By CHUCK OFFENBURGER BANCROFT, Iowa, Aug. 17, 2019 – In this summer of mass shootings, suspicion of those different from ourselves, and outright hate, thank God for baseball, you know? Almost daily, the grand old game gives us good lessons – prepare well, get out of yourself, sacrifice for others, work together as a team,…
By CARLA OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, Aug. 1, 2019 — It’s been an exhausting last few months for me – and cancer. I’m tired, folks. Don’t count me out, just count me tired. It’s been a whirlwind summer for sure. But before I give you the latest news, let me review what I’ve already done in…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, July 3, 2019 — It’s amazing what the first few days of July can do to the Iowa corn crop. Six days ago, on June 27, 10-year-old Natalie Towers walked with her little brother Noah to the edge of one of their grandfather Doug Lawton’s cornfields, and she was taller…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, June 20, 2019 — It was 30 years ago this summer when I decided to get my ear pierced and start wearing an earring. It was 29 years ago when I met Carla Burt during a bicycle ride on a recreational trail. Jim Green inspired both big moments in my life. …
By PAUL KURTZ OMAHA, Nebraska, June 16, 2019 — My friend of long standing (I think 50-plus years qualifies as “long standing,” right?), Chuck Offenburger, has graciously invited me to report my thoughts as I follow our “VandyBoys” competing for the NCAA Division I baseball championship in the College World Series now underway here. To…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER SHENANDOAH, Iowa, May 22, 2019 — The biggest lesson of the Donald Trump presidency is surely this: A person who almost nobody thinks can be elected president of the United States can indeed win the highest office in the land. That is one of several reasons no one should be underestimating the candidacy…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER DES MOINES, Iowa, June 13, 2019 — If you’ve thought that U.S. policy toward our neighboring nation of Cuba couldn’t get much worse, you’re not thinking big enough. “Some people look at just Cuba,” said Rev. Luis Barrios, who’s been studying and traveling the region for more than 45 of his 66…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER ST. PAUL, Minnesota, May 10, 2019 — Here is a photo re-cap of my wife Carla Offenburger, her sister Chris Woods and I finishing in the May 5 “Brave Like Gabe” 5K Run-Walk in beautiful Como Park here. The second-annual event was organized by and named for Gabriele Grunewald, 32, of St.…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER DES MOINES, Iowa, April 22, 2019 — The Lenten season just completed is probably the most spiritual period in my whole life. In my later adult years as a “cradle Catholic,” I’ve not been one to “give up something” for Lent. Rather, I always tried to “do something more,” like, oh, saying the…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, May 13, 2019 — There is good news to report as the Raccoon River Valley Trail and other recreational trails in our area of west central Iowa get another trail season opened. And the news includes some re-construction plans now being made for the 67 feet of the RRVT bridge…
