By CHUCK OFFENBURGER JEFFERSON, Iowa, Aug. 21, 2018 — In late summer about five years ago, Scott Shriver and his crew from Shriver Farms had most of us in Greene County stumped about what the “new” crop was that they had coming up in a very visible field along Iowa Highway 4. First there were…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, July 4, 2018 — Well, God bless America anyway. That’s the mindset good farmers like our neighbors Doug & Karen Lawton have to put themselves in this Independence Day. Yes, the corn looks way better than the old “knee-high by the 4th of July” standard of the pre-hybrids era of…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER JEFFERSON, Iowa, June 5, 2018 — If you’ve known Terry Rich well over the years, you’ll be shocked at this — when I asked him the other day what being named the 2018 “Bell Tower of Fame” award winner means to him, he lowered his chin, choked back some emotion and said softly,…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER JEFFERSON, Iowa, June 6, 2018 – By proclamation of the Greene County Board of Supervisors, this past Sunday, June 3, was officially “Carla and Chuck Offenburger Day” here in our home county. Reports from the field are that there were no injuries, property damage, fights, protests or arrests. Carla and I are…
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.…