 What’s the deal with the black & white saddle shoes?  Click here for the story of our farm in Greene County, Iowa. Here's looking at life at Simple Serenity Farm  Carla’s sister & brother-in-law Chris and Tony Woods, of Des Moines, were at the farm on Sunday, August 22, helping Carla do the lawn mowing and other yard work that we’ve struggled to keep up with lately, with all our medical appointments. The Woodses brought along their 18-month-old granddaughter Ari, who was a delight watching all the action from the porch with Chuck, catching up on her reading and then getting a moment on the lawn tractor seat! Click here for larger format Earlier photos in this series Iowa Hall of Pride netINS, Inc. Butler House on Grand B&B Sam's Barber Shop Douglas T. Bates III, Attorney KMA Radio's ''Chuck & Don Show'' Barack Obama story & coloring book The Monks of New Melleray Abbey RELATED LINKS About Offenburger.com Biographies Want to Reprint? Want Updates? ARCHIVES Chuck Offenburger's columns Christie Vilsack's columns Carla Offenburger's columns Carla's book reviews Jared Strong's columns Guest Columns The Simple Serenity Farm columns Farm Photos, 2006 - 2008 Our Iowa News Digest Along Our Way 
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 With 20,000-plus coming to our town of 4,600, we are stepping up to “radical hospitality” By CHUCK OFFENBURGER June 25, 2008 JEFFERSON, IOWA This story, in a slightly different format, was first published in the Jefferson Herald of June 19, 2008.  Jefferson RAGBRAI treasurer LuAnn Carlson is overseeing a budget that calls for $113,000 in expenses, almost none of it tax money. The local RAGBRAI committee expects to cover those expenses with sales of 600 to 700 cases of beer and other drinks in a beverage garden; fees that 19 food vendors and seven non-food vendors, nearly all of them from within the county, are paying; sales of 800 special T-shirts that have the Jefferson RAGBRAI logo and motto of “Jefferson – All the Bells and Whistles,” and $100 sponsorships of portable toilets, which buys you naming and decorating rights. Plus there have been significant donations. Those include $3,000 from the City of Jefferson marketing fund, up to $5,500 from Greene County Development Corp. and $10,000 of “in-kind” services already given by local businesses and agencies. The Des Moines Register most years has shared the profits it realizes from RAGBRAI with the organizing committees in the eight host towns. If the overall Jefferson RAGBRAI reception winds up making any money, profits will go toward community projects or initiatives. RAGBRAI committees across the state have seldom ever lost money, and the local committee has bought insurance that would help cover a large portion of the expected revenue from the beverage garden, in the event of heavy rain. How challenging is it to direct a financial operation of this size for what is essentially a one-day event being run by so many volunteers? “It’s not really all that difficult,” said Carlson, a banker who earlier served as treasurer for the community’s Bell Tower Festival for about 10 years. “Communication is the key. And we are fortunate to have such a great group of committee chairs. Also, it helps tremendously to have the three-ring binder of instructions that the Des Moines Register’s RAGBRAI organization gave us as a starting point for the thought process of building the budget.” That instructional manual, incidentally, is 276 pages long and tells how towns have been organizing RAGBRAI receptions for the past 35 years. Local committee chairpersons each have their own copy, and refer to it constantly. The beverage garden, which will be the biggest revenue producer for the local RAGBRAI organization, will be operated by a committee chaired by Patsy Rudolf. It will be a block and a half long on State Street, on the north side of the Greene county courthouse square. It will be enclosed by a double fence made up of 2,500 feet of snow fence – nearly a half-mile of it! There will be 50 portable toilets in that beverage garden, and others at different locations around the square. Jeff Lamoureux, Jefferson’s director of parks and recreation, is chairperson of the RAGBRAI showers and sanitation committee. He notes that the Register provides 80 portable toilets for the campgrounds, and the local committee is renting another 100. He did a survey of shower heads in the community earlier and determined there are a total of 45 in the different school buildings, at the swimming pool and in the Greene County Community Center. That relatively low number meant the RAGBRAI organization has had to contract for 101 additional showers that are on semi-truck and trailer rigs from three different companies in Iowa.
