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Remembering Iowans Who Passed Away in 2018

JOHN PEMBLE / IOWA PUBLIC RADIO
Cyclists traveling from Council Bluffs to Harlan on the first day of RAGBRAI XLI

In 2018, we said goodbye to a number of remarkable Iowans. On this edition of River to River, we remember them by looking back at their lives, listening to excerpts of interviews and speaking to people who knew them well.

We remember syndicated columnist and RAGBRAI cofounder Donald Kaul, Iowa’s longest-serving Iowa Supreme Court Justice Jerry Larson, civil rights and education advocate Betty Jean Furgerson, former U.S. Congressman Leonard Boswell, editorial writer Gil Cranberg, former Iowa Public Television leader Dan Miller, disability advocate Tom Walz, and teacher David Twombley, who was one of the plaintiffs in Varnum v. Brien, the Iowa Supreme Court case that brought same-sex marriage to Iowa.

Of course, there were many other notable Iowans who passed away in 2018, like former Iowa Gov. Robert Ray. Hear a remembrance of Gov. Ray as part of a discussion on political civility from July of last year.

You can listen to a discussion of the life of long time Iowa broadcaster and public radio pioneer, Don Forsling, from last February.

Hear civil rights activist Donna Red Wing discuss civility in this 2015 conversation.She passed away in April of 2018.

And Kay Kramer, husband of IPR board member Mary Kramer, passed in November.

If you know someone who died last year and would like to share a remembrance, we would invite you to do that on IPR's Facebook page: 

Ben Kieffer is the host of IPR's River to River