Dorothy Schwieder, Senior Historian, University Professor Emerita of History, Iowa State University, was a member of the Iowa State University history faculty from 1966 to 2000, during which time she taught the History of Iowa course almost every semester. Dr. Schwieder taught in-service Iowa history courses to area public schools teachers and has presented hundreds of talks on Iowa history to groups throughout the state. She served on the board for the State Historical Society of Iowa for 18 years and on the Humanities Iowa Speakers Bureau for 15. She has written or co-authored 7 books on Iowa history, the most recent being Iowa: The Middle Land (Iowa State University Press, 1996).Gretchen… Van Houten, Executive Editor, has worked in the publishing industry from the early '80s in various capacities from proofreader to editorial director. She was the last Director at Iowa State University Press before it was sold to Blackwell Science, now Blackwell Publishing, Inc. She stayed on at Blackwell as editorial director overseeing a successful transition to commercial publishing and eventually became senior publisher for the agriculture list. In her years at Iowa State Press Ms. Van Houten worked in a developmental role with authors on numerous books about Iowa, many of them histories aimed at a general readership.