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 DES MOINES, Iowa, Feb. 1, 2023 – As my wife Mary Riche has reported elsewhere, we recently spent five days in New York City – an experience that was my gift for her 75th birthday.  It was as fabulous as you might imagine.  We saw “Music Man” and “Funny Girl” on Broadway. …

By CHUCK OFFENBURGER DES MOINES, Iowa, Jan. 19, 2023 – It was cold, gray and snowing in Iowa as I started writing this.  The weather forecast was for up to a foot of snow in parts of the state.  Mid-January. A perfect time in Iowa to, uh, be in Cuba.  Know what I mean? In…

By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, Jan. 8, 2023 – When your 97-year-old neighbor dies and you find yourself sitting in church at his funeral thinking “I want to be like Stephen Molle when I grow up,” that’s a pretty good measure of his life. Hundreds of us have been remembering and sharing our stories about…

By CHUCK OFFENBURGER SHENANDOAH, Iowa, Dec. 11, 2022 — While driving Saturday morning to my hometown in southwest Iowa, it occurred to me that 2022 marks 50 years since I’ve actually lived here. (Another thing that occurred to me: On the route I took between Des Moines and Shenandoah, you cross the East Nishnabotna River six…