By CHUCK OFFENBURGER
DES MOINES, Iowa, Dec. 13, 2025 — It was an amazing and frequently emotional scene in the rotunda of the State Capitol Thursday morning when former Iowa Governor and U.S. Ambassador Terry Branstad was presented the state’s highest honor for citizens, the Iowa Award.
I studied the crowd of people who packed the rotunda, who also lined the bannister overhead on the second floor, and I think I saw four generations of Iowans there who had served in government with Branstad.
He’s now 79 years old, using a wheelchair or walker when he ventures out. It might be difficult for younger people today to believe what an energetic, indefatigable leader he was.
So let me tell you, Terry Branstad is “the most successful political figure in Iowa history,” as I’ve written before about him.
Former Governor Terry Branstad thanking his successor Governor Kim Reynolds and the people of the state after she presented him with the Iowa Award on Thursday, Dec. 11.
He was the winner of 20 state elections that gave him three terms in the Iowa House of Representatives, one term as Lieutenant Governor, and 5 ½ terms as Governor. His 22+ years in that office made him the longest-serving governor in American history. Then, in 2017, he became the nation’s Ambassador to China.
“I never lost an election!” he reminded the crowd during Thursday’s ceremony, with a huge grin as he did so.
In that moment, we saw some of the same old Branstad fire and excitement he used to deliver in every community in Iowa.
And everybody on Thursday seemed happy to let him crow a little on his special day.
After all, as the Hall of Fame baseball pitcher Dizzy Dean often said, “It ain’t braggin’ if you’ve done it!”
Branstad did it.
In 1983, he had just taken over as our 36-year-old rookie Governor — Iowa’s youngest ever — when the Farm Crisis broke out and quickly turned into the worst economic crisis in 50 years in this state. He led us through that.
Ten years later, he was still in charge when the Flood of ’93 — then the worst natural disaster in state history — swamped us. He led us through that.
He became the best Governor for economic development we’ve ever had, building relationships with business leaders around the world.
Even though I was a Democrat, I supported the Republican Branstad in his first four terms as governor. Political professionals back then often said one reason he was successful in Iowa was his “campaigning to the right, but governing from the center.” Never having much opposition in primary elections was a key, too.
He was a good governor, often a great one in that time.
After he’d bowed out in 1999, and successfully served as president of Des Moines University, he started hearing calls from many Republicans for him to run for governor again in 2010.
I sensed trouble and urged him in a column to “Just Say No!”
He listened to them, ignored me, and won easily in his fifth and sixth elections. In that last term and a half, he was more conservative, more partisan and less effective as a real leader. But he did fit those times.
I’ve never understood how he decided to pick Kim Reynolds as his lieutenant governor in 2010. She was a little-known, first-term state senator after she’d served as Clarke County Treasurer.
When they were elected in 2010, and re-elected in 2014, ol’ pro Branstad mentored her and inspired her. And when he became Ambassador to China, she was appointed the first female Governor of Iowa. She was then elected in 2018 and re-elected in 2022. She is not seeking re-election in 2026.
Governor Reynolds’ effectiveness is now a matter of debate, but I do believe she’s become one of the most powerful governors we’ve ever had.
A neat surprise for former Governor Branstad during the Iowa Award ceremony was that Governor Reynolds and the Iowa Department of Transportation collaborated to dedicate 36 miles of Iowa Highway 9 in North Iowa to Branstad. Repairing and resurfacing that highway, which passes through his hometown of Leland, was an early campaign that Branstad championed in his years in the Iowa House of Representatives. The 36 miles, Gov. Reynolds said, represent Branstrad’s years of service to the state and also that he was 36 years old when he became governor. The new signs will be posted on the highway by Christmas, the DOT reported.
Credit to Governor Reynolds, she did a wonderful job of ordering and conducting the Iowa Award ceremony for her old boss, with a lot of help from state government staffers, of course.
She was close to tears a couple of times, recalling how much she learned from Branstad and how kind he’d been to her.
He returned the praise. When he cited several of his major accomplishments, he paused, then added, “And Governor Reynolds has improved on all of that.”
I’ll admit it — Thursday was kind of emotional for me, too. Terry Branstad and I go waaaaay back.
He was the right fielder for the Forest City Indians and I was the catcher for the Shenandoah Mustangs when our teams were two of the four in the finals of the 1965 state high school baseball tournament.
In 1974, when he was running for his second term in the Iowa House, I was the young reporter from the Des Moines Register whom our political chief James Flansburg dispatched to go cover the Branstad vs. Jean Haugland campaign in Winnebago County and just beyond.
I’ll never forget his first inauguration as governor in early 1983. I swear, everybody from a half-dozen counties up in North Iowa was dancing it up in Veterans Memorial Auditorium that night.
I traveled with him to Iowa parties at college football bowl games. I covered his 50th birthday party at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake. First Lady Chris Branstad and I sang a duet about Terry in one of those “Gridiron Shows” that the Des Moines Advertising Club used to sponsor.
I even sold him a pair of black & white saddle shoes in 1994 when the Bass Shoe Company surrendered in my campaign for them to start making the highly fashionable shoes again.
Actually, the Bass execs said they’d give our governor a pair of the shoes. Chris Branstad gave me his shoe size, and Bass sent them to him at his office. He called, said he was thrilled to get the shoes, but he couldn’t accept them as a gift because their $65 value (at the time) exceeded the state’s law restricting gifts to public officials. So Terry E. Branstad delivered me a personal check, made out to Bass Shoes and I forwarded it to them in Maine.
In late 1998, when he was making his “farewell tour” around the state, I went along with him and wrote columns.
And the two of us had talks with his staff about starting and co-hosting a new Iowa radio or TV show with conversations, interviews and entertainment — sort of our own “A Prairie Home Companion.” I wanted to call it “Chuck & the Governor.” He didn’t. No matter, we couldn’t sell the idea to the TV and radio stations we contacted.
One of the historic photos of the Branstads that was in a video shared in the Capitol rotunda.
So on Thursday, I was feeling lots of feelings after the Iowa Award ceremony when I stepped up and shook hands with Branstad, who sat in chairs with Chris greeting all comers.
“Thanks for a million stories!” I exaggerated.
“There’ve sure been a lot of them,” he said back.
And then he told me another one.
I don’t believe we’ll ever have another Terry Branstad. I’m sure glad we’ve had this one.
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