The Iowa Commission on the Status of Women will induct Kalona resident Mary Swander into the Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame on August 27 in Des Moines. 

Established in 1975, the Women’s Hall of Fame aims to recognize the contributions of women, pay tribute to them, and showcase them as role models for others.  Each year a committee comprised of three commissioners, the chair of the commission, and two public members selects four women for this honor. 

Swander will join 191 distinguished members, including actress and humanitarian Donna Reed of Denison; women’s advocate and first lady Lou Henry Hoover of Waterloo; and rural farming pioneer Denise O’Brien of Atlantic.

“It’s a huge honor,” Swander said.  “I’m in awe of all of the women who are on there.”

Her career accomplishments are many and varied: former Poet Laureate of Iowa (2009- 2019); emerita Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Iowa State University; award-winning author; Artistic Director of Swander Woman Productions theatre troupe; and Executive Director of AgArts nonprofit are but a few.

The person behind the accolades is a warmly human organic gardener who lives in a small home in the Amish countryside with her pup, Banjo.  Like many successful individuals, the strengths she has developed as an adult grew out of difficulties she experienced as a child.

“I was one of those selective mutism type kids who were so shy they wouldn’t talk in school.  We lived in Western Iowa in a little town, and we moved to the Quad Cities.  It just threw me into this much bigger city, school, everything,” she recounts.  “I was in second grade, and the teacher called my mother, and she was like, ‘This kid is obviously very intelligent, but she just won’t open her mouth.’”

Having been diagnosed with a problem, the school offered a solution: Swander was to join a children’s theater group.

“They threw me into that, and I was just absolutely terrified, and I was horrible at it.  I fell off the stage, all this stuff.  And the other kids there were like, ‘Boo, she’s no good.  Take her off.  We don’t want her doing that part.’  And I was like, of course not, who would?”

But what began as torture became therapy, and that therapy orientated her toward what would become her passion: playwriting and voice acting. 

Now retired from decades of university teaching, her touring theater group sidelined by Covid, Swander is channeling her passion into her podcast.  She records AgArts from Horse and Buggy Land from the sound booth in her storefront office in downtown Kalona.

“It’s kind of like A Prairie Home Companion, where I’ve made up a town, and it’s based on Kalona. A lot of the podcasts are funny,” Swander explains. 

“My original idea was that I was going to have office hours, and people could come in and tell me a story, and then I put them on the podcast.  I [would] take the best ones and then get them in the sound booth and they could tell their own story.”

Covid complicated those plans; however, Swander has found a workaround. 

“Now I’ve got the technology where they don’t have to come into the booth.  I can set them up on an app on their phone and record them from a distance.”

In the two seasons of her podcast, Swander has talked to farmers and writers, immigrants, and musicians.  Bad poetry and good recipes always have a place.  She has developed a set of voices so that even if she is the only one in the sound booth, her episodes feature a cast of characters. 

Her love of rural Iowa’s people and places is evident, even as she has fun with it. 

“I used to lie awake at night [thinking] when I grow up, I’m going to have a little acreage, I’m going to have sheep and goats.  I’m going to have a big garden.  And then I would think, yeah, but I would really like to be in the theater.  And then I was like, you can’t do both of those things because theaters are in a city.  But now I’ve got the perfect blend of it.”

Swander’s podcast recording studio is not currently open to the public, but she encourages local folks with stories to tell to call (319) 936-0187. 

Listen to her podcast at maryswander.com/podcasts.