By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, July 4, 2020 — As we were taking our traditional measure of the corn crop and the general health of agriculture on the eve of this Independence Day, our friend and neighbor Karen Lawton hit upon what may be the happiest thing you can say about it right now: “The farm…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER JEFFERSON, Iowa, April 30, 2020 — When the advance agenda for this week’s Jefferson City Council meeting reported that one of Iowa’s greatest wrestlers, T.J. Sebolt, would present an economic development proposal, I immediately reserved a chair at the media table — although that really turned out to be a spot on…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, July 3, 2019 — It’s amazing what the first few days of July can do to the Iowa corn crop. Six days ago, on June 27, 10-year-old Natalie Towers walked with her little brother Noah to the edge of one of their grandfather Doug Lawton’s cornfields, and she was taller…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, April 8, 2019 — It was a wonderful way to spend a springtime Saturday morning — going “birding” at Dunbar Slough Wildlife Management Area in the southwest part of our Greene County. A group of about 20 of us were led by Matt Wetrich, the naturalist for the conservation board…
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER COOPER, Iowa, Aug. 19, 2018 – I’ve long said that one of the things I like most about being a Catholic is that the church is slow to bend to the social whims of the moment, including my own. That has probably helped Catholicism survive for centuries in the many very different…