The Honorable Ruth B. Klotz

Residence: Des Moines, Iowa

Born November 10, 1922, in Mason City, Iowa, Ruth Klotz grew up in her grandparent’s home while her mother and grandfather worked to support the family. At the age of 17, she graduated high school in her hometown of Iowa Falls and then worked her way through Ellsworth Junior College. In 1942, she moved to Des Moines and, as she later put it, “started working.” She worked several clerical jobs including serving as the secretary for American Institute of Business (AIB) President E.O. Fenton and for the state of Iowa. In 1952, she was admitted to Drake Law School while she continued to work part time. She graduated from Drake Law School in 1955 as the only female graduate that year. Just prior to graduation, she was suddenly widowed while eight months pregnant, but she still managed to graduate on time and at the top of her class. While in law school, she was elected to the Order of the Coif and was the Assistant Editor for the Drake Law Review.

Judge Klotz served as Special Counsel to the Iowa Department of Revenue, worked in private practice, and as a trust officer and assistant vice president to a large local bank. In 1978, she was appointed as probate referee for the Fifth Judicial District, and eventually became associate judge for probate. Throughout her 34 years on the bench, she sponsored judicial interns and was an instructor at Drake Law School.

An active participant since 1955 in the Des Moines chapter of Soroptimist International, a service club for women, she served as president of Soroptimist of the Americas from 1974 to 1976. As president during the International Women’s Year, she initiated the Women Helping Women program which has since grown to become the mission of the group as an organization dedicated to improving the lives of women and girls through programs leading to social and economic empowerment.

She was named Drake Law School’s Alumna of the year in 1999 and received a Recognition of Lifetime of Service award from the Polk County Bar Association that same year. She was given the Women of Distinction Award from Soroptimist International in 2000. In 2004, she was given a Commendation of Distinguished Service from the Iowa Supreme Court and the Arabella Mansfield Award from the Iowa Organization of Women Attorneys. She was the recipient of the Willie Glanton Award from the Polk County Women Attorneys in 2013.

In 2013, she retired from the bench at the age of 90. She is active in her church, serving as the treasurer for the Plymouth Church Foundation for over 30 years. She continues to be an active member of Soroptimist International.

Mona Kadel Martin 

Residence: Davenport, Iowa

Mona Lea Kadel Martin was born on October 22, 1934, in Taylor Ridge, Illinois, and has been a resident of Davenport, Iowa, since 1959. She received a B.S. in 1956 from Western Illinois State College in Macomb, Illinois, and did graduate work at both Iowa State University and the University of Iowa.

In her personal life, Mona became a feminist in 1956 when she was fired while working as a reporter for the Rock Island Argus in Rock Island, Illinois. When Mona told the newspaper editor that she was expecting a baby, he fired her saying, “The City Room is no place for a pregnant woman.” She spent the rest of her career advocating and working on behalf of women who faced similar challenges.

Throughout her life, Mona’s career has encompassed work as a newspaper reporter, biology/earth science teacher, community leader, and state legislator, serving in the Iowa House of Representatives from 1993 to 2001. Mona has also served as president of the League of Women Voters of Iowa and on numerous national advisory panels for the League of Women Voters U.S.  Mona was named to leadership roles in the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) where she chaired the 198-member Committee on Children, Families and Health, and represented NCSL at national forums and at several conclaves in Germany. From 1986 to 1990, Mona served as President of the Iowa Chapter, United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA). She was appointed to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Consumer Affairs Advisory Committee which she chaired from 1979 - 1981.

As a state legislator, Mona went against insurance companies in 1996 when she pushed the “Maternity Stay” bill through the legislature, securing the Governor’s signature. The law improved the lives of women and newborns by stopping “drive-by deliveries.” Mona was lauded by colleagues from across the nation for leadership in orchestrating this change, which became a model for the national law. Beginning in 1997, Mona pushed through reforms aimed at safeguarding Iowa’s older citizens from abuse and neglect in nursing homes. The final reform was her foresighted bill consolidating the state’s six criminal and abuse registries into a single database, an achievement which garnered the State of Iowa the Smithsonian National Museum’s prestigious Laureate Award for Technology Innovation in 2000. As a legislator, Mona also scuttled a movement to sunset the Iowa Department of Human Rights and the Iowa Commission on the Status of Women in 1997 when a male legislator disliked the Department because “there was no Commission on the Status of Men.” Mona sponsored and floor-managed the Equal Rights Amendment to Iowa’s Constitution and was instrumental in the amendment’s passage in 1998. In 2000, Mona was the chief House sponsor and floor manager of the “Pill Bill,” a measure requiring insurance companies to provide coverage for prescription contraceptive drugs, devices and services.

