What do Mormon pioneers and Caitlyn Jenner have in common? Besides a tendency towards backwards beliefs and manslaughter, they share a deep connection to the southwestern Iowa city of Lamoni (pop. 1,974).
Though she grew up in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, Jenner was recruited to Lamoni’s Graceland University, a small, private religious school, in 1969 — on a football scholarship. A knee injury ended her football career with the Graceland Yellowjackets, but track and field coaches took an interest in the promising athlete. Jenner, for her part, loved and excelled at the decathlon, qualifying for the 1972 Munich Olympics at the Drake Relays. She came in 10th, but returned to the Olympics in 1976 to win gold and set a world record 8,618 points in the decathlon in Montreal.
The rest is sports and pop culture history. Jenner wasn’t just inducted into Graceland’s hall of fame in the mid-’80s, but had a building named in her honor: the Bruce Jenner Sports Complex. Jenner would marry her third wife, Kris Kardashian, in 1991, and come out as a transgender woman named Caitlyn on the cover of Vanity Fair in 2015.
Jenner’s former coaches at Graceland did a few interviews in the wake of her public transition, expressing surprise but support for Jenner’s new life. Their church doesn’t condemn LGBTQ+ people, nor limit its clergy to men — despite the common misconception that Graceland is affiliated with the staunchly patriarchal Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS; colloquially, “Mormons”).
Let’s wind back to the mid-19th century. The LDS Church faced a succession crisis after the murder of their founder and prophet Joseph Smith in 1844. Like they had in New York, Ohio and Missouri, the Mormons were being driven out of Illinois by opponents of the fledgling faith and its increasingly violent defenders. Perhaps the most militant of the Mormons, Brigham Young, promised to lead Smith’s persecuted followers to a promised land in the Salt Lake Valley.
Young’s nephew died in southeast Iowa just days after crossing the frozen Mississippi River, but Young pressed on. This religious exodus crossed the entire length of Iowa, and several cities, landmarks and cemeteries established along the Mormon Trail remain to this day.
Take the city of Lamoni, named by Joseph Smith’s eldest son, Joseph Smith III, after an ancient king mentioned in the Book of Mormon. Not far from the Mormon Trail settlement of Garden Grove, Iowa, Lamoni was chosen by Smith as the headquarters of his rightful church. The Reformed Church of Latter-Day Saints was established in 1870; Graceland College followed in 1895.
The Reformed LDS immediately began distinguishing itself from its larger counterpart out west. While Brigham Young formed militias and took dozens of wives, some children, in the tradition of Joseph Smith Jr., Smith III never condoned or practiced plural marriage, nor any extralegal doctrine.
In 1920, church HQ moved 100 miles south to Independence, Missouri. In 2001, they changed their name to Community of Christ, reflecting a century-and-a-half of divergent evolution. Today, the Book of Mormon is rarely if ever used in sermons, nor read by many members, according to Pastor Rob Heverling of Council Bluffs’ Community of Christ Central Church.
“We’re pretty radically different [than the LDS Church],” he said. “For some members, there’s a lot of pride in church history. And I think for some members, it’s kind of like a stumbling block. It’s something we have to overcome.”
After Caitlyn Jenner came out as a trans woman (and, later, gradually, a transphobe), there was never a meaningful movement to strip her name from campus — nor to update the sports complex and online materials with her new first name and pronouns. “I would fight the college taking his name off,” former coach Jerry Hampton told the Kansas City Star in rather clumsy support of Jenner in 2015. “He’s one who stood up to be counted.”
For her part, Jenner hasn’t been much of a donor, and hasn’t returned or discussed her alma mater often. She did, however, swing through Lamoni during the filming of her 2015 reality series I Am Cait. In season two, episode four, Jenner and a few friends stop at a lingerie store in Dubuque, meet her nemesis Hillary Clinton after the Dem debates in Des Moines, then hit the Graceland campus for a pleasant visit with former track coaches Hampton, Rich Harrop and Bill “Duke” Dudek.
Despite her nerves, Jenner is well received by the student body during a Q&A inside her namesake building. She struggles to answer students’ earnest questions about balancing gender identity and religion. Luckily, she brought some insightful trans and nonbinary friends with her, including writer Kate Bornstein, whose estranged daughter is a high-ranking Scientologist.
“Look for the heart of the doctrine you’re following, and if it’s at all mean, think twice before following it any further,” Bornstein says to much applause from the Yellowjackets.
This article was originally published in Little Village’s December 2024 issue.
