By CHUCK OFFENBURGER

SHENANDOAH, Iowa, May 2, 2026 — If someone out there is compiling nuggets for my obituary, please consider using this: “In 2026, when he was 78 years old, Chuck Offenburger was named an ‘Alumnus of the Year’ of Shenandoah High School, and the last two words of his acceptance speech were, ‘Beat Clarinda!’ ”

Oh, what a spirited evening it was, Saturday, April 25, here in my ol’ hometown in southwest Iowa for the Shenandoah Iowa Education Foundation’s annual banquet celebrating “Excellence in Education.”

Roger Scarbrough, a 1970 SHS graduate who has had a brilliant career in international businesss while based in the Kansas City area, and I, a member of the SHS Class of 1965 (“The Biggest and the Best!”), were named Alumni of the Year, and the honor had both of us wiping away tears.

 

Shenandoah High “Alumni of the Year” (Photo by Mary Riche)

“Spirited,” did I say? There were a few moments that seemed almost spiritual.

Like when Bob Creighton, Roger’s classmate, led off his remarks about his best friend saying, “You know how you can get an old song in your ear and then you can’t seem to get rid of it? Well, last night, when I was thinking about what I was going to say here tonight, I heard this old song, really kind of a chant, that went like this…”

In a low soft voice, he sang-chanted, “Everywhere we go/ people want to know/ who we are/ so we tell them:/ We are the Mustangs!/ Mighty, mighty Mustangs!/ Everywhere we go…” The big crowd in the banquet hall of the Elm Street Grill suddenly was sing-chanting in soft voices right along with him. (Although I heard a few different team nicknames replacing our “Mustangs.” I heard “Knights” and “Huskies,” and maybe for the first time realized Shenandoah High did not necessarily own that old cheer.)

Corby Fichter, the founding president of the Shenandoah Iowa Education Foundation and still a board member, presented me a plaque with this salute that he wrote: “Chuck has been a true servant leader to our community of Shenandoah and has built awesome and lifetime relationships for the entire state of Iowa. His ability to connect and communicate with people in our entire state has been a lifelong dream and honor for Chuck and the people he has had the privilege to meet and tell stories about Iowa. Because, he is, the Iowa Boy!”

I do hope I’ve lived up to that.

You know what touched me even more?

Corby and his wife Jean Fichter, a member of the Shenandoah Schools’ Board of Education, had SHS business & computer science teacher Dan Autry and his students “3D Print” me a 3-inch-long pair of the black & white saddle shoes that I’m known for — and was wearing at the banquet, of course.

“As I think about it, Shenandoah High failed me in only one way,” I said. “I’ve never been able to use ‘lie, lay, lain’ in my columns because, despite my SHS diploma and my Vanderbilt U degree, I still don’t understand how to.”

Enough about all that.

An even bigger part of the evening were the awards the education foundation handed out for the top teachers and staff members in the local schools. And everybody loved the musical entertainment by current SHS students and the members of the Future Farmers of America (FFA) chapter serving as food servers, carriers and ushers; the art displays by young high school talents, and the table centerpieces made by the SHS “spring horticulture class” — and isn’t it great that in this hometown of Earl May and Henry Field that we have such a class now?

Let me tell you an even bigger deal about the banquet. It was on the same April date 10 years earlier that the Shenandoah Iowa Education Foundation was chartered. It was organized by a retiring teacher, coach and administrator Bob Sweeney. He argued that the Shenandoah Schools should have had a foundation much earlier, to raise funds to enhance all kinds of educational opportunities.

Ever since, donations of all amounts have been welcomed. But of special note, Bob Sweeney and his wife Kathy established the “Family Challenge,” asking families to figure out ways to match a $10,000 donation they and their grown kids made. They set it up so you could do that over 15 years.

It was great that the Sweeneys, who now live in Atlantic, could be at the banquet Saturday night when it was announced that in just 10 years, the foundation has now met one of its biggest goals — and it was daunting when it was set — to build an endowment of $1 million. That has now happened.

If my count is correct, 62 families have accepted, met or are still meeting the Sweeneys’ challenge. Two sisters and I put “The Offenburger Family” among them, and I’ve regarded it as the best financial investment I’ve made.

But come to think of it, it was really payment way past due.

Classmates Bruce Ketcham and Chuck Offenburger in their cool shoes. (Photo by Mary Riche)

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