A while ago, Ben Truwe (affectionately known as 'Pop', as he's Annna's dad) made an entry on thingsihate.org, asking for help with research for a book he was writing. I visited Cowles Library and spent a few hours looking through old copies of The Des Moines Register, printing out any pages that were of interest, and mailed them off to him.

Long story short, he was happy with my research, it's in his book, and he's mailing me a copy. Woo!