Iowa
American Press Male Scholar Athlete of the Year: Iowa benefits from Guillory’s leadership – American Press
American Press Male Scholar Athlete of the Year: Iowa benefits from Guillory’s leadership
Published 9:20 am Saturday, July 6, 2024
- Iowa’s Luke Guillory, a two-sport athlete and National Honor Society member, is taking his leadership skills and work ethic to the U.S. Air Force Academy. (Rodrick Anderson / American Press)
In his four years at Iowa High School, Luke Guillory grew into a leader everywhere he went.
His academic excellence and athletic skills landed him a coveted spot at the U.S. Air Force Academy, and earned him the American Press Male Scholar Athlete of the Year.
“He is an amazing young man,” Iowa Principal Luke Dietz said. “In everything he does, he works as hard in the classroom as he works on the playing field.
“In everything he does, he wants to be truly excel. He puts the work in to be able to do that. He is just a blessing to have here at the school. He has such high character.
“Even with all the success he has had in academics and athletics, I truly believe his best attributes are probably his character, work ethic and moral beliefs. He bases everything he does around those three things. It drives him to succeed in everything he does.”
Guillory started his six weeks of basic cadet training last week. He will be required to serve at least five years of active duty and three years as an inactive reserve after graduation.
Guillory ranked fourth in his class senior class at Iowa of 140. He scored a 32 on the American College Testing exam and a 4.36 grade point average.
He was a member of the National Honor Society, student council and helped start a chapter of Fellowship of Christian Athletes at the school.
His influence extends into the community where he volunteers for Special Olympics and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
“That kid is off the charts and in the community,” Iowa head football coach Tommy Johns said. “Anytime you needed him for something, he was going to show up. He was the guy that would get everybody else to show up with him. If Luke Guillory walked into the locker room and said, ‘We are going to help this organization,’ everybody got up and followed. Nobody had any questions. That is the kind of person he is.
“All of it comes from his parents. He was raised right. His parents have a very structured home. They demand excellence out of their kids. It has been very impressive. We are definitely going to miss him, not only the football player but the person.”
Johns said Guillory started at defensive end but found his place at tight end and turned into a top pass catcher with 36 for 420 yards and six touchdowns for the state quarterfinalist Yellow Jackets.
“When he first stepped on to our campus he was shy and a little timid,” Johns said, “but you could tell he had the body and the brain to be a great player. He is very, very intelligent. He progressed along.
“I remember after his freshman year he was questioning if he really wanted to play ball. We had a long, long talk in my office, and he decided to stick with it. From that day forward, he turned into a man. He has been our leader the last two or three years. He is a wonderful person.
“Everybody in the school respects him. They flock to him. He earned that. He is a tremendous asset to Iowa High School, the entire community and our program.”
His intelligence and athletic skills helped him to become a force in the lane for the Yellow Jackets’ 2023-2024 basketball Nonselect Division II state runner-up team. He was a second-team all-District 3-3A forward.
“He is so mobile,” Johns said. “I thought he was a little stiff when he was younger, but so is every other kid for the most part. For somebody to carry around that kind of frame and that kind of weight and move like he could was very impressive.”
Video: Kirk Ferentz reacts to Iowa’s ReliaQuest Bowl win over Vanderbilt
Kirk Ferentz meets with media after Iowa football’s 34-27 win over Vanderbilt in the ReliaQuest Bowl.
IOWA CITY — In what has been an active transfer portal window for Iowa football, the Hawkeyes added to their offensive line room with the commitment of Trent Wilson.
Wilson appeared in all 14 games as a true freshman at James Madison last season, including one start. The Dukes made the College Football Playoff and finished the season 12-2 overall.
The 6-foot-4, 300-pound lineman has three seasons of eligibility remaining.
Iowa is losing three starters from its Joe Moore Award-winning offensive line last season. The Hawkeyes started the same five offensive linemen every game in 2025: Trevor Lauck, Beau Stephens, Logan Jones, Kade Pieper and Gennings Dunker. Stephens, Jones and Dunker are departing the program.
At the very least, Wilson gives Iowa more depth in that room next season as the Hawkeyes try to replace some serious experience and production.
Wilson is not the only player to transfer from James Madison to Iowa. Tyler Brown, who started all 14 games at free safety for the Dukes last season and ranked second on the team in total tackles with 80, is joining Wilson in Iowa City.
Wilson detailed his commitment to Iowa, providing typed responses via social media to the Register:
Note: Answers have been edited slightly for clarity and grammatical accuracy.
On why he committed to Iowa
“I committed to Iowa because of the culture. At Iowa, offensive linemen get sent to the NFL, and the team isn’t ‘flashy’ (like) other teams, they just want to win. On my visit, Iowa toured me around the facilities, which were amazing, but my favorite part was talking to the coaches. In the meeting, (offensive line coach George Barnett) spoke my language exactly. He spoke about the drive it takes to win and how their linemen play, and I immediately felt at home. Walking out of that meeting, I knew I was going to commit.”
More insight from Wilson on his commitment to Iowa
“As for JMU, and even my high school, I come from a winning culture. I knew what college I picked couldn’t be satisfied with a mediocre season. This also led me to picking Iowa, as they are one of the winningest programs in the Big Ten. Since I was young, I’ve dreamed of having a dedication to a college team, then going to the NFL. At Iowa, I feel I can make this happen. That’s why I’m committed.”
What Wilson learned from getting meaningful playing time on a winning team as a true freshman
“I learned (I) could play with anyone. Going into college, I was nervous that all the other athletes would be a lot bigger, faster, and stronger than me. At JMU, especially against Oregon (in the College Football Playoff), I proved that I can compete with anyone.”
