-jet principles and published an article,” says Aalto.

“I got 800 inquiries, so I knew I had something.”

That Fairfield company was making machines that could cut glass for windshields.

It was also losing money. So Aalto asked the company owners to give it to him. “I was only partially serious, but a month later they actually January/February 2013 | THE IOWAN

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called and asked if I would take over their lease, too. Jim (Belilove) came in then as an investor, and I realized I needed him to run the company.”

They became partners and bought two machines as prototypes. Rather than manufacturing machines, they became a job shop that utilized them. Cutting stone with computer-programmed water-jet technology allowed Creative Edge to introduce curved lines that earlier marble cutters could only dream about.

“It liberated designers,” says Aalto.

In the early days business was slow. “A good week meant a machine was actually running,” remembers Aalto. For a while they made titanium hip stems for surgical companies and metal signage just to make ends meet. Creative Edge’s ultimate customers — architects — are always hesitant to try anything that’s unproven, says Belilove. The company’s big breakthrough came with a contract with the Las Vegas Hilton for a million-dollar-a-night high-roller suite modeled after an Italian Renaissance palace.

To overcome architects’ anxieties about the durability of the new technology, Creative Edge sought jobs in highly trafficked public places such as FBI Headquarters in San Diego, O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, Times Square and the subway system in New York City, and the lobby of the Renaissance Hotel in Shanghai.

In TM’s spirit of world peace, Creative Edge has created major work for Hindu temples, Muslim palaces, and Christian churches.

Creative Edge is currently working on a 10-year project being installed on Wall Street and Broadway in New York City. It will eventually cover sidewalks there with descriptions of every occasion that merited a ticker tape parade.

The company is also preparing stone and terrazzo floors for a 100,000-square-foot family home in Saudi Arabia while planning jobs for a $5 billion theme park in Shanghai, the new World Trade Center in New York, a luxury furnishings company in Dubai, a villa in Jeddah, airports in Oman and Bangladesh, and a giant 26

THE IOWAN | iowan.com

President Jim Belilove and his wife, Ginger (opposite top left), review design and materials for marble flooring that will grace a hotel lobby. John Dunia and Lisa Jarvis (opposite top right) sort numbered pieces of marble for the flooring’s center medallion. A final review by Aalto (page 28) readies the design for shipment, which involves packaging thousands of numbered pieces (opposite bottom left).

The Water-Jet Process

A typical Creative Edge project begins with Aalto drawing on a Wacom graphics tablet. Next the designer will match colors to a basic palette of 52 different stones to create a map. “We’re just painting by numbers, like we did as kids,” he says. “I more or less sit here all day drawing. Sometimes I walk through the plant to watch the process. After all, stone isn’t paint.”

That walkabout will begin with computer-programmed water-jet machines cutting out patterns in stone or terrazzo.

The machines mix water with garnet sand, an abrasive that the company purchases in 4,400-pound bags, going through four to six bags a month. (Those that cut rubber, vinyl, and carpeting do not use any abrasives.) The water/garnet mix is propelled through ¹⁄ 8-inch tubes that create 60,000 pounds of pressure per square inch. The master shop uses a dozen water-jet machines, some bought, most invented here.

“The stream of pure water is invisible, and yet it could cut your hand right off,” explains Belilove.

The machines are surprisingly safe. All debris from the cut stones is forced downward into a bath of marble mud.

Stone pieces are then assembled into parts of a master design.

Pieces are laid out on the floor and on a dozen marble-top tables — recycled remnants from other projects — throughout the 100,000-square-foot workshop.

Assembled with glue guns, grinders, and hi-tech epoxies, the pieces of the final product are numbered and packed in shrink wrap and laid on end in ammunition crates (many of which are recycled from the Rock Island Arsenal).

“Stone doesn’t like to lie flat,” explains Belilove. “It can’t bear its own weight.”

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Learn More Online

COURTESy CREATIVE EDGE

stone portrait of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

At the same time, less-expensive floor coverings are being designed for high schools, colleges, and businesses and crafted out of cut carpeting, vinyl, and rubber.

Creative Edge has some 50 current competitors. Some of them in foreign countries steal Creative Edge designs without shame. “We will catch them red-handed, and they will thank us for being such inspirations to them,” says Belilove with a laugh.

The company directors have never regretted building their business in rural Iowa. Fairfield’s 2,000-strong TM population is only a small part of their attraction to the area. “The work ethic is outstanding. Counting Harri’s family (his wife and two daughters constitute the design team) and myself, probably only 10 percent of our 35 employees practice TM. The other 90 percent are locals, some of whom have been with us for 20 years now,” says Belilove.

Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs Director Mary Cownie thinks that the Creative Edge-Fairfield connection has even changed the way the state is perceived. “I think they turn the typical Iowa stereotype — that we are not culturally savvy — on its head. Not only are they in a rural, underserved area, but they are also utilizing the most cutting-edge media to create art.”

Iowa Economic Development Authority Director Debi Durham agrees. “It’s companies like Creative Edge that help the world rethink Iowa. Creativity, innovation, superior craftsmanship — that’s the Iowa we know.”

COURTESy CREATIVE EDGE

The water-jet process enables Creative Edge to incorporate a wide range of colors and materials (page 27, bottom right) and produce patterns that can mimic an intricately woven carpet (right).

