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The fine arts are notably supported at the University of Iowa, where the regional painter Grant Wood did much of his work and where the Writers’ Workshop enjoys national esteem. Among the program’s best-known graduates are Flannery O’Connor, Iowa native Wallace Stegner, John Irving, Rita Dove, and Jane Smiley. Several music festivals are popular, ranging from the Bix Beiderbecke Jazz Festival in Davenport each summer to various bluegrass, folk, and contemporary music festivals. Like jazz cornetist Beiderbecke, Meredith Willson, the composer of The Music Man, was an Iowa native, as was musician Glenn Miller.
Cultural institutions
Art museums of significance are found in Iowa City and Des Moines. Towns such as Cherokee and Decorah have museums emphasizing the area’s presettlement character. The State Historical Museum in Des Moines houses exhibits on Iowa’s development and offers stories of Iowan families from different generations. The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum is located in West Branch. A nonconventional attraction is the Bily Clocks Museum in Spillville, which displays a collection of antique hand-carved wooden clocks made by the Bily brothers. On the second floor of what is now this museum was where Czech composer Antonín Dvořák spent the summer of 1893, and artifacts and memorabilia about his life are presented.
Sports and recreation
Outdoor sports of all types are extremely popular in Iowa, with hunting, fishing, boating, and camping especially prevalent. In a region generally lacking large urban centres, spectator sports furnish much of the cultural life. In every college town in the state, gridiron football weekends form the centre of the autumn social season. While the University of Northern Iowa has a long record of success in the Football Championship subdivision of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and Iowa State University competes in the tough Big 12 Conference, the focus of football excitement for most in the state is Kinnick Stadium, the home of the University of Iowa, part of the Big Ten Conference. Men’s basketball is also prominent at all three universities, as well as at Drake University (like Northern Iowa, a member of the Missouri Valley Conference). Wrestling is hugely popular in the state at both the high-school and college levels, and the University of Iowa and Iowa State programs are among the most dominant in the sport. Iowa State has been the winner of numerous NCAA championships and University of Iowa even more, including several steaks of consecutive championships (1978–86, 1991–93, 1995–2000) under coach Dan Gable, a onetime Olympic champion who is the state’s biggest sports hero. Girls high-school basketball has an especially colourful history in Iowa, including the period from 1934 until 1993 when most teams played a six-on-six-player version of the game that confined half of each team to one side of mid-court and half to other side. The Drake Relays, which began in 1910, are one of the premier meets in collegiate athletics (track and field). Professional sports have a relatively low profile in Iowa, although Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Burlington, Clinton, and Davenport have traditionally been homes for minor league baseball.
Media and publishing
Iowa’s major newspapers include The Des Moines Register, often cited as one of the Midwest’s most influential publications, Gazette (Cedar Rapids), Iowa City Press-Citizen, and Quad City Times (Davenport). There are radio and television stations throughout the state.