The numbers indicate that about 18,000 visitors will be staying overnight in Jefferson on RAGBRAI night. A few thousand more will likely visit the town that Monday evening to join in the fun, before returning to their homes around the area. So, this will probably be the biggest crowd ever to gather in the community. And that means that three of the most challenging committee assignments are food, campgrounds and housing. Pam Olerich and Alana Curnyn stepped up to co-chair the food committee. Olerich, who works in the Greene County auditor’s office, said her mother Janis Hinrichs was food chairperson when RAGBRAI stayed overnight in her hometown of Marengo two years ago, and Olerich thought it would be fun to be involved here. Curnyn, who is development director at Genesis, an organization that works with specially-challenged people, said she got involved because her friend Olerich “called up and had a pretty good spiel.” Their most daunting assignment was to try to line-up 20,000 meals for the evening RAGBRAI is here. They drafted a committee that includes bakers Randy and Phyllis Bunkers, Fareway Stores manager Doug Monaghan, Greene County Extension director Craig Hertel, City Council member Shannon Black and organizers Vicky Nation, Karen Borsay and Kathy Walker. First they did a survey and determined that all of Jefferson’s restaurants, combined, could produce a total of about 2,400 meals in one evening, working full-out. Then they started coaxing and coaching churches, civic groups, livestock organizations, school clubs and teams, and even individuals, to sign up to serve meals in their own facilities, in booths around the square or in the campgrounds. “Right now, we think it’s a realistic figure that we have 15,000 to 17,000 meals arranged,” Olerich said on June 18. “We’re still working on coming up with the rest of them. We’ll get there.” Incidentally, Randy Bunkers said that at their Bunkers Dunkers bakery, they are gearing up to make “600 dozen glazed donuts” for RAGBRAI’s visit, “along with 300 to 400 dozen ‘donut holes,’ and I don’t know how many cinnamon rolls and caramel rolls.” Bunkers was the first person to invite RAGBRAI to make an overnight stay in Jefferson when he encountered RAGBRAI director Juskiewicz three years ago. That happened when both were on vacation in Florida and met in an ice cream line.  Ben Teusch, 18 years old and a graduate this spring of Jefferson-Scranton High School, stepped up to a pretty big challenge himself, when he agreed to become chair of the campgrounds committee. He’s got great support from a committee of veterans of community service – teachers Mavis and Mark Sawhill, Greene County Fair board members Rod Wolf and Don Hyndman, and City Council member Larry Teeples. They have found and arranged camping space for 15,000 or more people. Campgrounds include the high school campus, where they expect to have up to 7,000 camping; the county fairgrounds, where up to 4,000 will stay; Russell, Chautauqua, Kelso and Daubendiek city parks; the grounds of St. Joseph Catholic Church and Gospel Open Bible Church, and the open block where the “old pink school” once stood northwest from the square. A couple of other church yards may be used, too. “I’ve been asked a lot how somebody my age could take on this responsibility,” said Teusch. “But now that summer has started and I’ve been working a part-time job while I’m also doing my RAGBRAI work, I honestly wonder how adults could have time to do this! I’ve got so much less responsibility in the way of family and income, I feel like I have it quite easy.” Teusch said “the other angle to this is that while it is quite a bit of responsibility, and difficult, especially compared to what many kids my age are doing, I’ve been really enjoying being able to express my opinions and put them into action. And I’ve liked seeing how the whole show comes together – an experience for anybody, I think.” Meanwhile, housing chairperson Angie Chapman and members of her committee are trying to find host homes for 1,458 RAGBRAI riders who have written or e-mailed requests to stay in yards or indoors at private homes. Committee member Shanda Kozal said her guess is that another 700 riders have already made arrangements to stay at the homes of people they know in Jefferson.  By June 18, the housing committee had matched 26 hosts in the community with 143 riders, but typically, such housing arrangements get confirmed late in the RAGBRAI process. Traffic flow and policing will of course change dramatically in Jefferson on July 21. Making plans for that have been Al Jensen, chair of the public safety committee, and the law enforcement committee co-chaired by Jefferson police chief Dan Taylor and Greene county sheriff Tom Heater.  