By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, July 29, 2014 — Here’s a photographic collaboration on RAGBRAI coverage from Don Poggensee and myself. The 42nd edition of Des Moines Register’s Annual Bicycle Ride Across Iowa used a very northerly, 418-mile route. On at least two days, the Iowa State Patrol reported that there were more than 20,000…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, July 15, 2014 — It was 11 years ago, right about now, when I drove up to the central Iowa town of Slater to watch my great-nephew Tony Watson pitch for the Dallas Center-Grimes High School Mustangs against the Ballard High School Bombers. Tony, then a senior, threw big heat…
By ROD WILLIAMSON NASHVILLE, Tenn., July 27, 2014 — It’s doubtful anyone in the office here will ask me much about my summer vacation. They’ll wonder where I’ve been and when I say “Iowa,” the polite ones will say “oh” and the wise guys will crack a joke. You had to be there and, more…
By CARLA OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, May 2, 2014 – In my last column, you may recall, I reported that in 2013, I finally reached my goal of reading more than 52 books in a year. I read 54 last year. I hope you noticed that I haven’t written a column since that one in January. What have I been doing? READING! …
RIPPEY, Iowa, July 19, 2014 – When you think about it, this little farm town of 292 hardly seems like a place where you’d find one of the neatest events in college athletics, but I’ve long thought that is the case. And while that event will continue, every-other-year, we lost its grand matron this week…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, July 3, 2014 – In the 10 years we’ve been coaxing our farm neighbors the Lawtons into give us a 4th of July corn check — to make sure we’re beyond the old outdated standard of it being “knee-high by the 4th of July” — the crop has never looked better.…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, July 11, 2014 – For somebody in my business, I guess the very definition of “retirement” would be that your college alma mater wins a national championship in your favorite sport, but you don’t get anything written about it until two weeks later. So, to you Coach Tim Corbin and…
By BO CARTER FORT WORTH, Texas, July 10, 2014 – The dust has cleared after the recent College World Series in Omaha, and Mighty Casey (er, Vanderbilt) did not strike out. Amazingly to many, including alumni like myself (I’m a 1974 graduate), Vandy came away with its first NCAA men’s championship in 124 years of intercollegiate athletics.…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER JEFFERSON, Iowa, June 10, 2014 – On the morning of May 29, just before the Iowa Racing & Gaming Commission was going to hold an afternoon public hearing on a proposal to approve a license for a casino to be built and operate here, about 200 proponents gathered at a reception for the commissioners. I was…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER In this spring of 2014, our Greene County in west central Iowa is asking the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission to grant a license so that Wild Rose Entertainment can develop a casino, hotel and conference center to serve the area around Jefferson. As we’ve learned how big, profitable and philanthropic the gambling…
