AGNES E. HEIGHTSHOE has made a record of long and successful service as a teacher in the Iowa public schools, and in character, scholarship and executive ability is admirably qualified for the administrative and supervisory office of which she is now the incumbent, that of superintendent of the public schools of the City of Perry, metropolis of Dallas County.

Agnes E. Heightshoe was born at Boone, judicial center of the Iowa county of that name, and is the daughter of Samuel and Serena (Allen) Heightshoe, who were respectively natives of Indiana and Ohio.  Early in life they moved with their parents to Wisconsin, and their marriage was solemnized at Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1857.  Both were successful teachers in the schools of Wisconsin in the pioneer days.

Mr. and Mrs. Heightshoe likewise gained their quota of pioneer honors in Iowa, for they came to Boone, Iowa, in the year 1864 and passed twenty years of their lives there, Mr. Heightshoe engaging in the occupation of contractor and builder.  Early in the '80s the family moved to Perry, where they continue to make their home.  Mr. Heightshoe passed away August 16, 1916, when he was eighty-four years of age, and his widow's death occurred April 7, 1926, at the venerable age of eighty-nine years, the names of both meriting an enduring place on the roll of the honored pioneers of Iowa, where they lived and wrought to worthy ends and where they were held in unqualified esteem.

Miss Agnes E. Heightshoe, the fourth in a family of five children, after completing her high school course in Perry, Iowa, entered Iowa State Teachers College at Cedar Falls, an institution then designated as Iowa State Normal School, and from the same she received in 1893 the degree of Bachelor of Didactics and later, in 1903 the degree of Master of Didactics.  She has been an enthusiast in her profession and has insistently kept in touch with the advances made in educational service and system.  Miss Heightshoe availed herself of the summer sessions of the University of Iowa, from which she received in 1911 the degree of Bachelor of Arts.  Through graduate work in the University of Chicago she gained, in 1928, the degree of Master of Art with her major in education.

Miss Heightshoe began her services as a teacher in the public schools of Perry, her first work having been in the primary department, from which she was advanced to the intermediate grades and finally to the high school, of which she was eventually made the principal.  In 1922 she was elected superintendent of the Perry public schools, and in this executive position she has since continued the efficient, popular and valued incumbent; her supervisory administration being over sixty-one teachers, one-third of the number having been added to the staff since she assumed her present office.

It is a remarkable record that Miss Heightshoe has made in her thirty-six years of consecutive service with the Perry public schools, and few have equaled this duration of service in any one city.  She has been insistently the apostle of progress, has brought all departments of the Perry schools to a high standard and has gained to them membership in the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools and also obtained for the high school a place on the list of cooperating schools with the University of Chicago, a distinction that can be claimed by few cities of the same relative population as that of Perry.  Miss Heightshoe is a member of the O. E. S., No. 142, Perry, and a charter member of Chapter D E - P. E. O; a member of the Business and Professional Woman's Club of Perry, of the State and National Education Associations and last, but not least, of the Presbyterian Church.

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A Narrative History of THE PEOPLE OF IOWA with Special Treatment of their Chief Enterprises in Education, Religion, Valor, Industry, Business, Etc. by Edgar Rubey Harlan, LL. B., A.M., Curator of the Historical, Memorial and Art Department of Iowa

Vol. IV; The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1931

Iowa History Project