Iowa: Part 4 of a 6 six part series

What I learned about Iowa Arts and Literature:

1. Iowans read more books per capita than how many other states?

49. By the time you finish reading this post 64 Iowans will have completed A Thousand Acres and will be sitting in quiet contemplation. That's a fact. Prove me wrong.

2. What kick-ass character/cultural icon did Iowa City author David Morrell create?

Rambo.

3. Who can claim the moniker “Mr. History of Iowa” and has an auditorium named after him in the library to prove it?

Benjamin Shambaugh. The George Washington of Iowa. He established the department of political science at the U of I.

4. As of 2001 the U of I had produced how many Pulitzer Prize Winners?

Thirteen. At least that’s what the trivia book says. I prefer to use this site's statistics, which claim that there have been more than 40 Pulitzer Prize winners with ties to the University of Iowa.

5. Who was the Cedar Rapids poet who established the International Writing Program and served as director of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop?

Paul Engle.

Bonus: The Dey House, home of the Writer's Workshop, is one of the images above. Can you guess which one? (Hint: It's holding an M-16).

6. What former journalist for the Waterloo Courier refused a Pulitzer Prize in 1926?

Sinclair Lewis. I wasn’t aware of his Iowa connection. I guess that explains why Grant Wood illustrated his book Main Street.

7. What internationally renowned journalist was from Greenfield, the same birthplace as (Iowa's only V.P.) Henry A. Wallace?

Hugh Sidey. Is there something in the water there that produces brilliant successes?

8. Mark Twain believed the sunsets in what Iowa town were without equal?

Muscatine.

9. What percentage of Iowans can read and write?

99%. It is the highest in the nation. Take that Wisconsin. I pity your measly 98.9% literacy rate.

10. What publication out of Des Moines is the third largest paid circulation magazine in the United States?

Better Homes and Gardens. It comes in behind TV Guide and Reader’s Digest. Glad to see that Americans are so focused on important things.

11. How many different editions of the Des Moines Register are printed daily?

Three. This explains the mystery of RAGBRAI ‘98, when a friend of mine was quoted by Chuck Offenburger because it was her birthday. We read it in one paper in the west of Iowa, but when we got home to clip it out it was nowhere to be found.

11. What is the state’s oldest continuing newspaper?

The Hawk Eye (Burlington)

12. What is that state’s song?

The Song of Iowa. A nickel for anyone who can successfully sing this song. Shouldn’t there be some sort of campaign to change our song to Greg Brown’s “the Iowa Waltz?” Consider that campaign officially started.

13. Iowa’s oldest continually running theatre?

Story City. And they already have the only operating antique carousel. What luck!

14. Iowa’s first poet laureate?

Marvin Bell. Appointed 2000. The headline that day in the Register: For Whom the Bell Tolls (not really true.)

Schoools

Simon Estes—Centerville and University of Iowa

Tennessee Williams—U of I

Herbie Hancock—Grinnell College

James A. Michener—U of I

Jane Smiley —U of I

Donald Justice —U of I

Towns

Rockford—Robert James Waller

Cedar Rapids – Carl Van Vechten (first American critic of modern dance while writing for the New York Times)

Burr Oak—Laura Ingalls Wilder (resident in a hotel from 1876-1877)

Sioux City—Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren

Lake Mills—Wallace Stegner (Pulitzer Prize for Angle of Repose, known as the “Dean of Western Writers")