In all of her endeavors, Mona has touched people’s lives – motivating, inspiring, advocating and striving to make her community, the state of Iowa and the nation a better place.

Ione Genevieve Shadduck, PhD 

Residence: West Des Moines, Iowa

Ione Genevieve Shadduck was born on October 28, 1923, in Mattoon, Wisconsin, and has four older half siblings. She grew up on an 80-acre farm attending a one-room school (a two-mile walk) that had grades 1-8. In her first job at an electric company, she experienced her first discrimination as a woman when she requested equal pay and was refused. She quit and became a "Rosie the Riveter" as a tester of steel drums. When World War II ended, so did that job. Being bored with secretarial work, she wanted to serve her country, so she joined the Women's Army Corps in May 1949 and served during the Korean conflict. Under the GI Bill, Ione pursued her BS degree at the University of Wisconsin, majoring in Physical Education. This was the beginning of her advocacy efforts of fighting for women athletes to be able to compete in sports, travel to other colleges, mix their teams, and just have fun under the "Women's Recreational Association" program. After a few years of teaching, she decided to pursue her master’s degree and then her PhD at Michigan State University. Ever mindful of the imbalance of opportunities, she noted that the best assistantships went to male students.

As Ione was completing her PhD, she was recruited by Drake University to head the Women's Physical Education Program. She soon encountered the tradition of the girls’ basketball program in Iowa, which was celebrated by sold-out crowds in Vets Auditorium. As Iowa and Oklahoma were the only states that still played six-player (half court) basketball, Ione knew that Iowa players would be at a disadvantage and did not have the necessary experience in the five-player game to compete for scholarships to play at the college level.  She was one of the professionals that lobbied and advocated for the transition to five-player girls basketball in Iowa.

As structural changes were taking place at Drake related to her program, Ione worked with leaders to create a coordinated program for which she was trained and wanted to lead. This ended as another experience in which a male was then given the position. She decided to file a discrimination complaint against the university, redirected her focus and at the encouragement of a member of the law school staff, she enrolled in Drake Law School. The female law students in her class experienced resentment from male students who were fighting for the slots the women filled in the quota system.  She passed the Iowa Bar exam the first time she took it in January 1977 and prepared to embark on a new career.

Ione initiated the practice of hiring expert witnesses on economics to testify on the value of the economic contribution of a homemaker to a marriage in divorce cases. Eventually, others began to see the value of this type of testimony. During her years as an attorney, she appeared before the Iowa Supreme Court on a 1983 case that set the precedent on joint custody. Her argument for joint custody based on the need for the child to continue contact with the mother and father was in the "best interest of the child."

As more women became attorneys, Ione decided they needed to organize, support women's role in law, and help promote women attorneys. She was a founding member of the Iowa Women Attorneys Association. Additionally as an attorney, she served for 12 years at the Iowa Civil Rights Commission. She was a member of the Governor's committee to remove sexism from the Iowa Code. She also served many communities as Administrative Law Judge. Ione represented Iowa in the National Women's Political Caucus prior to its first organizational meeting in Houston, Texas. She was a founding member of the Iowa Women's Political Caucus and was a leader in the Older Women's League. Her political efforts included a run for the Iowa legislature in 1980.

Florine Mary Schulte Swanson 

Residence: Galt, Iowa

Florine Mary Schulte Swanson was born on September 26, 1942, in Cedar Rapids and grew up on a farm outside of Norway, Iowa. Throughout her youth, Florine was very active in her local 4-H club and in various leadership capacities as a student at Iowa State University where Florine graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Home Economics Education in August 1964. She then married Ronald Swanson and found herself back on the farm in Wright County, Iowa, where they raised three sons.

Her professional career restarted when her children went to college. She started as a program assistant at Iowa State University with Women in Science and Engineering in 1986. In that position, she developed the prototype for the first “Taking the Road Less Traveled” career day for girls on the campus of Iowa State University.  She also established the first data bank of professional women in science and engineering in Iowa. Her next career change took her back to her 4-H roots when she became Executive Director of the Iowa 4-H Foundation where she previously served as a trustee for eleven years.  Her responsibilities included the coordination of a 40-member board. She was the director from 1987 to 2005. The organization went from being nearly bankrupt to an annual budget of nearly two million dollars and increased assets seven-fold.  Her fundraising experience increased the database from a couple hundred individuals to over 25,000 individuals. This increased fund raising base allowed 4-H to continue offering camping and educational programs to young people in Iowa as well as awarding over $100,000 in college scholarships annually to former 4-H’ers.

