Opening Ceremony to Feature Simon Estes

The Iowa Agricultural Extension Association invites you to join us in celebrating the official kick-off of the 2023 NACAA AM/PIC in Des Moines at Sunday evening’s Opening Ceremonies!

The session is sure to inspire with a special presentation of the colors by the ISU ROTC, performance of the national anthem by Simon Estes, greetings from Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig, and the Governor of Iowa, Kim Reynolds, as well as NACAA’s traditional flag ceremony that honors each great state and territory of our country!

Our speaker for the evening will be the renowned Iowan Simon Estes. He will be sharing his thrilling life story. Estes is an operatic bass-baritone of African-American descent who had a major international opera career beginning in the 1960s. He has sung at most of the world’s major opera houses as well as in front of presidents, popes and internationally renowned figures and celebrities including Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, Boris Yeltsin, Yasser Arafat, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. Notably, he was part of the first generation of black opera singers to achieve widespread success and is viewed as part of a group of performers who were instrumental in helping to break down the barriers of racial prejudice in the opera.