IDA GROVE, Iowa, Dec. 23, 2014 — Photographer Don Poggensee says it was 25 years ago this fall when he first saw a saw-whet owl, a small, sharp-featured “boreal” owl around his home community here in northwest Iowa. The saw-whet, also called a “northern saw-whet,” is about the size of a robin. They tend to hide…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, Jan. 14, 2015 – Late last spring, an ugly story that had been hiding for 45 years erupted in front of me, and I barely knew what to think. It involves a black basketball player beating up a white sportswriter in our student years back at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. I was…
By DOUGLAS T. BATES III CENTERVILLE, Tenn., Dec. 23, 2015 – The following is the text of a serman I gave on Sunday, Dec. 14, at the rural Swan Cumberland Presbyterian Church that I attend here in Hickman County in west central Tennessee. I am going to tell a story today I first heard many…
By CARLA OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, Nov. 26, 2014 — I am well on my way to surpassing my 52 books a year goal – with 50 already done. Wow! And I know I’ve got some on my immediate reading list that will help me, dare I say it, reach 60 books for 2014. I think…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, Jan. 13, 2015 – If you were a college student in the mid to late 1960s, especially in the South like I was at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, you had a front row seat to observe some of the biggest changes in American history. But if you had any heart at…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, Oct. 18, 2014 – Over the years, when the well-known Des Moines-area meteorologist Charlie Notis has mentioned what the first 10 years of his childhood were like, it’s been a shock to his friends. “When I first met my wife Elaine when we were in grad school at Iowa State,…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER NASHVILLE, Tenn., Nov. 25, 2014 — I was in fast company one weekend this fall here at my alma mater, Vanderbilt University. I was inducted into the Hall of Fame that has been established by Vanderbilt Student Media to take note of professional work by alumni in the ever-changing field of mass communications.…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER JEFFERSON, Iowa, Nov. 24, 2014 – I’ve always said the best thing about my career is that it has let me meet and come to know many of the most notable Iowans of our time. But one that I’ve missed is Sarah Grant, who is probably the most famous and successful artist working in…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER JACKSON JUNCTION, Iowa, Nov. 27, 2014 – It was 35 Thanksgivings ago when I joined with the senior class of Turkey Valley High School here in northeast Iowa to honor one of their own as “Turkey of the Year.” Now here we are, six presidents and four governors later (if we count the one governor twice), and the…
HAZLETON, Iowa, Nov. 15, 2014 – Photographer Don Poggensee spent a couple of recent weeks continuing his photographic work in Amish communities around the Midwest, specifically in the area of Jamesport, Missouri, and here in northeast Iowa. He got to enjoy some of the last of the fall color, while watching Amish farmers complete the…