As a volunteer, she has been very active and committed to the American Association of University Women (AAUW). She joined her local branch over 50 years ago and served in many of the local elected offices, including three times as branch president. Her demonstrated leadership skills resulted in her serving on the Iowa board for 15 years which included being elected President of the Iowa board in 1984-86. She moved to the national level of AAUW as chair of the Research and Projects Committee. She continued her commitment to helping women by serving on the board of AAUW Educational Foundation, as the Upper Midwest Regional Director, and on the AAUW Association board. Her fundraising skills were put to good use as she chaired two major national gift campaigns for AAUW, including the Founding Leader’s Campaign and Breaking through Barriers Campaign.

Florine’s international leadership roles include serving on the Board of Directors of the Virginia Gildersleeve International Fund (VGIF). In 2006, Florine was elected as the founding president of Graduate Women-USA, an affiliate of Graduate Women International (GWI). She promoted women through GWI as she participated in the Base Camp for Women in Developing Countries at the 1998 Conference in Austria and as a voting delegate to the Mexico conference in 2012. Her work in the U.S. has included serving at the U.N. Commission of the Status of Women Conference as a GWI delegate and giving a workshop on Women in Agriculture in 2012.

In 2010 Drexel University selected Florine as one of two women delegates from Iowa for Vision 2020. Each delegate was to select a project on equity for women. In collaboration with Phyllis Peters, former Chair of the Iowa Commission on the Status of Women, it was determined that the Friends of the Commission would fund a graduate student at the Carrie Chapman Catt Center at Iowa State University to create a base line on the number of counties and cities in Iowa who had gender equity in all key appointed boards and commissions. Since then the data has been gathered several times. After each update, Florine visited those county boards of supervisors (7) and city councils (over 30) that achieved the goal of gender equity. She presented certificates of recognition, press releases, and did radio and newspaper interviews to highlight these governments achieving gender equity. Her project was highlighted at the National Conference of Vision 2020 in Portland.

Mary Beth Tinker

Residence: Washington, D.C.

Mary Beth Tinker was born on September 8, 1952, and grew up in Iowa. Her father was a Methodist minister, and the family also became involved with the Friends (Quakers). Her parents believed that religious ideals should be put into action, and the whole family became involved in the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Mary Beth grew up believing in equality and the importance of advocating and taking action when you see inequality. One of Mary Beth’s early memories is of her parents going to Ruleville, Mississippi, in 1964 as part of Freedom Summer, an effort organized by Robert Moses and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to register African Americans to vote.

As a 13-year-old student in eighth grade at Harding Junior High School in Des Moines, Mary Beth was strongly affected by news of the war. She and her brothers and sisters, along with other students in Des Moines, decided to wear black armbands to school on December 16, 1965, to mourn the dead on both sides of the Vietnam War. They intended to wear them until January 1, 1966. The armbands were also in support of a Christmas truce called by Senator Robert Kennedy that year. During a meeting for Des Moines School District principals on December 14, 1965, a policy was adopted that required all students wearing armbands in school to remove them. In this meeting, the principals agreed that students were to be suspended if they disagreed. Many of the students who wore them were suspended, including John Tinker, Mary Beth Tinker, Chris Eckhardt, Ross Peterson, Bruce Clark and Chris Singer. After being suspended, the Tinker family received many threats. This included having red paint thrown at their house, receiving death threat calls and hate mail.

At a January 3, 1966 meeting, the school board voted 5-2 to uphold the principals' ban. On March 14, 1966, the Iowa Civil Liberties Union filed a formal complaint on behalf of Christopher Eckhardt, John Tinker, his sister Mary Beth, and their fathers in the U. S. District Court of the Southern District of Iowa. The District Court dismissed the complaint and upheld the constitutionality of the school actions, on the basis that the students disturbed learning in their schools. After that, the justices for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit were split, leaving the District Court ruling standing. The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court on November 12, 1968. In 1969, the Court ruled in a landmark decision that students in public schools do have First Amendment rights.

In 2000, the Marshall-Brennan Project at Washington College of Law at American University named its annual youth advocacy award after Mary Beth. In 2013, Mary Beth embarked on a tour across the United States to speak about student rights. During this time, she spoke to more than 20,000 students. Mary Beth continues to educate young people about their rights, speaking frequently to student groups across the country. She is an advocate for the rights of youth, particularly in the areas of health, education, and journalism. She is a retired pediatric nurse and holds master’s degrees in public health and nursing.