By MARY RICHE BENTONVILLE, Arkansas, Dec. 2, 2023 — Annie Leibovitz’s photographs are memorable for being bold and sensitive at the same time. She invites us to see intimate portraits without feeling like a voyeur. Clearly, her subjects trust her because she literally exposes them (sorry for this bad pun). She is both gifted and…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER BENTONVILLE, Arkansas, Nov. 25, 2023 — Until last February, the only thing I knew about Bentonville, Arkansas, was that it was the headquarters of the retail giant Walmart, Inc. But my wife Mary Riche loves art. She knew that the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art had opened in 2011 in the…
By DOUGLAS T. BATES III CENTERVILLE, Tenn., Nov. 19, 2023 — It began in a random call in the autumn of 1992 to a stranger and became a veritable “hajj,” not to circle the Kaaba, but to attend 11 storied college football games between ancient rivals. The journey carried us from Boston to Berkeley, from…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER JEFFERSON, Iowa, Nov. 22, 2023 – One of the things I’m genuinely grateful for on this Thanksgiving holiday is that the businesses, most people, and even alumni of our Greene County are stepping up to a future of more multicultural living here. Many of us believe this will give us the opportunity…
By MARY RICHE BOSTON, Mass., Oct. 31, 2023 – This is a city my husband Chuck Offenburger had never visited. That and the idea that we’d be driving the east half of the nation at a time when the countryside was changing colors, made it a perfect destination for our fall adventure. I love Boston…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER JEFFERSON, Iowa, Oct. 29, 2023 – A couple of big thoughts have been on my mind in recent days. My wife Mary Riche and I have just returned from a long driving trip to Boston and back. We looped from Oxford OH, Niagara Falls & Buffalo, Boston, Annapolis, Pittsburgh and the Indianapolis suburb of…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER DES MOINES, Iowa, Oct. 4, 2023 — Few visiting pastors who have preached at Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ over its 165-year history have come with the global prominence – and past controversy too – that Rev. Paula Stone Williams will bring this weekend, Oct. 7 and 8. My wife Mary Riche…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER DES MOINES, Iowa, September 27, 2023 – Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ, which is the church I attend on the near west side of our capital city, is about as urban as a church can get in Iowa. But over the last seven months in our beautiful sanctuary, big community rooms, study…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER JEFFERSON, Iowa, Sept. 13, 2023 — On a chilly but sunny late-fall morning two years ago, I walked into Greene Bean Coffee in Jefferson just as Debi Durham, the state’s economic development director since 2011, was walking out. She was wearing some kind of trench coat and sunglasses and carrying her cup…
By DOUGLAS T. BATES III CENTERVILLE, Tenn., Sept. 4, 2023 — Donald Kenneth Sundquist died on August 27,2023. He was the two-term 47th Governor of Tennessee. Before that he served 12 years in the U.S. House of Representatives representing the newly created 7th District. This district stretched from eastern Memphis all the way here to…
