August 19, 2004

CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA . . . It was with great sadness that the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (IIAC) learned this morning that longtime Conference secretary-treasurer Duane Schroeder passed away on Wednesday while traveling with his wife, Mary Ellen, in Bucharest, Romania.

“Duane Schroeder has had an immeasurable and lasting impact on the development of the Iowa Conference. Two years ago, the Conference named the highest honor that we bestow on a student-athlete, the Duane Schroeder Scholar Athlete of the Year Award, in recognition of his almost 50 years of unselfish service and commitment to the mission of the Iowa Conference. I consider it a privilege to have had the opportunity to know Duane; he was a consummate professional, gentleman and friend. Duane’s presence will be missed by everyone in our Conference family whose lives he touched,” IIAC Commissioner John Cochrane said.

Schroeder served as the sports information director at Wartburg College for 43 years, the third longest tenure in the history of that position in the United States. During most of his tenure with Wartburg, he served the Iowa Conference, as the Conference statistician/information director from the mid-1960s-mid-1990s and as secretary-treasurer from 1981-2001. Schroeder was one of just three people to hold the position of IIAC secretary-treasurer in the Conference’s 83-year history.

Funeral arrangements are pending at Kaiser-Corson Funeral Home of Waverly.

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