Here are the candidates for High School on SI’s Iowa high school athlete of the week for March 24-30. Read through the nominees and cast your vote.

Congratulations to last week’s winner: Kienna Lassen of MOC-Floyd Valley girls track& field.

Voting closes at 11:59 p.m. PT, Sunday, April 6. The winner will be announced in the following week’s poll. Here are this week’s nominees:

The Kansas State-signee broke the meet-record and qualified for Drake Relays with a 57.05 showing in winning the 400 at the North Iowa Indoor Championships.

A double-winner at the Buena Vista Indoor, Buckholdt claimed gold in both the 200 and long jump.

Cordes set a record in the 1,500 at the WaMaC, going 4:50.09.

Davenport dominated the Don Graves Classic throwing events, winning both the shot put and discus.

Dunn was first in the 60 hurdles and 200 at the Dordt Invitational.

Forkpa won the 100 and 200 at the Holly/Trojan Relays, ran the lead-leg of the winning sprint medley and was on the runner-up 4×100 relay.

Gosselink reached the Blue Standard to qualify for Drake Relays in the long jump, winning the WaMaC with a leap of 17-11.25. She also was first in the 60 in a meet record time of 7.94 while adding gold in the 200 and a second in the 400.

Hinz picked up golds in the 55 and 200 at the Wartburg Invitational. Her time of 7.46 in the 55 ranks second this year in Iowa.

Maasdam picked up three golds at the Dordt Invitational, winning the 60, 60 hurdles and long jump titles. 

McDaniel won the 100 and 200 at the Simpson Classic.

McMurrin won both the 55 hurdles and high jump at the Wartburg Invitational. He cleared 6-7, which ranks third this year in Iowa. 

Morton earned her spot at Drake Relays by winning the North Iowa Indoor Championships with a throw of 45-0 in the shot put. The mark is the best in Iowa indoors this year.

Myers was one of just a handful of Iowa athletes to capture gold at the MSU Varsity Showcase in Minnesota, as the University of Iowa softball signee won the shot put with a throw of 39-7.5.

Parker swept the sprint events at the Don Graves Classic, winning the 100 and 200.

Roberts went 6.99 to win the 60-meter dash at the MSU Varsity Showcase, besting a field of Iowa and Minnesota athletes. 

Rubendall showed her speed and power, winning both the 60 and 60 hurdles at the Buena Vista Indoor. She also ran the lead leg on the winning 4×200 relay.

Russell was first in the 100 and 200, along with leading the sprint medley to a second, at the Holly/Trojan Relays. 

Sullivan showed her range, winning the 400 and 1,500 at the Lady Lancer Relays.

Wallace had a night at the Simpson Classic, winning the 100 and 110 hurdles while running on the winning shuttle hurdle and 4×100 relays. The shuttle hurdle set a 2A record and cracked the Top 10 for fastest times ever at 58.12, qualifying for the Drake Relays.

Woods dominated the hurdle events at the Waukee Northwest Relays, winning both the 110 and 400. He also ran the anchor on the first place 4×400 relay.

High School on SI voting polls are intended to be a fun way to create fan engagement and express support for your favorite high school athletes and teams. Unless expressly noted, there are no awards for winning the voting. Our primary focus is to highlight the abilities and accomplishments of all the athletes and teams included in our poll. You can vote as often as you wish and are encouraged to share our polls with others. 

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins will make stops in Iowa Monday in her first visit to the leading farm state since her Feb. 13 confirmation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Sunday.

Rollins will visit an ethanol facility, a hog farm and a soybean seed producer, then deliver the keynote address at the Iowa Ag Leaders Dinner Monday evening in Ankeny.

Gov. Kim Reynolds also will speak at the dinner and Iowa Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig will serve as host, presenting awards to three organizations and one business.

More: Ag secretary: Wholesale egg prices falling, but it’s unclear when US consumers will benefit

Prior to becoming head of the 100,000-employee agriculture department, Rollins, 52, was president and CEO of the America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump think tank. A conservative lawyer, Rollins also served in the final year of Trump’s first term as acting director of the White House’s Domestic Policy Council. She also was among the speakers at the Republican National Convention in 2024. 

A lawyer, Rollins also served in the final year of Trump’s first term as acting director of the White House’s Domestic Policy Council. She was among the speakers at the Republican National Convention in 2024. 

More: Iowa, Texas farmers top recipients of USDA payments designed to offset losses

She was raised on a farm in Texas and her mother was a member of the Texas House of Representatives.

