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Evans: Iowans’ Wardrobes Don’t Need These Overalls

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This is a good week for Iowans to put away forever what a friend once called our “mental overalls.”
The label was his way of describing the tendency of Iowans to downplay the state’s importance in anything other than dirt-under-your-fingernails agriculture. Being a farmer certainly is nothing to be ashamed of. But my friend thought Iowans were programmed to automatically sit quietly and say nothing when contributions to the arts, or the sciences, or to business, medicine or humanity were being discussed nationally. In my friend’s thinking, Iowans spend too much time putting ourselves down and too little time applauding our achievements. Randy Evans
STRAY THOUGHTS
Randy Evans is the executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council.