Iowa Women's Hall of Fame announces newest class

The Iowa Commission on the Status of Women has announced the 2022 honorees of the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame and Cristine Wilson Medal for Equality and Justice recipient.

The new class of Hall of Fame honorees includes Elizabeth Cowles of Des Moines, Laurie Schipper of Des Moines, Mary Elaine Richards of Ames and Mary Swander of Kalona.

The 2022 recipient of the Cristine Wilson Medal for Equality and Justice is Ako Abdul-Samad, of Des Moines, a longtime member of the Iowa House of Representatives and social justice advocate.

An induction ceremony will be held at 9:30 a.m. Aug. 27 at the Des Moines Playhouse, according to a news release from the Iowa Department of Human Rights. The ceremony and following reception are free and open for the public to attend.

Elizabeth Bates Cowles, Des Moines

Elizabeth Morley Bates was born May 4, 1900, in Oswego, New York, the oldest child of Norman and Florence Morley Bates.

She attended preparatory school at Rosemary Hall in Greenwich, Connecticut. She graduated in 1918 and enrolled at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She did not graduate from Smith because she spent time traveling in Japan and China, and because she met John Cowles, the son of an Iowa newspaper publisher, while she was a student at Smith and he was at Harvard.

The couple married in Oswego on July 18, 1923, and settled in Des Moines where they had four children – daughters Morley in 1925 and Sarah in 1926 and sons John Jr. in 1929 and Russell in 1936, who is the lone surviving family member.

At age  23, Cowles became active in Des Moines civic life and was a founder of the Civic Music Association, which offered its first full season of performances in 1925.

In 1934, she led the development of the Iowa Maternal Health League in Des Moines, which opened its free birth control clinic for "needy married women" that December and later became Planned Parenthood of Iowa. The free clinic was made available to all women, regardless of race or class.

Cowles' contributions to women and social justice issues continued until her death in 1976.

Laurie Schipper, Des Moines

Laurie Schipper was born on Dec. 4, 1962, in Waverly, and was raised on her family’s farm in Shell Rock. In high school, she excelled at track and field, softball and the debate team.

She attended Iowa State University where she received her degree in social work in 1985. After graduating from college and serving for several years as a volunteer, Schipper became an advocate with the Story County Rape Crisis and Advocacy Center, now known as Assault Care Center Extending Shelter and Services, a victim service agency in Ames.

Schipper became the executive director of ACCESS, advocating, organizing and establishing the agency's first shelter for survivors of violent crime seeking safety and support outside of their homes.

In 1993, Schipper was made executive director of the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the state’s leading agency to prevent intimate partner violence. For 27 years, her leadership helped the agency grow to a membership of 23 direct service providers with more than 350 advocates that serve all 99 Iowa counties.

In the 1995 case of State v. Griffin, she became Iowa’s first domestic violence advocate to serve as an expert witness in the trial of a domestic violence survivor, setting the legal precedent in the state for advocates who support victims of violent crimes to be seen as experts in trials moving forward.

Schipper has used her position and expertise to create programming and to encourage new partnerships that fill in critical service gaps for underserved groups. This includes hosting one of the state’s first AmeriCorps programs focused on housing and economic justice, coordinating MUNA Legal Clinic to support undocumented survivors and to apply for immigration remedies at the first opportunity and organizing the Leadership Institute for Tomorrow, a program to mentor and support leaders in the Black community.

She also had the organization serve as an incubator for two culturally-specific victim advocacy programs supporting the Latinx and hard of hearing communities that are now their own nonprofit organizations – LUNA and Deaf Iowans Against Abuse, now known as Thrive Together.

In 2013, Schipper spearheaded efforts to change Iowa’s model of service delivery from shelter to Housing First, a survivor-centered plan that removes barriers such as transportation, emergency shelter, advocacy and legal assistance for victims.

She resigned from the position in 2020, stating in her resignation letter that she wanted to step aside to make room for a woman of color in the leadership position. Schipper currently works for Galvanize USA, a national women’s empowerment and voter engagement organization.

"I'm so grateful for the privilege of having a meaningful purpose in life, one that I hope makes all our lives a little safer, but especially for my kids and my grandchildren," Schipper said. "For me, there is no greater gift than to lead a life with purpose."

Schipper is one of two Des Moines women joining the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame this year. 

