This letter is regarding the Stanford Marching Band’s performance at the Rose Bowl. The Stanford Marching Band needs significant education about Iowa, agriculture, and apparently about some of Stanford’s most prominent alumni. Iowa always has been and always will be proudly associated with feeding hundreds of millions of people, and there is nothing stupid or backward or dishonorable about that. If the band wanted to “satirize” Iowans associated with agriculture they should have acquired enough knowledge on the topic for their “satire” to possess humor. Perhaps the band should have started their agricultural education with small town Iowan Herbert Hoover.
Native Iowan Herbert Hoover was in Stanford’s inaugural class. Hoover is credited with saving millions of lives through the Commission for Relief in Belgium and in helping the United States preserve scarce food during World War I through the Food Administration. Band members, try to remember small town Iowan Herbert Hoover as you walk on campus near the Hoover Tower (or hear the bells), or past the official home of the president of Stanford – the Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover House, or maybe you will be fortunate to be able to attend a lecture from an internationally prominent speaker at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. President Hoover was born in a small two room cottage in West Branch, about 12 miles from the University of Iowa, and spent his early formative years there.
There are many other small town Iowans who spent their lives in agriculture. To develop a more complete understanding of small town Iowa agriculture, band members should become better educated on at least the following:
Small town Iowan Norman Borlaug is generally considered the “father of the green revolution”. He was a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, and the Padma Vibhushan. Dr. Borlaug was also the founder of the internationally prominent World Food Prize.
Besides being the most influential Secretary of Agriculture ever and Vice President, small town Iowan Henry A. Wallace founded Pioneer Seed, edited the family farm magazine (Wallace’s Farmer), started the first Agricultural Statistics Lab in the United States at Iowa State, and founded Hy-Line Poultry.
Immortalized for pioneering citizen diplomacy by hosting Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev at his small town Coon Rapids home, Roswell Garst was an international leader in many diverse areas of agriculture.
This is barely scratching the surface of the surface about Iowa and agriculture.
Stanford is one of the greatest universities in the world. The football team was exciting to watch, even as they pummeled the Hawkeyes. It pains me to understand why Stanford continues to allow such sophomoric behavior from one of its most public representatives, the marching band.
-Kevin Neal
Contact Kevin Neal at nealk1 ‘at’ gmail.com.