By Haleigh Ehmsen-

Stephen Bloom’s editorial “Observations from 20 years of Iowa Life” has had many students talking around the school and in classes.

Bloom said, “Good journalism is making observations, even if readers might not agree with those observations.”And Bloom certainly has made some observations during his time living in Iowa. Some of them may be true, like yes Iowa is a rural state so there are farms and people drive trucks, but it’s quite ridiculous to say that “it’s not unusual to take a date to a Tractor Pull or to a Combine Demolition Derby”. I can honestly say that it is unusual for many Iowans to spend their Friday nights doing this. And no, the state is not all about fishing, hunting and the Hawkeyes.

Bloom stereotypes Iowans as “elderly waiting to die, those too mind (or lacking in education) to peer around the bend for better opportunities, an assortment of waste-toids and meth addicts with pale skin and rotted teeth, or those who quixotically believe, like Little Orphan Annie, that ‘The sun’ll come out tomorrow’”. It’s upsetting that someone who has lived in the area and teaches at the University of Iowa, a diverse community, would fail to rise above these stereotypes in his writing, when there is no doubt he has encountered many different types of people in Iowa.

However, I do agree with Bloom when he says that the state’s greatest export is young adults. Iowa has more high school graduates than 49 other states.  That’s something to be proud of. Bloom says that after young Iowans are educated, they leave Iowa. This doesn’t mean Iowa is a terrible place to live. It means that Iowa is helping to educate and develop its young people. Parents don’t raise their children to live with them for the rest of their lives; they raise their children to grow. People can’t stay in one place their whole lives and expect to be educated fully. To do that, one must seek out education and have other experiences.

So what’s the big deal if people in Iowa like hunting, Jesus, NASCAR, and have farmer’s tans? Those people don’t define Iowa as a whole. Bloom makes his readers think that all Iowans are unemployed hillbillies who shop only at the local Wal-Mart.

I think that Iowa is doing some great things with its young people and that is certainly respectable.