Iowa by Design Creative Edge’s work can be seen in numerous Iowa locales, including Cedar Rapids National Guard Armory Central Iowa Shelter & Services Center, Des Moines Drake University, Des Moines Fairfield Arts and Convention Center Jacobson Building, Iowa State Fairgrounds Ottumwa Arts Center (shown above) Principal Park, Des Moines St. Francis Xavier Basilica, Dyersville Seven Roses Inn, Fairfield Sunnybrook Assisted Living Centers: Fort Madison, Fairfield, Burlington, Carroll, Muscatine, Mount Pleasant University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls

cec-waterjet.com

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D ivine Intervention A Live Music Revival Inside Iowa’s Historic Opera Houses story by Terri Queck-MaTzie, photography by Jon LeMons

D

oug Olson stands in a sweet spot on the right stage apron, just outside a narrow strip of crimson velvet curtain. “You can just hear everything reverberate from here,” he explains to the traveling musicians distractedly unpacking gear in between glances to survey the grand hall.

Singer-songwriter Sam Knutson — the tall, lean, self-proclaimed “opera house nerd” in black t-shirt and jeans — takes that as his cue. “The technology of the building comes from North Africa, you know.

It’s like a church.”

The architecture of Ye Olde Opera House in Akron is, in fact, comparable, with its navelike auditorium and chancel of a stage. “You can acoustically enwrap the audience with sound from the stage,” he continues, delivering his homily on Iowa’s historic performance spaces. “They’re built to make that possible.”

Knutson knows these types of details about opera houses. He also knows that by showtime the building will be very much like a church, with a rapt audience awaiting divine inspiration. “There’s a similar social contract,” he explains. “The audience agrees to sit quietly, facing forward in rows, prepared to listen to the guy in the front of the room.”

It was an experience in the restored 1883 What Cheer Opera House that first piqued Knutson’s interest.

He was awed by the sound and feel of the old theater and is now devoted to performing inside all of the state’s oft-overlooked acoustical gems. His brainchild, The Iowa Opera House Project, now over a year old, features a stable of performers who rotate shows, bringing Iowa folk music to the historic buildings in varying states of restoration in towns large and small.

All the state’s a stage: Sam Knutson arrives in Akron (above) to play his 12th Iowa opera house gig, opening the September 2012 show (opposite) in the 1906 Ye Olde Opera House.

Music the Way It’s Meant to Be Played

Akron’s opera house was built in 1906 by the American Insurance Company of Des Moines, a promise to the community on the condition that sufficient policies were sold. “They didn’t quite meet their goal, but they built the opera house anyway,” explains Olson, a representative for Thermo Bond Buildings and a key volunteer with the restored performance space. Like most of Iowa’s similar structures, the venue fell into disuse until a local theater group launched a rescue effort in the 1970s. Today the hall is host to a variety of entertainment ranging from local thespians to opera and jazz singers from nearby University of South Dakota to shows like The Iowa Opera House Project.

The repertoire pleases Knutson. “It’s using these buildings the way they were meant to be used.”

The vintage venue inspires not only diversity but quality. “You definitely bring your A game,” says Erik Brown, trumpet player for Thankful Dirt, a regular on The Project bill. “You know people are going to hang on every note and every word.”

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The Iowa Opera House Project has connected Knutson to many of the state’s communities and their champions.

Volunteer Doug Olson offers history lessons and ghost stories inside Akron’s old performance space (above).

The building’s architectural acoustics surround its audience in sound from the stage where Milk & Eggs (aka Jordan Sellergren, opposite) sings.

“Knowing they’re listening means the world,” says Darren Matthews, guitarist for Thankful Dirt (his wife, Molly, on vocals completes the trio) and seasoned professional on the Iowa music scene (prior to Thankful Dirt he was last known as guitarist for High and Lonesome). Like most Project musicians, he’s spent much of his career in bars, where clinking glasses and social chatter give new meaning to “wall of sound.” “[The opera house] gets the best out of musicians because they’re not distracted,” says Brown, continuing to wax poetic about this night’s venue. “And it’s neat to hear what comes out when you put the screws to it.”

On a warm, early-September evening — the kind that reinforces small-town Iowa’s claim of Heaven on Earth — The Iowa Opera House Project “put the screws to it” at Ye Olde Opera House in Akron.

The blue lightbulbs surrounding the stage have the power to transport through time. The soft glow brings expectations of vaudeville dancers unpacking wrinkled 32

THE IOWAN | iowan.com

costumes from travel-worn trunks. The furniture on the platform is sparse — a spindle-back chair and an upholstered piano stool. Crushed velvet-lined instrument cases frame the perimeter. Strings, bows, and picks lie in wait for performers to unleash tones and phrases. Re-creations of vintage microphones, disguising the aid of state-of-the-art technology, add to the effect.

Knutson takes the spotlight first, a black fedora crowning the tall, lean silhouette cast upon the backstage wall. He softly strums his guitar. “Old places have more value than new places,” he intones, half in song, half in conversation, as his fingers glide through a simple melody. Jordan Sellergren, who performs as Milk & Eggs, soon adds her easy voice and finger-plucked strings to descriptive observations of everyday Iowa.

