A small southwest Iowa town has a new mayor, who’s now one of the youngest mayors in the country.
Twenty-year-old Eva Fipps was elected mayor of Henderson by a 30-to-19 vote over Scott Schondelmeyer in November.
Fipps graduated from Treynor High School in 2024 and was a dual enrolee at Iowa Western Community College. She also attended Iowa Girls State and served as a page in the Iowa Legislature. Fipps explains why she decided to run for mayor.
“Every morning I’d go for runs or walks with my dogs,” said Fipps, “and I would stop in at City Hall to see our city clerk, Candace (Knop), and we’d get to chatting. We’ve done this for years, probably since around COVID time, and she recommended that I run for mayor. I never actually thought about because of how young I was, but she said I could. I said, ‘Why not?’ Even if I lost, I’d still be learning something.”
She’s part of the youth movement in Mills County government, which includes 19-year-old Mills County Supervisor Jack Sayers and 21-year-old Joseph Jaworkski, recently elected mayor of Silver City.
Fipps says there’s a learning curve involved with becoming mayor of a small town and she’s taking a class on open meetings next week.
“It will really help me understand my role and how to properly do it,” she says. “I also have been in communication with a lot of different people, from other mayors to other city clerks, our board members. It’s a lot of communication and a lot of learning, and I’m trying every step of the way to get as much of the information in as I can.”
As mayor, Fipps hopes to spark more community involvement and more activities.
“We’re working on a couple of different events that we’re going to be doing come this summer,” said Fipps. “I would love to see more than just townspeople in Henderson. I would love to see those who used to live in Henderson, those who live around us, come together to build up the community — not just Henderson, but in Mills County in general.”
Fipps also hopes to fill some of the community’s empty store fronts, and renovate the city’s playground. She was sworn into office December 29th.
