By CHUCK OFFENBURGER CLYDE, Missouri, Jan. 25, 2018 — Anna Martina Sims Offenburger, my mother, has been dead for nearly 22 years. If she were alive, she’d be turning 111 this week. But on a stop here this past Saturday, I almost felt like I was holding her hand — when she was 13 years…
By CARLA OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, Jan. 16, 2018 — Now that the new year has begun and I’ve read my first book of 2018 — it is“River of Doubt,” by Candice Millard (and it’s my favorite so far!) — I can take the time to reflect on the good reading year I had in 2017.…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER FAIRFIELD, Iowa, Dec. 18, 2017 — Carla Offenburger and I had a terrific weekend recently in this southeast Iowa town, and one of the things we did was make our first visit to the wonderful bronze statue of our old friend Lee Gobble. Before his death at age 100 in the spring of…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER DES MOINES, Iowa, Feb. 26, 2018 — For choir singers, even old former ones like me, Sunday afternoon’s concert here by the Concordia College Choir, from Moorhead, Minn., was probably at least a “bucket list” experience. The 72-voice choir, directed for 32 years by Rene Clausen, is regarded by many to be the…
The ceramic tile mosaic “The Land of Plenty” – 14 feet in diameter and made from more than 48,000 hand-cut and hand-placed pieces – is probably the most fantastic art installation in the whole county. “It’s symbolic of your community, your history, your culture, your economy,” says one of America’s leading ceramic artists of today.…