Staff

LaVon Griffieon (Ankeny)
Interim Executive Director
LaVon Griffieon is active with rural education for urban youth and adults, has authored and illustrated two children’s books on agriculture, and worked as an Ag-in-the-classroom project volunteer for 15 years. LaVon has hosted over 13,000 visitors on field trips to her family farm, which lies contiguous to the city of Ankeny. She is a member of the social justice committee for her church, a 4-H leader, and has served as secretary of the board of the Wallace House Foundation, and as an assistant soil and water commissioner for Polk County. LaVon was instrumental in the formation of 1000 Friends of Iowa, holding the initial meeting in her century farm home, out of concern for the world-class soil, which was being bulldozed to create subdivisions nearby. In 1990, she won the grand prize at the National County Farm Bureau program exchange for Ag-in-the-classroom. LaVon won the Iowa Farm-City Award in 1993, and in 1995 was runner-up for the Farm Journal Spokesperson of the year Award. In 2000, LaVon and her husband, Craig, won the Wallace’s Farmer Master Farmer Award, and she was the recipient of the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation’s Hagie Heritage Award. She was also named a Food and Society Policy Fellow in 2002, and has traveled to Cuba and several countries in Europe researching sustainable agriculture and has presented at several national conventions.

Crystal Leto (Polk City)
Office Manager
Crystal first became acquainted with 1000 Friends of Iowa while working on a statewide political campaign in 2003. In January 2008, Crystal began consulting for the organization and recently joined the 1000 Friends of Iowa staff. Her duties include updating and maintaining the 1000 Friends website and she encourages anyone with ideas, suggestions for additional content, links, or other comments/concerns regarding the website to send an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .