By CHUCK OFFENBURGER DES MOINES, Iowa, Aug. 21, 2023 – A funny thing happened on my heralded return to the Iowa State Fair as the Czar of Cinnamon Rolls – I got scooped! I just hope I didn’t get COVID. My step-daughter Janae Jaynes, from Scottsdale, Ariz., arrived Friday evening for a visit.  She’d just…

By CHUCK OFFENBURGER DES MOINES, Iowa, Aug. 13, 2023 – On Saturday, I got both the 2023 Iowa State Fair and the 2024 U.S. presidential election started up – or at least my own participation in both. And as I did so, it occurred to me this is my 50th state fair, or close to that, and…

By CHUCK OFFENBURGER DES MOINES, Iowa, Aug. 1, 2023 — When Theresa Knight, a producer & director at Iowa PBS television, called me last fall and said she wanted to interview me for a new documentary on the Iowa State Fair, I asked her, “What part of it? What’s going to be your focus?” Her answer:…

By CHUCK OFFENBURGER DES MOINES, Iowa, July 29, 2023 – Jamie Buelt, owner of the public relations and marketing agency “en Q strategies” in Des Moines, has been involved in some of the biggest business, political and community campaigns around Iowa over recent decades.  But her husband Gary Buelt, their kids, and a few of…

By CHUCK OFFENBURGER DES MOINES, Iowa, July 22, 2023– In recent days, I finally have accepted reality and given up trying to make happen what would probably have been my last big reporting project – experiencing and writing about baseball in Cuba.  Yes, I’m pouting about it. As I told you early this year in…