Dustin Busch on guitar and mandolin and Megan Drollinger on fiddle pick up the pace and add variety to the show with expert musicianship and range, pulling tunes like “Quail Is a Pretty Bird” from bluegrass archives. Drollinger’s violin is tuned G-D-G-D to make slides easier. Busch’s bare foot slaps the floor in time.

“You just play better when you feel the ground under your feet,” he says.

By the time Thankful Dirt takes the stage to complete the lineup, the audience — from the young

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children in the balcony to the older couple in the second row holding hands — is entranced. The trio of guitar, trumpet, and vocals fills the space with haunting melodies and riffs. There is reverence in the air.

“I can’t tell you how good that horn sounded in here,” comes a voice from the back of the hall as Thankful Dirt wraps up its set.

“It sounded pretty good from up here, too,” responds Brown, commencing a discussion with the pleased listener about the acoustics of the room (“You can hear the trumpet bounce off the four walls and come back to you,” says Brown) and his instrument of choice (a B-flat trumpet with a bent bell). Such impromptu interaction with the audience is part of the experience Brown relishes. “That type of ambience in a room can change everything for a musician.”

Give and Take

The financial challenges of restoring and operating a performance hall are considerable. Community members are supportive and generous with their time, talents, and pocketbooks, and following historical trend, Ye Olde Opera House’s street-level storefront is rented. New Horizons United Church helps pay the bills that keep the doors open.

Thankful Dirt melds Molly Matthews’ vocals with Erik Brown’s trumpet and Darren Matthews’ guitar (opposite, seen from the catwalk). The trio’s music sounds good from all sides, including offstage, where Dustin Busch and Megan Drollinger retreat after their own performance.

The structure’s listing on the National Register of Historic Places last July is a designation that can improve recognition in grant circles. The venue’s billing on The Iowa Opera House Project tour a month later brought another opportunity for exposure.As soon as Knutson initiates plans for an opera house performance (the Akron gig was the group’s 12th), a dialogue begins. “A big part of the experience is what goes on behind the scenes,” he says of the exchanges between locals and visiting artists. “Those early conversations, talking with people about their town and their project. Often they’ve been operating in a sort of vacuum, and they’re just thrilled to find out someone is interested.”

“It’s good to hear other venues are going through the same things we are,” says Olson. “Restoring their buildings. Looking for money. Fighting the same battles and having success. And it’s good to know others are interested in what we’re doing.”

By the time the musicians arrive in town, establishments such as Dirks Hardware Hank and Maynard’s Food Center are abuzz. Those who don’t already know of the traveling musicians quickly notice someone new January/February 2013 | THE IOWAN

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Live music in an intimate setting draws a diverse audience — young and old, rural and urban, neighbors and new friends. It’s not a lost art but a rediscovered experience, enhanced with handmade microphones that are themselves works of art (opposite).

in this town of less than 1,500. With lodging secure and preliminary sound checks made, there are a few hours for the visitors to explore, find a bite to eat, maybe a beer.

“It’s great to get out and meet people,” says Knutson. He absorbs local history and culture like a sponge, learning of an abandoned amusement park near Akron built in anticipation of an expanded rail line and sharing a joke with locals about gullible “Easterners.”

“As Jordan and I crossed the street from the local grocery opposite the opera house,” Knutson tells, “we met midstreet with a guy in a cowboy hat and thick white moustache à la Sam Elliot who said, ‘You guys look fabulous,’ touching the brim of his hat. It’s those personal moments that are remarkable.”

Knutson and his company may provide a welcome connection to the world at large (or at least the state), but he doesn’t see his role as particularly ambassadorial.

“It’s entertainment,” he says matter-of-factly.

“It does make a difference in your performance to know you’re wanted and accepted,” says Thankful Dirt’s Brown. “You know the audience comes prepared. They’re respectful. They’re dressed appropriately.

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They’re on time. They’re giving you something, and they’re hoping you give them something in return.”

What the audience gets is music they might not likely hear otherwise, according to Thankful Dirt’s Molly Matthews. “There’s so much music not heard outside of the more urban performance venues,” she says. “That’s not to say there’s no culture in small towns. That’s not true. There’s tons of culture in small towns. There’s a lot of music being made out there.

People are making music in their churches and in their homes. There’s a deep appreciation for music in rural Iowa.”

“They get live music,” explains Brown, “no matter the genre. And they make live music better by listening.”

Work of Art

That appreciation, and the willingness to plunk down a bill or two for a ticket, is rejuvenating not only Iowa’s opera houses and their communities but also the livelihood of the musicians who play them.

Molly Matthews sees the publicity that comes with The Iowa Opera House Project as a valuable opportunity for the band on solo terms. The prospect of individual bookings in the state’s opera houses is appealing, and a band’s name on posters alongside

other reputable performers distributed statewide for any cause is likely to be career boosting.

“The last several years have been hard on the live music scene,” adds bandmate Darren Matthews.

Technology — and a generation acclimated to technologically produced music — has limited options for musicians like Thankful Dirt, he says. The Project has expanded them.

