It’s Thursday, Dec. 14, 2023.

Hey folks, it’s Amie, and it’s once again time for only good news from Iowa!

This week:

• our marching bands are going metal 🤘
• our students are helping NASA land on the moon 🚀
• our farmers are fostering community 👨🏿‍🌾

Always more than enough to tell you about.

Let’s get to it!

1. Enter Marching Band 🎸

Grammy-winning, Hall-of-Fame thrash metal rockers Metallica are making marching band competitions cool for a whole new crowd.

In April, the band announced a marching band competition,

“For Whom the Band Tolls,” offering instruments and equipment music programs at high schools and colleges that play their music the best (the band also provided their extensive sheet music catalog for free).

And among all the college marching bands to enter, BOTH the Iowa State University Marching Band, and the University of Iowa’s Hawkeye Marching Band (with an assist from the Hawkeye Metal Band), are Top 5 Finalists. That puts both programs in line for a cool $75,000 worth of equipment!

Watch ISUMB’s performance here, and HMB’s performance (with amazing videography to boot!) here.

You can vote too! Even if neither wins, there’s also a “fan favorite” category, where bands with the most votes win $10,000. Vote by Dec. 31 by texting either #UIOWA or #UIOWASTATE to (833) 609-0330 (find out more here). Bad news: You can only vote for one!

2. Charting the moon from Iowa 🌙

NASA is planning to launch its Artemis III mission to land on the moon in 2025. And these Iowa teens could help them get there!

More than 100 middle and high school teams entered the NASA App Development Challenge to chart a path for astronauts to land on the moon’s South Pole region.

But only one team was from Iowa—a group of juniors and one sophomore from Des Moines North High School and Des Moines Virtual Campus. The deadline for submissions was this week. Now, they wait to see if they’re one of the top teams that will be invited to Johnson Space Center in April.

💬 “This project was definitely intimidating to attack, but it’s been a good learning experience. Not only have we learned so much, but it’s also been good for us as friends.”

~Champ-Pacifique Mukiza, DMNHS junior

Living miles away from their neighbors, farmers can feel isolated from one another.

That’s especially true for Black farmers in Iowa, who may number less than 100, or less than 1% of Iowa farmers, according to Census data.

That’s why Todd Western III, a fifth-generation Iowa farmer whose family owns what may be the only Black-owned Heritage Farm in Iowa, wants to bring together others like him in a new Iowa Farmers of Color Conference, happening this Saturday in Des Moines.

💬 “This is significant because it’s bringing together farmers of color who are scattered across the state to foster a sense of belonging and community.”

~Todd Western III

This is Riley and Cheez. You may remember Riley, featured in a previous Positively Iowa all wrapped up in a blanket. His family wanted to pupdate us to prove that Riley is no longer cold:

“I just wanted to let you know the fireplace is up and running, and both Riley and Cheez are legit freeloaders. It looks like they had too much to drink last night, but it’s just the pleasure of the heat!”

(Photo submitted by Donna W.)

Send me your pet’s photo here!

Copyright © 2023 Courier Newsroom. All rights reserved.

You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website.

Our mailing address is:
Courier Newsroom
611 Pennsylvania Ave SE
Washington, DC 20003-4303