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Out in Greene County, Iowa
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 Cooper Prom day was snowy, cold & windy, but in our tropical hotspot it was “Almost Paradise!”
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER
April 14, 2008
COOPER, IOWAThe fourth annual Cooper Prom, held Saturday evening, April 12, was another grand party, even though most of us began the day wondering if this would be the first prom ever for which people would wear long underwear.
That’s because this Winter That Won’t Go Away delivered another sucker punch Saturday morning, with two inches of heavy, wet snow. Temperatures hovered in the 30s all day and night, and winds howled.
“Some of us in the band were talking and we were all kind of griping about the weather, too,” said Michael Feekes, of Slater, trombone player with the High Society Big Band, which is based in Huxley. “But then we thought, ‘Hey, wait a minute, it’s going to be tropical in Cooper!’ ”
And indeed it was, inside the sold-out Cooper Community Building, where more than 250 people indeed felt like it was “Almost Paradise!” in our town of 30 residents. That was our theme, and decorations that helped carry it out included an awesome rumbling volcano, palm trees, tiki huts, coconut shells, stuffed parrots and colorful leis for everybody.
“Dear Lord, bless us tonight as we gather for fun and fellowship,” Carla Offenburger, president of the sponsoring Committee for a Super Cooper, said in the blessing she delivered before dinner. “We thank you for making at least one place in Iowa tropical tonight.”
That meal was fantastic.
It was prepared and catered to Cooper by culinary arts teacher Donna Carhill and her “Ram Restaurant” staff of students from our Jefferson-Cooper-Scranton High School, as we around Cooper call it. They helped set an immediate tropical feeling with their light and colorful “seafoam salad,” and then came with stuffed pork loins, cheesey potatoes to die for, and homemade rolls so good you wanted to stuff extras in your tuxedo pockets.
Serving the meal were members of the East Greene High School jazz band, all wearing colorful tropical shirts and some adding straw hats. They were led by band instructor Matt Schutt, who for three years has also served as an honorary mayor of Cooper, along with Music Boosters member Lisa Beyerink and another East Greene faculty member, Rochelle Otto.
After a dinner, the volcano put on the first of its near eruptions during the evening, and then the High Society Big Band took over. Who’d have thought that we could ever reach a point in Cooper where we have trouble providing a big enough dance floor, but indeed we have! We took down four of the banquet tables after the dance started, but we still needed more room. Our big crowd – which as in past years came from across Iowa – is obviously a gang of dancing machines!
It was also quite a fashion show, as you might imagine. Attire ranged from very formal, including gowns with sequins and feathers, to a classy looking western-cut tuxedo, a bare midriff, wildly colorful shirts in tropical patterns, some jaunty looking hats on a number of the men, and of course, the highly fashionable black & white saddle shoes.
The photos below will give you a good feel for prom night in Cooper, and we’ll be adding more photos in the next couple of days, so keep checking back.
You can write the columnist at chuck@Offenburger.com.
The most talked about part of the tropical setting for the Cooper Prom was ''Mount Kokokelani,'' an ''active volcano'' that rumbled and smoked throughout the evening, with occasional near-eruptions when flashing lights illuminated the red ''lava'' coming down the mountain. It stood 15 feet high at the rim, and was 18 feet across. ''Kokokelani'' in the native Hawaiian language means ''almost paradise.''
The volcano was the work primarily of two of Cooper's newest community members, Reagan and Rich Osborne, who moved in a year ago from Colorado after falling in love with Iowa while riding on RAGBRAI (the Des Moines Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa). Both are as artistic as they are tech-savvy. Reagan Osborne reported that, not counting about 40 hours of work time, they spent only about $100 in making the volcano of steel cables, papier mache, red celephane, several different colors of paint, a cobbled-together sound system and special lighting.
There were leis -- made with artificial flowers -- for everyone at the Cooper Prom.
Some people turned out in the finest formal wear for the Cooper Prom, others wore more tropical apparel. Here Jeanne Burnett, of Des Moines, makes a few adjustments to her husband Bob's tuxedo shirt just after they'd arrived.
One of the fun groups that filled a banquet table and then enjoyed the dance were these students from Jefferson-Scranton High School, (left to right) Katy Neal, Shawon Zmolek, Zach Miller, Ashley Shaw, Katie Rasmussen and James Healy.
These three student staffers at the Jefferson-Scranton High School Ram Restaurant -- the culinary arts program that provided the meal for the Cooper Prom banquet -- are shown here dishing up the cheesey potatoes, stuffed pork loin and green beans for the main course. Left to right are Chad Magee, Nate Carhill and Josh Kennedy.
Show here is a portion of the banquet crowd at the Cooper Prom.
Ready to deliver a tray full of the sherbet desserts is Josh Neese, a member of the jazz band at East Greene High School in nearby Grand Junction. The East Greene band members served as the banquet servers to help raise money for band activities.
Denice and Michael Feekes of the ''High Society Big Band'' based in the central Iowa town of Huxley, are shown here in a duet on the song ''Almost Paradise'' to lead off the performance by the 16-piece dance band.
Among the fantastic dancers at the Cooper Prom was this couple, shown here doing the ''cha-cha-cha'' later in the evening.
Dan and Stacy Hardaway, of Cooper, are shown here dancing during the prom.
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