Wilson describes his skillset
“Aggressive and intelligent. I’m going to give my all every play, all while knowing exactly what’s going on in the defense and seeing their movement. After I pick up the movement, I’ll make sure to put them on their back.”
Follow Tyler Tachman on X @Tyler_T15, contact via email at ttachman@gannett.com
TIFFIN, Iowa — Authorities have now identified Lee Earl Krogh, 57, of Iowa City, as the man killed in a shooting outside an apartment building in Tiffin late Saturday morning.
Deputies responded to the 400 block of Iris Court at about 11:44 a.m. and found Krogh outside the building suffering from a gunshot wound, the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office said.
Emergency crews took Krogh to University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, where he was pronounced dead.
Investigators said the shooting appears to be isolated and does not pose an ongoing threat to the public. No arrests have been announced, and authorities have not released information about a suspect or motive.
The investigation is ongoing.
In five of six legislative special elections last year, Democrats overperformed by more than 20 percentage points compared with the 2024 presidential election.
Here are the top 2026 midterm races to follow in Iowa
Des Moines Register Chief Politics Reporter Brianne Pfannenstiel breaks down Iowa’s top races ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Iowa Democrats ended 2025 on a high note, winning a Dec. 30 special election in Des Moines’ western suburbs by a wider margin than during the presidential election.
That capped off a year in which Democrats won four of the six legislative special elections and ended Republicans’ supermajority in the Iowa Senate.
In five of those six special elections, Democrats overperformed by more than 20 percentage points compared with 2024.
They’ll look to build off the momentum going into the pivotal 2026 midterms that will include open races for governor and U.S. senator as well as regular Iowa congressional and Legislature elections.
Whether 2025’s Democratic Party victories are bellwethers or blips will play out this year.
Democrats saw Iowa special elections consistently tilt left
Though Republicans won in two special elections in 2025s, their margins of victory were significantly smaller than 2024.
Republican Wendy Larson won December’s special election for the vacant seat in House District 7 by 40 points. That’s a wide margin, but wide margins are expected for Republicans in that part of the state: The party holds strong advantages in voter registration totals in Calhoun, Pocahontas, Sac and Webster counties, where the district is located.
And even that 40-point margin represented a shift toward the Democrats.
In the 2024 presidential election, Republican Donald Trump defeated Democrat Kamala Harris by 50 points in House District 7. Democrats didn’t even field a candidate for the district’s legislative seat that year.
The 10-point shift toward Democrats from the 2024 presidential election to the 2025 special election in House District 7 was the smallest of any legislative district that held a special election last year.
Each of the five other districts shifted toward Democrats by more than twice as much.
Moreover, those special elections were spread across the state.
Democrats consistently gathered a greater share of votes from Senate District 1 in the northwest part of the state to House District 100 in the state’s southeast corner, ranging from 10 to 26 percentage points.
The two seats Democrats flipped in special elections — Senate Districts 1 and 35 — each shifted to the left by more than 20 points compared with the 2024 presidential election.
In Senate District 1, Trump outpaced Harris by 11 percentage points in 2024, while Democrat Caitlin Drey won the seat there by more than 10 points in August.
In Senate District 35, Trump’s victory margin in Senate District 35 was more than 21 points. In January 2025, Democrat Mike Zimmer won the district’s Senate seat by 3½ points.
In 2022, Republicans won both those seats by even wider margins than Trump in 2024.
Should Democrats expect momentum to carry over to 2026?
Pushing voters to the left in six isolated special elections is one thing. Parlaying those successes into November’s midterm elections is quite another.
Turnout was key in 2025’s special elections, and it will be again in 2026.
The numbers of votes cast in 2025’s special elections equaled roughly one-quarter to one-third the votes cast in the 2024 presidential election in those districts.
Turnout should be higher in November’s midterms.
Since 2000, the percentage of Iowa’s registered voters who have participated in the midterm elections typically has hovered around 55%. (About 75% of registered Iowans usually vote in presidential elections.)
But what determines an election is less about the number of people who show up and more about who those people are.
An increased share of those who went to the polls in the special elections were Democratic voters — or, perhaps more accurately, a greater number of Republican voters stayed home.
Republicans will be working to get those voters back to the polls this November.
Republicans maintain advantage in Iowa voter registration data
The leftward shift in last year’s special elections has yet to materialize in Iowa’s voter registration numbers.
Over roughly the past 15 years, voter registrations in Iowa have swung heavily toward Republicans.
Democrats, conversely, have lost 200,000 voters in that time, and Republicans have opened up an overall advantage of more than 10 percentage points.
Despite their victories at the ballot box in 2025, Democrats have not chipped into Republicans’ significant lead in voter registrations.
Last year was the first since at least 2000 when the share of active voters who were Republicans was at least 10 percentage points higher than the share who were Democrats throughout the entire year.
Republicans began 2026 with nearly 200,000 more active registered voters than Democrats, among their largest leads this century.
Those two parties do not comprise the entirety of Iowa’s electorate — a large share of Iowa’s active voters are not registered to a party, and a smaller amount are registered to other parties, including Libertarians.
And just because a voter is registered as a Democrat or Republican doesn’t mean they’ll vote for their party’s candidates.
But the large voter deficit indicates Democrats are starting from a less favorable position.
Their special election victories in 2025 proved they can win elections, but they’ll need to make up some ground to replicate that success in 2026.
Tim Webber is a data visualization specialist for the Register. Reach him at twebber@registermedia.com and on Twitter at @HelloTimWebber.
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