S4E12 A Conversation with The Iowa Investigator

The Iowa Investigator tells 3-minute stories about his home state of Iowa. He has at least 85 thousand followers on TikTok and 31 thousand followers on Facebook and Instagram. Including us. Today we meet The Iowa Investigator.

The Iowa Investigator is J.T. Vonderhaar, an Iowa native who decided to give TikTok a spin only a few years ago while still working as a banker. He focused on interesting stories and facts from small town Iowa (towns less than 1,400 people at first). He challenged his viewer to share and spread the word about his stories if they wanted to hear more. They did. Today J.T. travels the state as The Iowa Investigator visiting towns (both small and large) and focuses on uncovering some of the most interesting stories Iowans, and others, have never heard.

J.T. is a graduate of Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa where he majored in business administration and minored in history. He is a former basketball player who has also been an assistant and head coach for high school teams in Eastern Iowa. For more than 10 years, J.T.’s career was in banking. When The Iowa Investigator became one of the fastest growing TikTok-ers in the state, he left his full-time position to follow his passion to learn more about the forgotten and lesser known stories about his home state.

Learn More

To learn more about The Iowa Investigator and his stories, you need to visit his Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok pages. The following are links to his stories on Facebook. They are but a sampling of the more than 600 videos he has produced.

The Iowa Investigator discusses:

Jack Trice - https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1H37wxjUMw/

The Sweet 16 Capital of the World - https://www.facebook.com/share/r/18GpNceQma/

Iowa and the Underground Railroad - https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1BC6pGYYbs/

Iowa's Name - https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1EJx3avi9h/

Lexington of the North - https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1DqtyzkTWS/

Nikita Khruschev's Visit to Iowa - https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1CJbVmqpSh/

The Underfunding of Iowa Schools - https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1CEQ4BFQQp/

A 3rd Space Survey: Acts of Kindness

Kindness seems out of vogue right now. But we don’t believe that to be true. We believe there are a lot of people in our world who are choosing kindness even in the face of cruelty.

Do you have an act of kindness that you’d be willing to share? You can participate through a Google Forms Survey at this link: https://forms.gle/5NQakn6bgeXpm2us5

There you will find two kindness questions we’d like you to consider and then respond to:

• What is an act of kindness you’ve received that made a difference to you?

• What is an act of kindness you have done which you hope changed another person’s life?

What do we do with the acts we learn about in this survey? We save them and feature them in our Thanksgiving show each year…anonymously unless you prefer we use your name.

Finally, please share this survey because an act of kindness shared begets others.

Want to watch us do the podcast? Visit the Klaus Haus Productions YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/@KlausHausProductions.

Credits:

Wild Opinions and Nonsensical Musings by Lamar Roth & Tom Klaus

Images by Getty Images, Pexels, Pixabay, Roth Images, and Cyberlink AI

Final review and approval by Jake and Ebie Dawgs Inc.

Photos by Lamar Roth are copyrighted by Roth Images, All Rights Reserved. For permissions or additional information: lamar3rdSpace@gmail.com and https://www.rothimages.com/

Getting to 3rd Space with Lamar and Tom is produced and sponsored by Klaus Haus Productions LLC and Acorn Consulting, LLC. © 2026. All Rights Reserved. Permissions: hello@klaushausllc.com.

No living creature was harmed in the production of this film but a lot of Colombian coffee was consumed.

Recorded using Riverside.fm - http://riverside.fm/ - from “home studio” locations in Maryland and Kansas, USA and Iowa; Original Publishing Date, June 9, 2026.