Kalona woman among honorees for 2022 Iowa Women's Hall of Fame

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 Mary Swander of Kalona, Elizabeth Cowles of Des Moines, Laurie Schipper of Des Moines and Mary Elaine Richards of Ames.

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.

More about Mary Swander of Kalona

Honoree Mary Swander was born on November 5, 1950, in Carroll, Iowa. 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.

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 Iowa City Press-Citizen: Kalona woman to be inducted into 2022 Iowa Women's Hall of Fame