Julian's Journal

I am sure we all have heard of "Flat Stanley," the educational character that elementary school students send around the world for people to take pictures and send back to the students to teach them about geography. I personally have never received a "Flat Stanley," but I was lucky enough to receive a journal from a third grader in Oregon. The object of the exercise from young Julian Garcia was to write in the journal about your city or region, then send it to someone else. I received the journal from my college roommate Natalie Whittington in Maryland and then sent it on to Gina Jones in Tennessee. We all also sent postcards to Julian's teacher so they could keep up with where the journal travels.

Below is what I told Julian and his classmates about Dubuque and Iowa.

Dear Julian,

I feel so lucky to have received your journal and to have the opportunity to tell you about Dubuque, Iowa! I have just moved here from Murfreesboro, Tennessee so I am learning so much about Dubuque and Iowa and the Midwest myself!

First let me tell you about JULIAN Dubuque. He traveled up the Mississippi River and stopped along the bluffs in Iowa in order to mine lead. Lots of Indians and German immigrants all lived together along the river in order to get rich from the mines. Some of their houses still sit on top of the bluffs and look across the river where they can see Illinois. If they turn slightly left, or North, they can see Wisconsin. Dubuque sits right on the spot on the map where Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin all come together and where the Mississippi river makes a big turn to go up toward Minnesota.

I am a college professor at Loras College, which is a small Catholic College. It is the home of the first Catholic dioceses west of the Mississippi River.  It also has the longest continuously running theater group west of the Mississippi. They are called the Loras Players. I like teaching school in Iowa because the state has the highest literacy rate in the nation (99%).

I also volunteer at the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium. It is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institute. At the museum you can learn about how important rivers have always been to transportation, energy development and commerce in the United States. Dubuque is very proud of its part of the river! In fact we call ourselves “America’s River Town.”

While Dubuque is very much a river town and has huge bluffs, which makes it very hilly, if you travel just a mile outside of town, you get to the Iowa prairie, which is very, very flat and you can see for miles. Because there is nothing to stop it, the wind blows really hard sometimes! Most houses in Iowa have basements because we average 34 tornadoes annually!

There is a lot of farmland in Iowa. We grow lots of corn around here! Most of the corn Iowa produces goes to making Ethanol-a clean burning fuel for your car, recyclable “corn husk” plastics and farm animal feed. Actually, Iowa produces more corn, pork and soybeans than any other state in the country!

During presidential election season, lots and lots of politicians like to visit Iowa because of the Iowa caucus. Basically that just means neighbors get together and  talk about politics and presidential candidates. It marks the beginning of the big race to the presidency for most candidates. Politics have always been important in Iowa.  After the Civil War, Iowa was the first state to give the vote to African Americans.

Finally, there are lots of interesting people from Iowa.  President Herbert Hoover, who was the 31^st president of the United states is from Iowa, also Buffalo Bill Cody, a frontier scout and wild west showman; Grant Wood, who is a famous artist; and Ashton Kutcher, the movie star.

Thank you for sharing your journal with me! I am going to send your journal next to my friend Gina Jones, who lives in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, which is very close to Nashville, Music City U.S.A.!

Dr. Marcie Hinton