Iowa Baha’i Youth ~ 1980-1985 by Hannah Rishel

Submitted January 2024

Picture above is from the 1st of these retreats in April, 1980 at David & Elhgam Springer’s home in Toledo, Iowa. As best we remember, they are as follows. Back row: ?, Stacey or Tiandra Martin?, Susan Foroughi, Joe Foroughi, Dan Hofert, ?, David Foroughi. Middle: ?, ?, Andy Hofert, ?. Front row: ?, ?, Shahin Para, ?, Andy Matheny, Shamin Himes, ?, ?

Here are a my few recollections from Brad’s Iowa and Kansas Baha’i Youth Group years. I hope that some parents or the Youth who are now in their 50s or 60s can fill in the story.

By 1980, Brad and I had been Baha’is for several years. We had experienced Baha’i summer schools, Conventions, and various gatherings. From Brad’s rich teenaged experience in his Quaker church, he felt strongly that Baha’i youth needed such solid social and spiritual opportunities. But they lived so far apart, scattered around Iowa.

Brad was serving on the District Teaching Committee. He must have had conversations with kids’ parents. He and Elham Springer joined forces to host the first Youth Retreat in Elham’s and David’s home in Toledo. About 17 you attended, including several boys from Council Bluffs and several girls from eastern Iowa. They did lots of get-acquainted, active “New Games.” The “Newspaper Game” (for learning names and whacking each other’s knees while sitting in a circle) became a staple icebreaker for months to come. The boys slept in the basement with Brad as chaperone. Girls slept upstairs, with Elham. In the night, girls snuck downstairs and sprayed the boys with perfume!

Once a month the youth met for a two-night weekend retreat: At Springers’, at Himes’, at a YMCA camp lodge near Boone, and… where all? Ages ranged from 11 to 15 or so. I suppose that retreats included some prayers from the beginning. Eventually they included some deepening, lessons, and conversations on important topics. I attended the retreat at the YMCA camp. They’d already had – how many retreats? Boys and girls were shy to mix. This time, they were all sitting around a biggish room, girls on one side and boys opposite. Andy Matheny stood up, declared, “I’m going to integrate!” Then she sat in the center of the boys’ group. From then on, the genders did integrate.

Eventually, some youth from Kansas began coming: Gail and Shane Etzenhouser, Luke Berglund & his future wife Azita. These names of Iowa youths have emerged from Brad’s and my aging brains: Andy and Sam Matheny, Shamin and Darius Himes, Jane and Anisa Rodriguez, Zhaleh, Shahin, and Mira Para, Dan and Andy Hofert, David and Joe Foroughi, John Cairns, Aaron and Melissa Kreader, and Neil Clopton.
Now… who can tell the real stories?

Left photo is undated, showing David Foroughi, Nell Clopton, Jane Rodriguez, ?, Dan Hofert, John Cairns, and Joe Foroughi. Right photo is from April 1980 at Springers’, showing Shamin Himes, Andy Matheny, ?, ?, and Dan Hofert in backand Geisu Springer and Andy Hofert in front.