The Iowa State Fair’s Husband Calling Contest is marked by caterwauling and squawking and booming threats of Ohhhhh, you better get in hereeeeee, so help meeeeee …

But amidst all that boisterous screaming, 95-year-old Bonnie Eilert’s high-pitched reminder, hooked onto the end of her yowling and yelping for her husband “ROYYYYYYY” like a perfect little period, will always stick with me: “I Love You!”

Bright and punchy. Delivered with a little mischievousness, maybe. Or lovesickness. Definitely a smile.

“I Love You!”

She was the only contestant — out of the 17 participating in 2023 — who thought to add a little bit of tenderness. “You win more friends with honey than vinegar,” said Rob Sand, part-time Iowa State Fair judge and full-time state auditor.

Eilert’s choice of endearment reaped reward. In front of the largest crowd to ever watch the contest, a result of an old Iowa PBS segment going viral on TikTok the winter previous, Eilert won — a highwater mark in a year stained with grief.

“It feels wunderbar,” she told me. “I love it. I have other blue ribbons, too, but, oh, this is precious.”

Eilert — a State Fair mainstay on par with the chainsaw carvers and the 4-H stage volunteers — died March 22, 2025, on her “beloved farm,” according to her obituary. She was 96.

Born, raised and forever rooted to the land of Jasper County, Eilert graduated from Newton High in 1947 and married her sweetheart, Roy Eilert, in a ceremony at her parents’ home in 1949. The key to their loving marriage, she told me without a whiff of irony that day at the fair, was communication.  

With a strong sense of community honed at an early age, she was a “lifelong advocate for agriculture and rural life” and a stalwart member of the Jasper County Chorus and the Farm Bureau, once serving as the group’s chairwoman.

“Her warm spirit, resilience and dedication to family and community left a lasting impression on everyone who knew her,” her family wrote in the obituary.

And, for more than 40 years, Eilert was the keeper of the First Church key at the State Fair, a volunteer position that let her visit about her cherished fair with tourists from far and wide. A replica of (you guessed it) the first Christian church built on Iowa land in 1834, the First Church was “a place dear to her heart,” her obituary says.

Indeed, the whole fair was much loved by Eilert. In her older years, she was known to wear old-timey clothes — lace stoles and pillbox hats — and tool around the grounds on her scooter. Hills be damned!

All day, every day, there was never too much fair for Bonnie, a legacy her family is honoring by asking for memorial contributions to the Iowa State Fair in lieu of flowers.

Find an excerpt of Courtney Crowder’s column on Bonnie Eilert and the Husband Calling Contest below, and read the full story here.

IOWA STATE FAIRGROUNDS — At 95 years old — or as Bonnie Eilert likes to classify: “I’m older than dirt” — she’s been coming to the State Fair nearly as far back as she can remember. Her parents were farmers, and she married a farmer, so, in August, it’s just what you did, you came to Des Moines, she says.

About four decades ago ― when she first started getting unsteady on her feet ― her daughter Sheryl bought a camper so they could stay on the fairgrounds instead of making the hike back and forth to Newton. She’s been spending her nights at the same site ever since, and passes her days tending to the First Church, a historical prairie church in the fair’s Heritage Village area.

Eilert has been entering the Husband Calling Contest since it began about 40 years ago, she says. But it’s hard to keep track, she admits. This contest is just one of many she enters, one of many of her “adventures,” as she calls them.

“I’m fearless,” she says. “My husband was so against it. He says, ‘Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare.’ ‘I’m going to do it,’ I said.”

So she entered and won: “He left me alone after that. He was proud of me.”

Roy died nearly a decade ago, and Sheryl ― Bonnie’s State Fair sidekick and her live-in caretaker ― died very suddenly this year. Being at the fair without her has been “pretty horrific,” she says.

But attending some of the contests that Sheryl loved so much has been a bit of salve.

“Yes, it’s brought me some comfort because people ask about my dear, charming child,” she says, clutching her ribbon and her winnings, a whopping $15. “Everybody’s just made my day.”

Read the full story here.

Courtney Crowder, the Register’s Iowa Columnist, traverses the state’s 99 counties telling Iowans’ stories. Her State Fair food must-get is the Bauder’s Peppermint Bar. Don’t be ashamed to have seconds! Reach her at ccrowder@dmreg.com or 515-284-8360. Follow her on Twitter @courtneycare.