By CHUCK OFFENBURGER MOUNT PLEASANT, Iowa, May 10, 2023 – When a well-established Iowa college closes – and a half-dozen or more of them have done that in my lifetime – I always feel a little shame. We all should. It’s like our society is breaking faith with young people of the past, and denying…
By MARY RICHE DES MOINES, Iowa, May 4, 2023 — I love cinema, and I love being in a theater as the lights go down, the music swells, and the film begins. I love storytelling. And I love Iowa. That’s why I really loved being in the Varsity Cinema for the premiere showing tonight of…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER CENTERVILLE, Tenn., April 16, 2023 – The second oddest moment in the great 58-year friendship of Douglas T. Bates III and me happened out-front of his house here in west-central Tennessee on Thursday late-afternoon. When my wife Mary Riche and I drove up for a total surprise, there was Bates and his…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER BOONE, Iowa, April 7, 2023 – Here’s a tried-and-true way to put some oomph in your conversations around your Easter, Ramadan or Passover tables this weekend. Have everybody share a reflection for a couple minutes on this question: “Has there been some specific place you remember as having a profound spiritual experience?”…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER JEFFERSON, Iowa, March 29, 2023 – If you’re not living in Iowa, you might not appreciate just how nuts all of us here are right now about Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes women’s basketball team, which has reached this coming weekend’s Final Four of the NCAA tournament. I saw additional proof of…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER JEFFERSON, Iowa, March 26, 2023 – From the time 18 months ago when I agreed to take a leadership role in the Greene County economic development group’s bold initiative to diversify and grow our workforce and population, I’ve been clear and open about what I think my role is. As chairperson of…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER IOWA CITY, Iowa, March 18, 2023 – There are some of us old-timers who thought we’d seen girls’ sports – and maybe even women’s sports – get about as big as they were going to get back in the late 1960s and 1970s. That’s when the Iowa high school girls’ state basketball…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER JEFFERSON, Iowa, March 8, 2023 – We thought we were doing all the right things in trying to help the Juarez family find food, a home, jobs and to start settling-in here. Then they left. No phone call, no text, no email, no written note. And there’s been no contact from them…
By MARY RICHE DES MOINES, Iowa, March 1, 2023 — I don’t have family dishes or silverware that were passed on to me by my parents. I was given a stack of sheet music, mostly hymns for the piano, because my parents Verda and Frank Riche witnessed music pouring out of me from the time…
By MARY RICHE DES MOINES, Iowa, Feb. 4, 2023 — I’m happy that the seasons change in this state, and I have spring fever. It’s that time of the year. I’m full of anticipation, even excited. I was thinking about that on a recent sunny morning, but still a cold morning, and here’s what came…