They have contracted five additional uniformed officers from outside the county to work with their own law enforcement staffs, and the Grand Junction Volunteer Fire Department is providing six to eight members to provide additional traffic direction in Jefferson that day and night. The costs for those officers and firemen will be paid by the RAGBRAI committee. In addition, several Iowa State Patrol troopers are expected to be helping with the crowd in Jefferson, too. Jensen, Taylor and Heater have also worked on an intricate “disaster plan” should bad weather or other adversity occur. Streets around the courthouse square will be closed to vehicular traffic all of July 21, and there will be other partial closings in the downtown area announced later. Jensen, who stands 6 ft. 10 in., commands quick attention when he shows up at meetings to discussion RAGBRAI logistics, and rolls out a photographic map of Jefferson that is three feet longer than he is tall.  That map and others have had plenty of use while Teresa Hagen and Teresa Mobley, co-chairs of the shuttle committee, have been organizing four routes for shuttle buses that will run continuously throughout the town from the morning of July 21 until the wee hours of July 22. Up to five school buses and two chartered buses will be running at any one time. Their “main station,” where all the shuttle routes meet, will be at the Jefferson-Scranton Middle School. In that school’s parking lot, a veritable mall of bicycle shops will be set up, with 11 shops from across the state doing sales and service. Representatives of various bicycle manufacturers will also be based there, offering test rides. An information centers committee, headed by Jerry and Hollie Roberts, has already enlisted 70 volunteers to help operate three separate centers – in the Greene County Community Center yard, as well as at the high school and fairgrounds. Inside the community center, a medical center will be operated by a committee chaired by Karen Bossard, administrator at Greene County Medical Center. Chris Durlam and Matt Bednarik are in charge of the electrical service committee. “We’re adding significantly to the power we have on the square for the Bell Tower Festival,” said Durlam. “We’ll provide somewhere around 60 circuits that are 20-amp. For comparison, a typical house wouldn’t have half of that. But they tell me we’re going to have groups running about 20 of the big roasters at their food booths, and that doesn’t happen at a typical house.” Another electrical improvement that’s just been completed: The white light bulbs that outline the tops of the buildings around the square have all just been updated. Crews from Alliant Energy and Midland Power Cooperative, working with City Council member Randy Monthei, who volunteers as coordinator of that lighting program, completed the task just before the Bell Tower Festival. About 1,500 lights line the downtown buildings, spaced every 18 inches. Durlam Electric maintains a similar display at the community center, with 1,000 lights on its roof, and those bulbs have just been updated, too. Sean Schiltz and the communications committee are supplying 75 radios to RAGBRAI committee members, and monitoring their network. In addition, he said both U.S. Cellular and Verizon are tripling their cell phone usage capacity in Jefferson for RAGBRAI day. And Iowa Telecom will bring in one or more trailers equipped with Internet-connected computers and telephones that will be available free to the riders. Jefferson’s RAGBRAI story is being told to local people and riders around the world in two key ways. Jacque Andrew and Erin Morain head a publicity committee that is working with the Jefferson Bee & Herald staff to do frequent news releases and advertising, as well as to produce a special, 24-to-28-page RAGBRAI tabloid newspaper to be published the week before the bike ride arrives. About 10,000 copies of the tabloid will be printed, and 5,000 of those will be delivered to the riders in Harlan the night before they ride to Jefferson. They will also be delivered to newspaper subscribers and will be available free at the RAGBRAI information centers. Meanwhile, Reagan Osborne and a staff of high school students are operating the special Internet site www.jeffersonragbrai.com, which is updated at least three times per week. A “Ride Right” committee, headed by veteran RAGBRAI rider Mark Peckumn, has been doing checks on the road conditions along the bike route to and from Jefferson, as well as around town. That committee will contact all homeowners along the way to let them know what to expect when RAGBRAI is passing. They’ve also conducted a bike safety rodeo for Jefferson children and are making bicycle helmets available to kids at a bargain price of $10.  