A noon-time statehouse ceremony marked this “National Day of Prayer” with speech and song. Sue Stoltz of Rolla, Missouri, the Midwest region leader for the National Day of Prayer, opened the event. “As I flew in this morning, I felt the Lord (impress) on me that you are the heartland of the nation. The heart is extremely important and without it there is no life,” Stoltz said. “May God bless you and our nation with a healthy heart that is pure and serves only God, that you would serve only the Lord our God in Iowa.” Keynote speaker Bob Vander Plaats of Sioux City, a G-O-P candidate for governor, says the country needs the touchstones of religion and morality. “And that begins with you and me committing ourselves on this day, the National Day of Prayer, to go to our knees not as a sign of weakness, but go to our knees as a source of power,” Vander Plaats said. Vander Plaats urged the crowd to “humble” themselves and pray for the nation.Vander Plaats also reminisced about being principal at Marcus/Meriden/Cleghorn when some parents sued the school to try to stop a prayer at graduation. He suggested the nation’s court system is out of step with its foundations. “If you go to Washington, D.C. you’ll see renditions of the Ten Commandments and you’ll see the Founding Fathers looking up to Moses coming down from Mt. Sinai with the Ten Commandments in their hands,” Vander Plaats said. “Why? Because the Founding Fathers based all law in this country off of the Ten Commandments.” Go to www.radioiowa.com to hear the prayer written to be said in every state today and recited aloud in the Iowa capitol over the noonhour.