By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, Aug. 13, 2018 – Inspired by a Smithsonian Institution exhibit examining the impact of sports on American culture – which is now on display at the Greene County Historical Museum in Jefferson – I have been diving into the history of sports in our little town of Cooper here in…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER STORM LAKE, Iowa, Aug. 5, 2018 — The second season of the summertime Pioneer Collegiate Baseball League came to a crazy end — a crazy-fun end — here Friday night. Albert Lea’s Lakers clinched the championship with a 12-11 victory over defending champion Storm Lake’s Whitecaps. It was a storybook worst-to-first reversal…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, Aug. 19, 2018 – I’ve long said that one of the things I like most about being a Catholic is that the church is slow to bend to the social whims of the moment, including my own. That has probably helped Catholicism survive for centuries in the many very different…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER DES MOINES, Iowa, June 19, 2018 — Gail Walker, executive director of the international humanitarian organization “Pastors for Peace,” had the same thought I did last week when we all watched in amazement as the United States dramatically ended its decades-old isolation of North Korea. My goodness, could that happen with Cuba, too? …
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER DES MOINES, Iowa, May 1, 2018 — It was fun being able to celebrate with two Des Moines Register editorial writers over breakfast one day last week — the recent Pulitzer Prize winner Andie Dominick and her predecessor on the staff, Bill Leonard. After he retired and then Dominick got his job in…