Andy Krieger and Angie Eberle are heading the entertainment committee, which landed one of the hottest rock ’n’ roll show bands in the Midwest to be the headliners on the main stage downtown at 8:30 p.m. It’s the Johnny Holm Band, a Minnesota-based group that has been a favorite on RAGBRAI for several years. In addition, Greene County’s own Kountertop band will play at 5 p.m. Other local entertainers will be performing on a special stage on the north side of the courthouse during the afternoon hours, and a Chautauqua-like “Iowa Caucus Corner” on the southeast lawn of the courthouse will offer special speakers and discussions in the late afternoon and early evening. At 8 p.m. that night, there will be a special salute on the main stage to “Mr. Pork Chop” Paul Bernhard, of Bancroft, in northern Iowa. Now 79, he retired at the end of last year’s RAGBRAI after 25 years of selling the popular Iowa Chops roadside on the big bike ride. RAGBRAI director Juskiewicz said Bernhard’s retirement was such a surprise “that we didn’t give him a proper thanks last year, and that’s why I asked if Jefferson would be interested in hosting that on this summer’s ride.” Talk about numbers – Bernhard, who is credited with coming up with originating the idea for the Iowa chop, estimates he has overseen the grilling of more than 500,000 of them since the early 1970s when he was president of the Iowa Pork Producers Association. He has been so popular with RAGBRAIers through the years, that his recognition here could put more people on the square all at once than at any other time during the RAGBRAI stay.  Soon to be revealed are the plans of a hospitality committee, headed by Rich Osborne and Karen Shannon and in charge of the welcome, farewell and decorating of the community. They indicate they are playing on the “All the Bells & Whistles” slogan. They got a colorful start when the Greene County Master Gardeners convened earlier this spring planted 120 five-gallon buckets of petunias, to be displayed along the RAGBRAI route in Jefferson. While all of this has been happening, the half-million dollar economic impact that RAGBRAI is expected to bring to Jefferson has already started flowing, as RAGBRAI director Juskiewicz noted in a meeting here on June 17. He pointed out that he and his assistant, Wes Hall, have made 17 trips to Jefferson since January, including eating 19 meals here and staying overnight seven times. The Jefferson RAGBRAI organization is headed by an executive committee that includes Jean and Don Van Gilder, Drs. Ashley and Chad Schwander, Carla and Chuck Offenburger, treasurer LuAnn Carlson and Amy Milligan, the executive of the Jefferson Area Chamber of Commerce. They work with an advisory board of community leaders that includes Mayor Craig Berry, city administrator Mike Palmer, Greene County board of supervisors chairperson Guy Richardson, Rev. Sheri Daylong, Rod Wolf of the Greene County fair board, Jefferson-Scranton Schools superintendent Tim Christensen and Chamber of Commerce president Bob Smith. And so it was that Daylong, one of the pastors at the Jefferson United Methodist Church, erupted one day in an advisory board meeting with what’s become a kind of “charge” to the RAGBRAI committee – and the community, for that matter. “For this RAGBRAI visit, we need to step up to radical hospitality!” she said, invoking a line from the “Rule of St. Benedict” written more than 1,500 years ago. She and her co-pastor husband, Rev. Bill Daylong, are now preaching a series of sermons on that topic of radical hospitality between now and when RAGBRAI comes to town. “I do believe that Jefferson has a real opportunity in providing a place of peace, love and rest to strangers,” Pastor Sheri said, explaining the term for me. “As we plan, pray and prepare, this opportunity can literally transform our hearts. It can touch and change the hearts of those who come. It can build fantastic relationships with persons who may not be ‘like’ us. And it can lead to relationships in the future as we seek to ‘grow’ Jefferson into the kind of community that we want it to be.” That’d be big! You can write the columnist at chuck@Offenburger.com.
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