Nashua-Plainfield High School receives Carrie Chapman Catt Award at girlhood home

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate got his first look at the Carrie Chapman Catt Girlhood Home south of Charles City on Wednesday afternoon, as part of a presentation awarding a trophy to an area school that reached a student voter registration goal.

Pate’s office developed the Carrie Chapman Catt Award last year that would go to any high school that registered to vote at least 90% of its eligible students.

Nashua-Plainfield High School registered 91% of eligible students during the 2019-20 school year, and a group of teachers and one of the students who headed the effort were on hand to receive the honor.

“When we were looking at how to recognize something as significant as voter registration and being a voter, particularly for young people, we looked to a very impressive person, and that’s Carrie Chapman Catt,” Pate said.

“We all know her from the standpoint of being the crusader who spent over 30 years working to get the 19th Amendment passed.

“She had a dream, she had determination and she had the commitment to follow through and fight that fight … to bring the right for women to vote to both our state and to our country,” he said.

The Iowa Legislature passed a law that went into effect last year, allowing 17-year-olds to register to vote as long as they would be 18 by the next general election. Once registered, they were also allowed to participate in primaries and caucuses before the general election.

Pate said the high school voter registration contest was a great way to honor Chapman Catt as well as to encourage young people to “step up and be registered voters.”

“Doing it here at her girlhood home, I think it’s just appropriate here in Charles City, and I couldn’t be more pleased to be able to do this presentation,” he said Wednesday.

Pate noted that only 18 schools across the state were able to achieve the 90% registration goal.

“This isn’t just something that everybody got,” he said.

Attending the presentation were Nashua-Plainfield senior Lucas Pierce, who helped push the project, along with N-P teachers Susan Turner, Chaya Feldman and Catherine Ortmayer and Superintendent Keith Turner, as well as Floyd County Auditor and Commissioner of Elections Gloria Carr and other members of the National 19th Amendment Society, which operates the Carrie Chapman Catt Girlhood Home and Museum.

“I’m just excited to be here today and share this with you, as the election is now less than two weeks away,” Pate said. “We hope that those folks who got a chance to register under this effort you put out will be voters.

“We’ll hopefully move forward and get more students involved as we go into the next election cycle,” he said.