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The Khrushchev in Iowa planning committee announced speakers for the statewide 50th anniversary of Khrushchev's 1959 visit to Iowa, planned for August 27-30. "We are thrilled by the excellent speaker line-up for the commemoration," said Rachel Garst, granddaughter of agricultural innovator and citizen diplomat Roswell Garst, "There is something in this event for everyone."
The four day schedule includes a kick-off biographer program at Drake, a major conference and historic banquet at the Hotel Fort Des Moines, an all day Agricultural Progress Festival in Coon Rapids Saturday, August 29, and an Iowa-Russia exchange event at the National Guard's Camp Dodge.
Confirmed presenters include Brown University Professor Sergei Khrushchev (son of the former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev); U.S Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, Pulitzer-prize-winning Khrushchev biographer William Taubman; Victor Lischenko, Director of the Center for International Agribusiness at the Russian Academy of National Economy; Wes Jackson, of the Land Institute in Kansas; Michael Gartner; eminent Iowa journalist; Valentina Slater-Fominyk, Chair of Humanities Iowa; Senator Chuck Grassley, and many others.
More than 30 Iowa organizations have helped plan this commemoration, which celebrates Nikita Khrushchev's unprecedented trip to Iowa 50 years ago -during the height of the Cold War- to visit his farmer friend Roswell Garst in small-town Coon Rapids. Khrushchev was eager to learn about Iowa's agricultural innovations in order to boost U.S.S.R. food production, and Garst, saying that "Hungry people are dangerous people," was more than happy to oblige. Not just that, the two men formed an unlikely personal friendship based on their shared personalities and, most of all, a common passion for corn.
The committee will be hosting a Russian delegation of over 40 high-level political and agribusiness leaders who will tour Iowa farms and agribusiness facilities to gain an understanding of our most current agricultural practices, and to meet Iowa farmers and potential trade partners.
A highlight of the series will be a farm machinery parade and other family-fun activities scheduled for Saturday, August 29 in Coon Rapids. Attendees are encouraged to wear '50s clothes and to enter the Garst-Khrushchev look a like contest.
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©Guthrie Center Times 2010
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