Along Our Way
KMA radio in Chuck Offenburger’s hometown of Shenandoah celebrated its 85th birthday on August 12. The station, owned by the May family for three generations now, honored its history of having big “jubilees” by putting up a big tent, broadcasting outdoors throughout the day, giving visitors free pancakes and sausages, inviting listeners to “face dive” in an 85-foot-long cake, airing lots of vintage audio clips, and doing special interviews.
[TO SEE THESE PHOTOS IN LARGER FORMAT, AND TO READ A BRIEF STORY, CLICK HERE.]
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A conversation
LIVING WITH CANCER
with the Offenburgers
Chuck Offenburger was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins follicular lymphoma cancer on July 10, 2009, had six months of chemotherapy & is now doing well in a “maintenance” program. Carla Offenburger underwent surgery on April 26, 2010, for removal of a jaw tumor which was found to contain adenoid cystic carcinoma cancer. She underwent six weeks of follow-up radiation in June and July, and continues under close medical observation. We post updates frequently here, including brief insights from Chuck, Carla and at least one of you readers.
“If the sedative makes normal people balmy, I wonder what it’s going to do to you since you have been balmy ever since I’ve known you, except for the last days of your first two marriages.”
FOR THE LATEST UPDATE, CLICK HERE.
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What’s the deal with the
black & white saddle shoes?
Click here for the story of our farm in Greene County, Iowa.
Here's looking at life
at Simple Serenity Farm
Carla’s sister & brother-in-law Chris and Tony Woods, of Des Moines, were at the farm on Sunday, August 22, helping Carla do the lawn mowing and other yard work that we’ve struggled to keep up with lately, with all our medical appointments. The Woodses brought along their 18-month-old granddaughter Ari, who was a delight watching all the action from the porch with Chuck, catching up on her reading and then getting a moment on the lawn tractor seat!
Click here for larger format
Earlier photos in this series
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Chuck Offenburger's
new book on sports
legend Gary Thompson
gets excellent reviews
FOR INFORMATION ON WHERE & HOW TO BUY THE BOOK, CLICK HERE!
''GARY THOMPSON: All-American'' is the new, 352-page biography of one of the state’s genuine sports icons. From 1950-’53 Gary Thompson led the Roland Rockets to high school sports glory in basketball and baseball, giant-killers from one of Iowa’s small schools. Then he led the Cyclones at Iowa State from 1953-’57, becoming the college’s first two-sport All-American. He’s had major success in broadcasting and business, from his home base in Ames. And he and his wife Janet have a family as solid as they come. “I’m the luckiest guy around,” Thompson says.
TO READ CHUCK OFFENBURGER'S COLUMN ABOUT THE BOOK AND THE ''BOOK LAUNCHING'' HELD EARLY IN DECEMBER, CLICK HERE.
TO READ DES MOINES REGISTER SPORTSWRITER RICK BROWN'S REVIEW OF THE BOOK, CLICK HERE.
TO READ CEDAR RAPIDS GAZETTE SPORTS COLUMNIST JIM ECKER'S REVIEW OF THE BOOK, CLICK HERE.
TO READ AMES DAILY TRIBUNE SPORTSWRITER DICK KELLY'S STORY ABOUT THE BOOK, CLICK HERE.
TO READ DOUG BURNS' STORY ABOUT THE BOOK IN THE CARROLL DAILY TIMES HERALD, CLICK HERE.
TO READ ANDY GOODELL'S STORY ABOUT THE BOOK IN THE OSKALOOSA HERALD, CLICK HERE.
WANT TO SEE AND HEAR THE OLD ROLAND HIGH SCHOOL FIGHT SONG PERFORMED? CLICK HERE!
FOR INFORMATION ON WHERE & HOW TO BUY THE BOOK, CLICK HERE!
FOR PHOTOS FROM OUR BOOK LAUNCHING EVENTS, CLICK HERE!
SEE BOB MODERSOHN'S PHOTOS OF OUR BOOK CHAT AND SIGNING AT BEAVERDALE BOOKS IN DES MOINES!
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Our Partners & Patrons
Iowa Hall of Pride
netINS, Inc.
Butler House on Grand B&B
Sam's Barber Shop
Douglas T. Bates III, Attorney
KMA Radio's ''Chuck & Don Show''
Barack Obama story & coloring book
The Monks of New Melleray Abbey
RELATED LINKS
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Farm Photos, 2006 - 2008
Our Iowa News Digest
Along Our Way
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| POGGENSEE'S POSTCARDS
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Photographer Don Poggensee
Shows us some “folk art” he’s
seen recently in four towns
Pictures by Iowa photographer Don Poggensee |
COMING UP IN IOWA
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We recommend the following, if you want to experience this state at
its best!
Sept. 3: It's the ''Fry Fest'' in Iowa City, with former U of I Hawkeyes football coach leading a world-record attempt for most people ever dancing the ''Hokey Pokey'' together! Details, click here.
Sept. 4: ''Run, Ride & Roll,'' most fun triathlon of summer, in Jefferson. Details, click here.
Sept. 11: Iowa State vs. Iowa in college football at Kinnick Stadium, Iowa City, 2:35 p.m.
Sept. 11-19: It's the ''World's Greatest County Fair,'' the Clay County Fair, in Spencer. Details, click here.
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THE CONTINUOUS
IOWA CAUCUS
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O.K., what's the real reason we are in such a hurry to get the new school year started -- 19 days before Labor Day?
