By CHUCK OFFENBURGER SHENANDOAH, Iowa, Feb. 12, 2014 — Kathryn Ketcham, 96-year-old mother of my lifelong friend and high school classmate Bruce Ketcham, died in late January.  I’m really glad I was able to attend her funeral here in my ol’ hometown.  You know, I can hardly think of her as “Kathryn.” Even though she never would…

JEFFERSON, Iowa, Dec. 31, 2013 — As an “elder” at Central Christian Church here, Carla Offenburger is called to do a communion prayer along with another elder on assigned Sundays throughout the year.  On December 29 she did just that.  Afterward, we realized it reads like verse, so we share it now as one of the poems we plan…

PERRY, Iowa, Nov. 4, 2013 — As the Hotel Pattee re-opens here today after being shuttered since late July, let’s recall one of the grand moments it has given us in the past — like the time in the fall of 2004 when Ted Kooser, the poet laureate of the United States, came to read…

COOPER, Iowa, September 2013 — As we launch the new Offenburger.com, another of our new features is offering a poem here on a regular basis.  We hope most of these are written by you, our readers.  Carla Offenburger, avid gardener and poet, begins the series with a delightful poem telling how her thinking changes about…