When he ran up behind her on a track three years ago, the first thing Capt. Ricks Polk noticed about Leah Vander Boon was her form.

“She ran awkwardly,” he said. “I thought, ‘I gotta help her.’ She’s wasting a lot of energy running awkwardly."

What the commanding officer of Iowa State Navy ROTC now notices about her is the determination that got her through the program, the leadership that she developed and the Marine that she became.

Vander Boon, senior in communication studies and Marine option NROTC midshipman, will commission as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps on May 9. She will be the second female midshipman from Iowa State to commission as a Marine.

The post-Pearl Harbor Executive Order 9066 forced more than 120,000 Japanese immigrants and families from the West Coast into exclusionary internment camps. Approximately 33,000 patriotic Japanese Americans still volunteered to serve in the United States military. Seeing stereotypical mistakes of the past helps avoid repeating them, a professor says.

A Japanese-American soldier dozed off in the passenger seat of a doorless medical jeep on an overnight transport during World War II. Fearing the soldier would lean too far and fall out, the sergeant driving tied rope around him to keep him in the vehicle.

“Doc, we need you,” the sergeant said. “So we’re going to take really good care of you.”

A few years earlier, Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941.

“Almost immediately, nobody liked Japanese people,” said Niel Nakadate, professor emeritus of English. Nakadate’s father was the soldier whose sergeant roped him in to save his life.

The view that Asians were a danger to the western civilizations and the United States, “Yellow Peril,” had swept the West Coast. More than 120,000 Japanese immigrants and descendants were sent to desolate internment camps. Hostility toward Japanese Americans ran high in the U.S. Despite all of this, an outpouring of American patriotism emerged from the community and 33,000 Japanese Americans joined the U.S. military.

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Stephen Grayum supported his sister’s competitive dancing for 15 years from the stands at every competition she had. On May 22, the roles were reversed.

All eyes were on the Ames resident and proud Special Olympics athlete as he ran around the upper deck of a darkened Hilton Coliseum, down the stairs onto the court, through a tunnel of uniformed men from the Knights of Columbus and onto the stage.  

With a lit torch in hand and in the beam of a spotlight, he passed the flame to the larger torch to conclude the opening ceremonies and ring in the 2014 Special Olympics Summer Games...

Friday, April 18, 2014

Design on Main comes alive at 1:15 p.m. every Monday, Wednesday and Friday as College of Design students begin to arrive at the studio. Surrounded by detailed sketches of pubs, restaurants, coffee shops, bike trails and breweries, students develop their ideas of how to improve life in rural southwest Iowa.

These ideas are part of a multi-faceted effort from the Iowa Retail Initiative, which includes another project focused on branding and business strategy in Story County. The course doing this portion of Iowa Retail Initiative outreach, Design 546, is a senior-level studio option for design students...

Thursday, May 15, 2014

A typical Tuesday begins at 4:30 a.m. for Scott Thellman, senior in agricultural business. He begins his 270-mile drive back to Ames from Juniper Hill Farms, the farm that he runs in Lawrence, Kan., for a school day that will last from 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Certified organic vegetables were harvested and packaged the day before, and this day will be spent keeping constant communication with employees, vendors and customers to ensure that the delivery day runs smoothly...

Sunday, February 16, 2014

ISU alumna Connie Sievers has been selected to train for and run in the 2014 Nautica Malibu Triathlon as part of the CNN Fit Nation Team with Dr. Sanjay Gupta on Sept. 17.

Sievers, the health curriculum coordinator for Des Moines Public Schools, hopes her experience will inspire people to keep moving every day.

The Fit Nation team is made up of six individuals chosen based on a video submission explaining why it is time for them to make a change to a healthy lifestyle. They receive training and education from CNN.

Sievers’ struggle with weight began 19 years ago when her daughter, Emily, was undergoing leukemia treatment. Emily died on Valentine’s Day 19 years ago at age six. Emotional strain led Sievers to depression and she gained 70 pounds between Emily’s relapse and her death. Her weight has fluctuated since then with emotional stress...