"Induction into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame is truly an honor and gives me such a unique platform to thank my family, friends, co-workers, and colleagues for supporting me and my work," Schipper said. "Without the important work of so many courageous, risk-taking women who came before me, I would not have had these gifts and opportunities in my life."

Mary Elaine Richards, Ames

Hall of Fame honoree Mary Richards was born Feb. 21, 1936, in Butler, Ohio. She earned her bachelor's in education at Ohio University and married Bob Richards before earning her master's degree in special education from Wayne State University.

"My interest in inequities and the inequities of our political system and our economic system really started when I was teaching in a school system that had lots of children coming out of homes that were not blessed by middle class advantages," Richards said.

She learned about state government through her involvement in the League of Women Voters while living in Michigan and was soon a volunteer lobbyist at the Michigan statehouse. When Richards found out that the wife of one of her husband's colleagues referred to the League of Women Voters as "meddling housewives," it ignited her desire to attend law school.

"I told my husband if I was going to meddle, I think I would like to meddle with some clout. I think I'd like to go to law school," Richards said. "And my husband encouraged me to do that. But you know how you think, 'Oh, that would be a good idea,' but you never get around to it? One year, he wrote the Christmas letter, and in the Christmas letter, he said 'Mary is going to go to law school.' So then it was fish or cut bait."

In 1969, the family moved to rural Story County, Iowa. Richards commuted long hours from Story County to Ames and Des Moines completing school work as part of a dual degree program with Iowa State University and Drake University, along with being an active volunteer in the community and a mother.

She earned a master's degree in political science from Iowa State University and a law degree from Drake University. Richards was soon hired to work for the Iowa Legislative Services Bureau where she was assigned to staff a study committee revising the Iowa juvenile code.

Richards' work with youth caught Story County Attorney Ruth Harkin’s attention, and Harkin invited her to become assistant county attorney with a focus on vulnerable youth and justice. When Harkin retired in 1980, Richards was elected Story County attorney, a position she held for 16 years.

At a time when female prosecutors were uncommon, Richards took the reins, expanding the county attorney position to full time and adding several assistant positions, including victim witness staff.

"I really never felt any inequality in the way I was treated among my contemporary students, whereas I did notice it with older judges. Certainly not with every judge, but with some older judges," Richards said. "There was one judge I remember who insisted that women could not wear pants in his courtroom. And there were people who just didn't feel that women could be competent."

That never stopped Richards. She was active in the state and national association of county attorneys. In Iowa, she was the first woman president of the Iowa Association of County Attorneys. She was also selected to serve on committees of the National Association of Counties.

Richards retired as county attorney in 2000. She was recruited to work for Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, a job that built on her knowledge and experience working with young people, specifically teenage girls. After returning to Ames, she worked for a short time at Youth and Shelter Services in their Passages program, again with young women.

She is active in groups such as the League of Women Voters of Iowa Sentencing Reform Committee, KHOI community radio, Good Company women's vocal ensemble, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship outreach and support programs for vulnerable populations.

Iowa State Attorney Tom Miller appointed her to the twelve-member Iowa Natural Resources Climate Action Rate Assessment Board in 2022. Now, she will join other Iowa women leaders in the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame.

"I'm humbled when I look at the kind of people who were already in the Hall of Fame," Richards said.

Mary Swander, Kalona

Honoree Mary Swander was born on November 5, 1950, in Carroll. Her mother’s family had fled the Irish potato famine and made their home near Manning, Iowa.

Swander graduated from Davenport Central High School and then from Georgetown University in 1972. She earned her master's through the Iowa Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa, one of the most selective creative writing programs in the country.

She taught at Iowa State University for 30 years, reaching the title of Distinguished Professor. She was the Poet Laureate of Iowa from 2009-2019.

Swander is the co-founder and executive director of AgArts in Kalona, a non-profit that promotes healthy food systems through the arts. She is the host of the podcast "AgArts from Horse & Buggy Land."

"Your health depends on the way you eat. So for the survival of the human race, we need to know about agriculture," Swander said. "Agriculture is responsible for I think 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions right now. And we could not only address that, bring that level down, but also sequester carbon in the soil. So we could actually address climate change."

She has established residencies for artists on farms across Iowa and around the country, and she has hosted numerous international artists, touring them throughout the state.

"I take donations, write grants and put artists on farms in residencies from two weeks to a month," Swander said. "Then they do projects that reflect the agricultural issues of farmers. They get to know the farmers and what it's like trying to run a farm in this day and age. So they learn a lot. I mean, the artists are usually two to three to four generations removed from the farm."