“Thank you to The Iowa Opera House Project for opening the door for bands like ours to play these places,” applauds Cindy Grill of Hot Tamale and the Red Hots as she opens her show in Greenfield’s Warren Cultural Center last July. The oft-dubbed “Queen of the Des Moines Blues Scene” took the stage in the recently renovated historic opera house, now a multiuse cultural center, just two weeks after The Project’s entourage brought the audience to its feet.

“The audience seems to come every time open and receptive to being entertained by whatever we give them,” says the Center’s Program Committee Chair, Phil Cannon. “They just want to experience it.”

The grand auditorium with ornate gold-leaf stenciling and domed ceiling has acoustics so sharp performers hear jacket zippers in the audience, and the clear sight lines allow those in the back row to watch Busch’s 12-bar blues lick fingerings on his mandolin.

“It all depends on your idea of making a living,” chuckles Busch. “There is no big time, but this is the most fun of anything I’ve done.”

Like Busch, Matthews, Grill, and other area musicians, Brown is eking out a living in the Iowa music scene. He also plays piano and provides vocals and songwriting for the Des Moines-based band The Maw. “It’s a great life, though none of us are making a fortune,” says Brown, who hails from Georgia by way of Colorado. “People ask me why I’m in Iowa. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

The chance to play such historic venues adds depth and texture to the experience. “Sometimes on stage you can feel the nostalgia,” adds Brown. “You get such a sense of being part of a long line of history and culture.”

The audience feels it, too, drawn to the magnificent structures in which the traveling troupes appear.

That’s part of Knutson’s plan, of course. Iowa’s opera houses provide the perfect incubator for the Iowa sound

more oNLINe at

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— both in acoustic enhancement and historic ambience. “The Iowa sound is sort of a Mississippi River sound with some country, some Delta, some folk,” sums up Darren Matthews. “With some square-head Minnesota,” he adds with a laugh.

Upstairs in Ye Olde Opera House’s secular chancel surrounded by graffiti-covered walls, Brown growls out his blend of sweet and clear mixed with low and earthy — soul music, Iowa style. He says he feels closer to his musical roots here than anywhere else. “I guess you could say the style is church and dirty blues bar.”

Whatever you call it, the music is drawing praise in these old acoustic performance halls across the state, where hallowed heritage meets devotion to intimate art — salvation in song.

Connect with the Crusade The Iowa Opera House Project theiowaoperahouseproject.org What Cheer Opera House whatcheerfleamarket.com>Opera House Schedule Ye Olde Opera House akronoperahouse.org The Warren Cultural Center warrenculturalcenter.com

January/February 2013 | THE IOWAN

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The Power & Passion of Women’s Flat Track story by NIck BErgus, photography by JAsON BrAdWEll

It’s only 8:30 Sunday morning, but Monica Thompson has already reached a fever pitch.

“Hey! Hey, Green!” she hollers from the stands of the Long Lines Family Rec Center in Sioux City.

Thompson’s ankle is wrapped and propped up on a bleacher seat in front of her. During bouts her visage is one of glaring intensity, even on a morning like this when she’s nursing an injury sustained in yesterday’s match. On skates she’s a ferocious blocker, but before and after bouts she’s known for the cupcakes she bakes for teammates and opponents alike.

“It’s going to be OK!” Thompson yells at the black-and-green jerseys below. The Des Moines Derby Dames have had a few rough jams in a row, Old Capitol City Roller Girls’ Lisa “Left 4 Deadwards” Edwards takes a blocking position against Mid Iowa Rollers’ jammer Jenna “Moves Like Jaguar” Ellingsworth during an August 2012 bout.

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Old Capitol City Roller Girls (above) and Mid Iowa Rollers (opposite) are two of four WFTDA Member Leagues in Iowa. The teams met last August on the flat track at the Coralville Marriott Convention Center.

and the team is slipping further behind on the scoreboard. Even off skates, Thompson — the self-described mother of the team — is encouraging the skaters to calm down and play their game.

Rounding the track, the Derby Dames skate and block, trying to even the score against the Sioux City Roller Dames and stave off elimination from a tournament hosted for the fifth year by the northwestern Iowa roller derby team. Players zip and slam. Coaches bellow and direct. Officials scrutinize and penalize. And while nobody’s getting paid, everybody takes the sport seriously, investing a great deal of time in not only training but also organizing and running the teams.

“It’s a good thing I work a part-time job,” says Thompson, who on the track skates as Moab, short for Mother of All Bombs. In between arranging bouts with other teams, working with her husband to oversee coaches, practicing two to four times a week, and making public relations appearances on behalf of the team, she’s a school bus driver and mother of four. “You’re never going to find someone as busy as a derby girl.”

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Garage-Band Attitude

While roller derby is still played on the banked tracks that many associate with the sport from 1960s television, flat track teams are far more prevalent today. Modern derby is a full-contact sport organized, popularized, and run almost exclusively by women. Its hard-core do-ityourself ethos has made it the punk rock answer to team sports and has endeared roller derby to Hollywood (as the subject of a recent Drew Barrymore movie), to Olympics broadcasting (as a reference point for event commentators), and to toy makers (as the popular theme of an American Girl doll ensemble).

