Waterloo East High School students wrote the book on amazing women

WATERLOO — A book written by Waterloo East High School students about some of the city’s most inspirational women immediately sold out when it went on sale this year.

Twenty-two students in Lizzie Zondo’s women’s studies class wrote pages in the book — “Amazing Waterloo Women” — which names a person or group for every letter of the alphabet. The book started as a class project last year, but turned into a published book after several students wrote a grant to support its production.

The book is modeled after “Amazing Iowa Women,” a book written by Katy Swalwell. Travis Gratteau-Zinnel, the Waterloo district’s former fine arts instructional coach, planted the idea in Zondo’s brain.

“I have so many guest speakers who come into my history courses and share their stories,” Zondo said. “It was Travis’ idea. He said, ‘Well, why don’t you have your students write a book about these women?’ And I was like, that’s an amazing idea. And so that’s just what we did.”

The course, which was offered for two semesters, devoted one day each week to the book during class. Students in teacher Donavan Oberheu’s art club drew the women’s portraits for the book.

The class received a grant from the Waterloo Schools Foundation to fund the project. Four student leaders wrote the grant.

“We wanted this book to serve as a reminder for all the amazing women of Waterloo that your accomplishments are seen and that they’re heard,” said senior Carissa Julion. “Oftentimes, when we think about accomplishments of women, they’re typically in larger cities, and I think it’s very important to acknowledge them in smaller Midwestern towns like Waterloo.”

Featured in the book are: Anna Mae Weems, Barb Prather, Claudia Rivera, Belinda Creighton-Smith, Edita Begic, Lou Henry Hoover, Gina Weekley, the House of Hope, Bridget Reed Saffold, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Kylee Wilson, LaTanya Graves, Madelyn Ridgeway, Nia Wilder, Alleta Sullivan, LaMetta Wynn, Janet Longus, Ruby James Knight, ReShonda Young, Seema Arab Wilson, Vikki Brown, Willie Mae Wright, Haley Eckerman and Terry Pearson-Stevens. The book also highlights Gen Z and every other ordinary woman in Waterloo. In addition, the book includes one man — Gratteau-Zinnel.

Larya Pratchett, who graduated in the spring, thought the book would feature only a few women.

“I learned that the impact is much larger here than I thought it would be,” she said. “I thought it was going to be really hard to find women, but it was really hard to choose only a few, which is crazy.”

Students worked to find a diverse group of women from different backgrounds, professions and ages. When looking at the final project, students realized many of the people they featured are women of color.

“I think for women of color … we experience a lot and when we’re talking about Waterloo, it’s really diverse and the things that women of color have had to do here and everywhere is very profound and impactful,” Pratchett said.

Julion said she believes this comes from activism in response to racial discrimination in the schools and workforce.

Belinda Creighton-Smith, a pastor, professor and community leader, remarked on the first entry in the book, Anna Mae Weems. Weems died in September at the age of 98. She brought the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to the area in 1959.

“When I think of Mother Anna Mae Weems … she gave her life to us,” Creighton-Smith said.

Also featured in the book is Terry Stevens, who has advocated for racial equality since her teenage years. Creighton-Smith said Stevens was her mentor and followed her lead as a student.

“To be in the same book with her and them, it’s mind blowing and the gravity of it for me, it’s heavy,” she said.

Creighton-Smith said she was surprised that a group of students undertook a project highlighting so many local people.

“It’s truly humbling and I tear up when I think about it,” she said. “What that means to me is that the work I’m doing, it’s not in vain, but it’s affecting the lives of young people because I made an impression.”

While many of the students didn’t know about the accomplishments of their neighbors, now they are advocating for curriculum to highlight Waterloo trailblazers.

Voters in the Waterloo Community School District recently approved a $165 million bond referendum to build a new consolidated high school. Julion proposed that the new high school be called Waterloo Weems, after Anna Mae Weems. Her peers loved the idea.

“When we don’t really teach history, it’s no longer history, it fades into obscurity,” she said.

Pratchett agreed, saying she wants more people to understand these women’s history.

“Now, we’re not learning about stuff that happens here, which is why this is so big,” she said. “A lot of these women and what has been done, I would not have known if it weren’t for the book.”

Julion and Pratchett, along with fellow students Lauren Reuter, Kerry Henry Fankhauser and Brooklyn Cooper and their teacher, presented the book at the Iowa Council for Social Studies in October in Des Moines.

The book is currently sold out but once more copies are printed, it can be bought at Raygun, whose owner, Mike Draper, supported the project through sales and distribution.