Swander is also the artistic director of her namesake Swander Woman Productions, a theater troupe that tours the country performing around the themes of food, farming and the rural environment. She has written and produced plays like Farmscape, Vang, and Map of my Kingdom, which tackle topics such as the farm crisis, immigrant farmers and farmland transition.

"Agriculture has been the lifeblood of this state, and it fuels our economy," Swander said. "I think we could learn the deep history of that."

Swander has also given readings, workshops, retreats, keynote lectures, academic papers and panel presentations in the U.S. and abroad, from Harvard Law School to the University of Warwick.

She has won many awards, including a Whiting Award from The Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation in 1994, a National Endowment for the Arts grant for literary arts in 1986, two Ingram Merrill Awards in 1980 and 1986, and the Carl Sandburg Literary Award from The Chicago Public Library in 1981.

She lives in an old Amish schoolhouse, raises geese and goats and tends to a large organic garden. Swander, who has previously lived in cities, prefers the community and connection of small-town rural Iowa.

"I just have a little office in downtown Kalona. I drive down there and pull up in front of my door. I call up the hardware store, the general store, the pharmacy and grocery store and put my order in, give them my credit card and tell them my car's open," Swander said. "They come and they put all the packages in my car and at the end of the day, I drive home. It's safe enough I could just leave it (the car) open. It's hilarious."

Swander felt honored to be nominated to the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame alongside "pretty remarkable" women, she said.

"It was really a very nice surprise," Swander said. "Especially when you look at the list of all the other women. I'd love to have all those women in one room, that would be quite amazing."

Visit agarts.org or find "AgArts from Horse & Buggy Land" anywhere podcasts are streamed to learn more about Swander's work in Iowa.

Ako Abdul-Samad, Des Moines

Cristine Wilson Medal of Equality & Justice recipient Ako Abdul-Samad was born and raised in Des Moines. He graduated from Des Moines Technical High School in 1969, a time of protest, change and social movement.

Abdul-Samad, with the Des Moines Black Panther Party, started the first free breakfast program for children in Des Moines in 1968. He eventually became the Des Moines Black Panther Party's lieutenant for distribution, offering goods and services to African American community members in need.

In a June 2020 Register interview, Abdul-Samad described being shaken to his core in 1997 when his only son, Ako White Abdul-Samad, affectionately called Little Ako, was accidentally fatally shot by a friend who was grandstanding with a handgun.

The young man who shot Abdul-Samad's son received threats from friends and associates of Little Ako. After prayer and reflection on his son's legacy, Abdul-Samad took the young man who shot his son into his home for weeks until a place in a safe house opened for him.

Abdul-Samad founded Creative Visions Human Development Institute in 1996, which focused on providing educational opportunities to address the rampant use of drugs, gang violence and crime involving at-risk youth. However, he knew these were only symptoms of a greater problem, and a long-term solution would require a comprehensive approach that involved the individual, family and community.

Creative Visions soon expanded its efforts to include programs to help stabilize families, empower communities, deal with the effects of violence and racism and bring joy to the community. Today, Creative Visions has helped thousands of individuals through its core program of services.

Abdul-Samad was elected to the Des Moines School Board in 2003 and served as vice president. He co-founded and coordinated the YMCA Downtown Teen Program. He serves as vice president of the Center for the Study and Application of Black Economic Development.

He co-founded the first Black student union in the state of Iowa, and authored the book "The Deeper Truth: Revelations of the Soul." Abdul-Samad has received numerous awards for his leadership, including awards from National Association of Social Workers Iowa in 2020, the Community Outreach Achievement Award in 2018, the Interfaith Alliance Community Advocacy Award in 2016 and the National Caring Award in 2004.

Abdul-Samad has served the people of House District 35 in the Iowa House of Representatives since 2007. He currently serves on the Agriculture, Environmental Protection, Public Safety and International Relations Committees and the Administration and Regulation Appropriations Subcommittee. He has worked on issues such as disproportionate incarceration rates of African Americans, racial profiling in policing and equality in education, housing and employment.

Grace Altenhofen is a news reporter for the Des Moines Register. She can be reached at galtenhofen@registermedia.com or on Twitter @gracealtenhofen.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Two Des Moines women to be inducted into Iowa Women's Hall of Fame