Despite their growth in popularity, flat track roller derby bouts are still attended by enough first-timers that the events often begin with a demonstration of the game and a brief explanation from the house announcers, which goes like this: Two teams of four blockers each race around an oval track trying to avoid being lapped by the opposing team’s fifth skater, a point scorer called a jammer. Straightforward enough.

But consider that blockers are simultaneously playing defense (to thwart the opposing team’s jammer) and offense (to open holes and shepherd their own jammer through a pack of opponents) while going around

Roller Derby is still an amateur sport, with bouts enthusiastically organized and staffed by volunteers (like referee Jason “Hi Refinition” Tessmer, opposite, scoring his jammer’s last pass — zero). It is also very much a contact sport, with helmets, kneepads, and other safety gear essential (above).

the 150-foot oval track every 12 seconds or faster. And while ramming shoulders into sternums and throwing devastating hip checks, the players all have wheels strapped to their feet.

At its heart, roller derby is an amateur sport. Unlike modern Olympians and collegiate athletes, skaters pay for the privilege of playing with league dues, hotel rooms, skates, safety gear, and time. In a testament to the odd attraction that roller derby holds over so many, Sioux City’s end-of-summer tournament was, as is typical, organized by volunteers and staffed by referees, nonskating officials, and other personnel volunteering their time and paying their own way to fill roles that sports fans and athletes universally love to hate. That attraction has helped the sport’s popularity grow rapidly nationwide and here in Iowa in the past decade.

The latest incarnation of roller derby has its roots in the founding of the Texas Rollergirls of Austin

around 2001. By 2005 there were some 20 leagues in the United States, enough to warrant the formation of what is now the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA), the authority through which the leagues collectively devised rules and standards for play.

Tracking Success

As the second half gets underway at the Coralville Marriott Convention Center, the Old Capitol City Roller Girls are not where they want to be. The team is down 91 to 25 against in-state rival Mid Iowa Rollers and is starting out short with a blocker in the penalty box. Old Capitol’s home crowd of several hundred sits, somewhat stunned, on rows of chairs and on the floor in the suicide seats around the track.

When the jam whistle blows, Mid Iowa’s blockers give their jammer a clear path off the line. With an earned lead she makes not one but two 5-point passes, with roars from the visiting contingent rising each time. Old Capitol’s jammer is meanwhile stuck, and after losing another blocker to a minute major penalty, she makes an illegal cut-in from out January/February 2013 | THE IOWAN

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of bounds to end up in the penalty box herself.

The teams — both in their first seasons as WFTDA members and both arriving today having defeated Iowa’s two other full-member leagues — are facing off on the track for the third time. The skaters and fans, often one and the same in derby, know this is for statewide bragging rights.

Des Moines’ Mid Iowa Rollers were Iowa’s first roller derby team, started in 2006 when Jamie “Dangerous” Daugharthy and a half dozen other skaters met for the first practice. “We didn’t really know what we were doing,” she remembers. “We had just printed some stuff off the Internet.”

They seem to have figured it out. The 2012 season saw the Mid Iowa Rollers ranked 11 out of the South Central Region’s 35 WFTDA leagues. (The top 10 are invited to a regional playoff.) All total, seven Iowa leagues are full or apprentice members of the WFTDA, along with more than 160 other leagues on every continent but Africa and Antarctica. The association has 44

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COuRTESy JulES DOylE

Free to be who you want to be: Athletes — like Old Capitol City Roller Girls’ Erin “Fannysaurus Wrex” Weitzell (above) and Mid Iowa Rollers’ Jessie “Vyolent GriMm” Graves (opposite) — bring their own signature to the track.

True Grit: The Hydra

We know what you’re thinking: Fitting that a sport grown from a culture of defiance should recognize victory with a multifarious menace. Actually, the trophy is a stylish bronzed skate atop a twisted metal pedestal. Its namesake Hydra is a founding member of the WFTDA and the first president of the association. She skates for Austin’s Texas Rollergirls.

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awarded the Hydra trophy to its champion — decided through five tournaments — every year since 2006, and its rules are the standard for roller derby internationally, even for play between nonmember teams, including those made up of men and juniors.

The hope of many in the derby community is that the uninitiated will stop asking if it’s fake (it’s not, as the announcers are sure to remind you when play stops for a fibula fracture) and that the sport will become larger and more mainstream (with an oft-mentioned goal of seeing roller derby as a medal sport in the Olympics). While an Olympic event may be more than a decade away, 2012 saw a roller derby World Cup organized by Blood and Thunder, a magazine covering modern derby and running training camps. Against an international roster of 12 countries, the United States crushed the competition to take gold.

Sport and Spectacle

One hurdle to mainstream success may be the common practice of playing under a pseudonym. Some players, such as Des Moines Derby Dames founder Malay Bouaphakeo, skate under their given names; many others — including officials and volunteers — consider derby names a rite of passage.

That’s why you’re not watching Erin Weitzell but instead Fannysaurus Wrex, her face painted velociraptor green with sharp teeth drawn from cheek to cheek, cutting across the track laterally and ever so counterclockwise to intercept a jammer on a scoring pass.

With the opposing skater knocked to the floor, it’s not Michael Zeman but a referee with Eject You Later written across the back of his black-and-white striped jersey issuing the major clockwise-blocking penalty with a concussive whistle blast, a calm, slow flip of his hand to signal the penalty, and a pointed finger directing the blocker to the penalty box.