[SEE PAST RESULTS]
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Charlie Wittmack’s
epic adventure
The Des Moines man climbed Mount Everest in 2003. Now he is launching a “World Triathlon” in which he will swim, bike, run and climb 12,000 miles in 12 nations – with a grand finish of climbing Everest again. We’re all going to be able to follow him closely with Internet coverage, and thousands of people are going to be impacted with associated public education and health programs. Is this shocking? Not so much to those who have known Wittmack through the years. As far back as his high school years, you could see this coming. Here’s the full story, published here with permission of the Iowa Farm Bureau’s “Family Living” magazine. [READ MORE].
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| | A striking new stained glass in (and of) Audubon |  | | The talk of the southwest Iowa town of Audubon right now is the huge, new stained glass portrait of the town’s namesake, the naturalist John James Audubon. The Masonic Lodge, which owns one of the corner buildings in downtown Audubon, paid for the artist Clint Hansen, an Audubon native now living and working in Des Moines, to do the 18-foot-tall, 8-foot-wide portrait in glass of the naturalist. The Masons’ Grover Davis then led the effort to build the frame and mount the portrait on the corner of the lodge building’s second story. Here Audubon First Lady Lois Kauffman is shown looking up at the portrait, and showing you just how imposing it is there on the main intersection of downtown Audubon. The stained glass work is lighted from behind at dusk, and its first lighting was August 7 during the town’s annual T-Bone Days celebration. The clock that the figure is holding actually works, but still to be installed on it are the hands that will sweep around the clock’s face. |
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| | Out in Greene County, Iowa |  He says goodbye to the 1960s (again), goes to the barber shop and says, “Cut it all off, Sam!”
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER
August 24, 2010
COOPER, IOWA
He’d been trying to grow out his hair, at his wife’s suggestion, so he could wear a ’60s like ponytail. What he really grew was a long, thick, unruly blob that was “a mess,” in the words of a woman in his hometown of Shenandoah. Then even his wife said it was time to give up the attempt. So now both our columnist, and his inspiration Terry Branstad, are back to sporting nice, respectable, Republican haircuts. [READ MORE] |
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| | Sharing some reflections as our Chuck Offenburger
celebrates 50 years of journalism, most of it in Iowa |  Chuck Offenburger has recently turned 63 years old, which means this is his 50th year in a journalism career which began for him at age 13 in his hometown of Shenandoah, Iowa. Most of his career, he’s been covering Iowa. He’s been thinking a lot about all the changes in the state that have occurred in the past half-century. Recently, he has eight other Iowans whose thinking he respects what they think the biggest changes have been. To read their findings, and to read Chuck’s own conclusions about it, you can read his August 6 column by CLICKING HERE.
Also, reporter & columnist Douglas Burns of the Carroll Daily Times Herald recently brought a college intern at the newspaper, Jake Nutting, to the Offenburgers’ Simple Serenity Farm to see some of rural Iowa and to talk journalism. While they were here, young Nutting, who is a student in film production at Brooklyn College in New York City, and Burns interviewed Offenburger on video for about an hour. You can watch and listen to that video by CLICKING HERE. |
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Featured Partner & Patron
| netINS, Inc.
Iowa’s Internet Provider
4201 Corporate Drive
West Des Moines, Iowa 50266-5906
(515) 225-1111
www.netINS.net
Chuck and Carla Offenburger are now living the dream of a whole lot of people – residing and working in a 105-year-old renovated farmhouse in the beautiful Iowa countryside. The Offenburgers call their place “Simple Serenity Farm.” It’s a one-mile bicycle ride up the adjacent Raccoon River Valley Trail to the tiny town of Cooper, nine miles north to the Greene County seat of Jefferson, nine miles south to Just Ethel’s Café in Yale.
The rest of the nation and world are much closer, actually, just a quick click away on the high-speed Internet service at their farm.
The main reason the Offenburgers and an increasing number of other Iowans can live and work in the small towns and rural areas they prefer is because of the products of netINS, Inc.
That is a subsidiary of the West Des Moines-based Iowa Network Services, which was formed in 1989 by Iowa’s independent telephone companies to provide fiber-optic long distance choices to the member companies. In 1993, visionaries at INS formed netINS and invested millions to bring the ’net to Iowa – acting before AOL, Prodigy, Earthlink, Qwest and most other Internet providers.
They now deliver it to 350 Iowa communities served by 120 independent phone companies, including the Jefferson Telephone Company, which connects the Offenburgers.
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Michael S. Eggley, CEO of netINS, Inc., in the company’s “Internet core” in downtown Des Moines where 120 independent phone companies from all over Iowa are connected to the Internet, delivering the service to about 60,000 users in the state. |
netINS is proud of its role in transforming telecommunications – and life – in Iowa’s countryside and small towns, and in some urban areas, too.
The company not only provides high-speed Internet service, it also offers “web-hosting” – it’s the technical home of Offenburger.com. “Maybe even more important to a lot of us,” said Chuck Offenburger, “netINS has the most congenial, patient and understandable tech support you can find anywhere.” You can reach “eBob” and the other techs 24/7, either by toll-free phone call or in “chat” form on the company’s Internet site.
Besides all that, netINS has become just the kind of home-grown employer Iowa’s leadership covets – employing 65 highly-educated, technically-savvy and professionally-satisfied younger people in the Information Technology sector.
To fully explore the services and opportunities netINS provides – and to find out how you can join the Offenburgers and 60,000 other satisfied customers in Iowa – click in now at www.netINS.net
To read Chuck Offenburger’s full column about netINS, click on this link.
With high-speed Internet service, said Judi Langholz, INS vice-president of product support, “the geographic limitations go away.” The result? “It’s an old cliché,” said Michael Eggley, chief executive officer of netINS from its beginning, “but we put the world at your fingertips.”
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Tony Clingan of Jefferson Telephone Company had the high-speed Internet service installed at Simple Serenity Farm long before the renovation of the old farmhouse was completed. |
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