Eminent Homemaker
County: Minnehaha
Fayola Muchow, Sioux Falls, was honored in 1976 as Eminent Homemaker by the South Dakota Board of Regents and South Dakota State University.
This rural Sioux Falls homemaker firmly believes that the cornerstone of civilized society is the family and the way you bring up your children; she also believes that all women have drives toward personal fulfillment. Muchow has followed both beliefs by raising their family of three children and through her leadership abilities in state, national and international organizations.
In 1973-75, Muchow served as president of the National Extension Homemakers Council (NEHC). She was the guiding force behind “University Week for Women” at South Dakota State University in 1975.
By profession Muchow, 55, is a registered nurse. Although no longer practicing, she serves on committees for the Minnehaha Community Health Center and the newly-created Regional Health Services Agency.
In the 1950s she was chairperson for a nine-county mental health drive, and was a board member of the Center for Community Organization and Area Development, which encompasses a 12-county area. Last year she was a representative to the United Nations World Meeting on Human Habitat; she has also been a delegate to two World Food Policy Conferences.
Muchow has represented South Dakota Extension homemakers at triennial conferences of the Associated Country Women of the World in Ireland, 1965; United States, 1968; Norway, 1971; and Australia, 1974.
She has served on the President’s Commission for the Employment of the Handicapped, has been national health chairman for NEHC, and was awarded the National Partner in 4-H award in 1972. Muchow has attended nine national rural health conferences sponsored by the American Medical Association, was a National Safety Council member from 1974-75 and was a member of the Nutrition Advisory Committee.
Muchow was state president of the South Dakota Extension Homemakers Council from 1964-1967, secretary four years for the Minnehaha County Extension Board, member of the Minnehaha County Extension Building Committee and a member of the Memorial Art Center Planning Committee.
At home, although her two sons and a daughter are gone, she still works three-to-four hours a day with the family’s 9,000 bird layer operation, “I’m happy to be a farm wife and doing what I want,” she says.