Pseudonyms (and face paint) add to roller derby’s perception as spectacle, but they can lead some to the mistaken assumption that skaters have two personas: the normal, everyday one and the one that shows up on the track. Old Capitol City Roller Girls’ Lisa Edwards says when she’s Left 4 Deadwards on the track, she 46

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Outand a Bout!

WFTDA Member Leagues Des Moines Derby Dames, Des Moines Mid Iowa Rollers, Des Moines Old Capitol City Roller Girls, Iowa City Sioux City Roller Dames, Sioux City WFTDA Apprentice Leagues Cedar Rapids Roller Girls, Cedar Rapids Cedar Valley Derby Divas, Waterloo Quad City Rollers, Davenport Independent Teams Iowa Rollin’ Aces, Cedar Rapids Oskaloosa Mayhem Girls, Oskaloosa Dames of Anarchy, Mason City Dakota City Demolition Crew, Dakota City Eastern Iowa Outlaws, Dubuque Farm Fresh Roller Girls, Quad Cities (Davenport) Men’s Roller Derby Association (MRDA) Leagues Your Mom Men’s Derby, Des Moines Sioux City Korn Stalkers, Sioux City Junior Roller Derby (girls ages 8–17) Quad City Derby Orphans, Quad Cities (Davenport) Des Moines Derby Brats, Des Moines

isn’t becoming a different person. Rather, derby is where she’s free to be who she feels she is. Lined up to jam, Deadwards wears her game face streaked down her cheeks in classic Alice Cooper style taken to the extreme. Above striped leggings her backside reads CRZY LEGS, one of her many other nicknames.

“Roller derby is the most accepting environment I’ve ever been in.”

Many of the lines that we draw between ourselves — sexuality, politics, social status — simply don’t matter in derby. Tolerance permeates the entire culture and makes it attractive to fans. “Derby’s a place where people who don’t fit into standard boilerplate culture can find a home,” says Dave Schrader, who, after seeing the Old Capitol City Roller Girls beat the Des Moines Derby Dames in 2010 (Des Moines’ first bout ever) was hooked on derby. He now goes to bouts some 40 weekends a year and meticulously tracks and photographs the ones he attends. Of course, he’s better known to

the skaters by his derby name: KORfan (a somewhat obscure homage to a Japanese anime series).

Schrader didn’t have much photography experience before he bought a Canon 60D camera and began taking it to bouts. Similarly, many skaters, including New York’s ESPN-featured roller derby star Suzy Hotrod, don’t come from athletic backgrounds.

“When I was as kid,” recalls Thompson, “I was never good at sports. I wasn’t the right shape for ballet.

I wasn’t fast enough for track. I wasn’t welcome in sports.” She followed a recruitment ad in a Des Moines alternative weekly to her first practice and was surprised by its intensity — and her love of it. “Derby’s taken me from someone who didn’t think I was an athlete to someone who knows she’s an athlete.”

“It’s challenging for women to get into contact sports,” says the WFTDA’s executive director, Juliana Gonzales. “A lot of these women haven’t played sports, and it’s more accessible when it’s a sport that nobody’s grown up playing.”

Its novice nature, however, is changing. As derby continues to grow, it’s attracting more skaters from traditional athletic backgrounds. Romina Muse, known as Stella Italiana and recently retired from the Des Moines

Roller Derby’s popularity has grown rapidly in the past decade, producing devoted fans of all ages.

Above, left to right: Farrah, Jocelyn, Chloe, and Silvie Hendricks.

Derby Dames, for example, was first a world-class competitive speed skater.

The level of play will grow ever higher as junior derby leagues pop up, as they have in the Quad Cities and Des Moines. With kids like Des Moines Derby Dames’ Monica Thompson’s two daughters and youngest son growing up with roller derby, the sport will grow more competitive and, maybe, become all grown up.

“Eventually,” says Thompson, “you throw in enough blood, sweat, and tears, and you realize this isn’t just some cute hobby.”

Skate Fast and Turn Left Learn more online: Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (wftda.com) Roller Derby Worldwide (derbyroster.com)

January/February 2013 | THE IOWAN

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The Return of Iowa’s Bald Eagles

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Text and Photography by Ty Smedes

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This book will help Iowans enjoy and celebrate the return of this regal bird – a symbol of our nation – as it once again prospers here in Iowa. Inside you will find many enjoyable photos, as well as facts, statistics, and stories that will educate and thrill you.

The Return of Iowa’s Bald Eagles, 247 pages, $24.95 +tax, available in soft cover

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When Walls Can Talk Bringing George Allee’s Story to Paper story by DOug ClOugH

COurTEsy NEWEll HIsTOrICAl sOCIETy

arilyn Monson has learned a valuable lesson while restoring the 1891 Allee Mansion: Don’t wallpaper with your spouse unless you have lots of patience. Her husband, Paul, cites the clear division of labor. “Marilyn pastes. I hang the paper.”

The Bradbury & Bradbury Art Wallpapers, inspired by period wallpaper designs, evoke the Victorian era and provide insight into the life and times

of Newell native George Allee. George, one of three children born to Jesse and Mary Allee, perfected a standardized test first used in 1920 for measuring small grain yields, providing farmers with performance data that steered better seed choices. “Allee’s yield test is used worldwide today, defining his contribution to agriculture,” says Marilyn’s husband, Paul, a history major.

Allee bequested 160 acres of farmland to Iowa State University (ISU) in 1958; the mansion was part of the gift. The large home became the residence for the farm’s managers.

Because the mansion was costly to maintain, ISU considered burning it. The Newell Historical Society, with the Monsons on the board of directors, formed in 1988 with a goal to purchase the mansion for restoration. “A classmate — a farm manager’s son — came home for a class reunion and said, ‘You’ve got to save it. There’s so much history,’” remembers Marilyn. “We leased the mansion and wallpapered our first room.”

The Queen Anne mansion, placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992, includes a turret with five fish-scale designs, seven original stained-glass windows, three solid oak pocket doors, etched-glass doors, an open staircase, and fireplace. “The oak and cherry woodwork was well preserved,” marvels Marilyn.

“The walls were a different story.”

January/February 2013 | THE IOWAN

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COurTEsy BrADBury & BrADBury

heritage

cOurTEsy DOug clOugH

heritage

And so began the Monsons’ experience with using wallpaper to provide both decoration and education. “It was clear from the beginning that wallpaper was a defining point of the Victorian era,” says Marilyn. The story of George Allee’s life and contribution to agriculture is told in part by the wallpaper choice of each room.

“The parlor’s oriental design represents the family’s wealth,” explains Marilyn, dressed in period garb she dons for tours. “George’s mother, Mary Kingman, brought money and prestige to the Allee family. Wellto-do families of the time took a great deal of pride in furnishings from the Orient. George Allee’s conservative nature, laced in Republican politics and a Methodist faith, was an integral part of his upbringing.”

Passing through pocket doors, guests are ushered to the great-room. “The rose pattern emphasizes a woodland theme,” says Paul, sporting his own period attire.

“People of means escaped to the country during the industrial age to get away from the by-products of factories.” Near the room’s ceiling, deer, rabbits, and birds roam through green ferns and pink blooms. “Allee spent 50

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Period wallpaper designs —including Bradbury & Bradbury’s Woodland (page 49, top) in the great-room, Victorian Aesthetic Movement in the front parlor, and Victorian Dresser I Bachelor Button along the main stairwell (both seen above), and New Classical Pompeiian (opposite, bottom) in an upstairs guestroom — help Paul and Marilyn Monson tell George Allee’s story at the 1891 Allee Mansion (page 49, bottom).

much of his time outdoors managing the family’s 20 farms,” explains Paul. He was also an avid golfer, using the mansion’s front lawn as a driving range.

“George did most of his business in his office,” notes Paul, walking to the rear of the mansion, where Allee’s office is papered in cobwebs and dragonflies. “For a naturalist, cobwebs were considered a form of artwork,” explains Marilyn. “There were many businessmen who got no farther than the office, conducting business over the potbellied stove.”

Allee was president of the Iowa Corn and Small Grain Association and the first president of the Iowa Agricultural Experiment Association. On his office wall, Allee’s traveling corn show trophy — a commis-

heritage george allee kernels Allee was a contemporary of and collaborator with Henry A. Wallace (1888–1965), founder of Pioneer Hi-Bred. “Unlike Wallace, Allee had no interest in acquiring more wealth,” explains Paul Monson. “He was solely interested in progressive farming practices, developing seed for northwest Iowa that would produce good yield for his crop sharers and better feed for cattle.”

COURTESy NEWELL HISTORICAL SOCIETy

Allee was a staunch Republican and did not attend the presidential inauguration of Harvard classmate Franklin D. Roosevelt, under whom Wallace served as vice president during his first term.

Allee, like his two sisters, never married. With no direct heirs, he left his farms not only to ISU but to second cousins on his mother’s side.

Known for his philanthrophy, Allee provided funding for Newell’s outdoor swimming pool, one of the first in northwest Iowa, as well as Newell’s Methodist church and American Legion. His giving nature extended to Morningside College, where he donated the funds for a gymnasium, and to his alma mater, Cornell College, where he oversaw the building of a campus chapel.

COURTESy BRADBURy & BRADBURy

sioned painting — portrays 10 perfect ears from one of his farms. Allee delivered each ear to the artist separately in waxed paper. The trophy was passed annually to the producer of the single best ear of corn at the Newell Corn Show, an event he sponsored for 35 years.

Visitors comment that the star formation papered above the open staircase leading to the second floor gives the impression of viewing a nighttime sky. The upstairs guest room showcases the challenges of wallpapering a turret. Green, a color easily acquired during

the Victorian era, highlights the paint and wallpaper in the master bedroom.

While Paul Monson is considered the wallpaper guru by his wife and volunteers, Marilyn’s forte lies in educating youth on the Victorian period. “Sharing information with children is a great reward,” she says. “They just soak it in.” Tour topics for area schools include the importance of a woman’s apron, expectations of children, living without a microwave, and deciphering the cliche “Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.”

The Newell Historical Society views the mansion as a work in progress. Allee’s book-filled barrister-style library awaits completion, and plans are in the works for a hired hands’ bunkhouse. For those who tour or attend an event, however, the Newell Historical Society has already created a trip back in time to honor a northwest Iowa corn legend.

Allee Mansion, 2020 640th Street, Newell newellhistorical.org, 712-272-4356 Tours by arrangement

Doug Clough is a freelance writer covering the people and places of northwest Iowa. He lives in Ida Grove with his wife, salad-bowl family, and the finest Labradoodle west of the North Raccoon River.

January/February 2013 | THE IOWAN

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last word

Thought for Food Conservation Is Fair Game

by TIM AckARMAN “Why is it since Edison we’ve worked to develop better and better lighting systems, yet the sale of candles is still in the billions of dollars?”

— Shane Patrick Mahoney, Institute for Biodiversity, Ecosystem Science and Sustainability at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador ISTOckPHOTO.cOM / cODYPHOTOGRAPHY

Many Iowans have embraced a new food ethos. Seeking to lower their carbon footprint and ensure livestock a reasonable quality of life, they choose beef from spacious pastures, pork from crate-free barns, and eggs from cage-free henhouses.

Some supporters of this kinder, gentler dining dislike hunting in general and hunting preserves in particular. But suppose we view facilities offering canned hunts as nothing more than agricultural operations. Are they then any more objectionable than the “humane” farms lauded by animal advocates?

In either case an animal is raised in what is at best an imperfect substitute for natural conditions and kept reasonably comfortable until someone chooses to end its life — in person or by proxy — to make a meal. Only vegans might claim any moral high ground, and even they must admit wild lands and creatures were sacrificed to clear the fields where their vegetables are grown.

Others are carnivores once removed, convinced that animals taken to slaughter suffer less than those dispatched in the field. They bristle not at death but at the perceived enjoyment of killing and dismiss as nonsensical the hunters’ claim to respect, even love, species they pursue.

This paradox is not new. The earliest residents of present-day Iowa revered the creatures upon which they depended, giving thanks for them in their prayers,

paying tribute to them in their legends, and building giant earthen effigies of them for reasons now lost to time.

The urge to both consume of and connect with the natural world is as imbedded in our DNA as our compulsion to gaze into the firelight even in this age of fluorescence. Some would suggest we should suppress this predatory urge, much like others would have those different from themselves suppress their spirituality or their sexuality to satisfy some cultural norm. What we might lose of ourselves in so doing is debatable; what we risk losing of the world is clear.

By the end of the 19th century bison and many other creatures were nearly eradicated in our drive to settle the land, suppress Native Americans, satisfy the whims of fashion, and feed growing cities. Market hunters, most motivated by profit and having no regard for the longterm future of these species, often led the way. Yet revulsion at these gruesome excesses motivated a new breed of hunter. Recognizing wild animals and lands as finite resources, hunter conservationists — including Iowans Aldo Leopold and J.N. “Ding” Darling — led a cultural shift from exploitation to preservation and sustainable use.

Their legacy continues today. Public wildlife refuges and other natural areas — and those who safeguard and mange them — are funded largely with money from

FROM THE EDITOR A number of readers took issue with The Iowan’s story of a bison hunting experience in northeast Iowa (Potluck, Jan/Feb 2012, page 11), and several comments have been shared on the magazine’s Letters page. Writer Tim Ackarman contributes to the conversation.

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license fees, surcharges, and excise taxes paid by hunters. Those hunters with means often purchase land to protect and enhance it for wildlife. Many others, regardless of financial standing, join private conservation organizations to do likewise.

Whitetail deer were once rare in Iowa. Wild turkeys were expatriated. Giant canada geese were thought to be extinct.

All are now abundant (some say overabundant) thanks largely to hunters. Those who pursue them today should enjoy the experience and the free-range, locally sourced meat with good conscience.

Truly wild bison herds exist at only a handful of parks and preserves in Iowa and across the nation. Few are hunted.

Adding to the size and genetic diversity of the population are numerous other herds raised on private ranches. Permitting ranchers to profit by offering hunts in exchange for the help they provide in ensuring the long-term survival of the species seems a reasonable tradeoff.

In Iowa’s highly altered landscape all wild creatures are constrained, whether physically by fences or functionally within remaining pockets of habitat. That many such pockets exist at all is a testament to the deep regard of the hunter for the quarry. Remove hunters, and wildlife watchers and well-meaning but disconnected urbanites would be left to carry on the work of conservation without their most passionate allies.

A freelance writer and photographer living near Garner, Tim Ackarman serves on the Hancock County Conservation Board and is a member of Pheasants Forever, Ducks Unlimited, the National Wild Turkey Federation, and the National Rifle Association.

Iowa Area Development Group established the Iowa Venture Award to honor entrepreneurial achievement, innovation, and leadership. Our organization and its member-owned electric utility sponsors take great pride in presenting the 2012 Venture Award recipients.

Celebrating 25 Years of Service

2012

IOWA VENTURE AWARD RECIPIENTS Advanced Drainage Systems, Inc. Dow AgroSciences DuPont Pioneer Iowa Community Development Murphy-Brown Kehl Management, Inc. Premier Sheep Supplies Sedgwick, Inc. “The Ridge” Char-Mac Senior-living

800-888-4743 | www.iadg.com

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