Iowa Boy
columnist shares experience with SPJ
By Dan McClanahan
dannymac@iastate.edu
In a room full of quietly chatting adults and
pretentious-looking students, a gray-haired man sporting black-and-white saddle
shoes and a gold-stud earring stepped up to the podium and quickly silenced the
crowd.
The man introduced himself as Chuck Offenburger, and
several students quickly fumbled through their backpacks to find tape recorders
as he began his lecture on successful journalism. Offenburger traveled to Iowa State
on Feb. 1 to speak at the monthly meeting for the Iowa State chapter of the
Society of Professional Journalists.
His lecture in the Gold Room of the Memorial Union
focused on five key points made apparent early on: a good journalist should be
informed, curious, accurate, fair, and, most importantly, they should have fun.
Early in his lecture, the raconteur
broke the ice with the audience by Greenlee School graduate Jared Strong to
come to the front of the room and sing the school’s fight song. He explained
that Strong had been an intern for his Web site, Offenburger.com, the previous
summer and he had been forced to learn and perform the Iowa State fight song.
"I don't believe that anyone should be allowed to
graduate from college until you can by god sing the fight song," Offenburger
said.
After Strong refused to do an encore performance of
the fight song for the lecture audience, Offenburger delved in to the abridged
story of his journalism career.
Right off the bat, he quelled speculation regarding
the gold-stud earring in his left ear. He explained it was the product of a
silly bet made with a friend during RAGBRAI, a 450-mile bike ride across Iowa
with an average of 10,000 participants.
"A lot of things in my life happened as a result of
RAGBRAI, including this earring," he said, pointing to his ear.
He explained that he and a friend had agreed to meet
and get their ears pierced after RAGBRAI a few years ago, but his friend never
showed up. Offenburger got his ear pierced anyway and said he’s kept it pierced
to spite his deserter-friend. He also said he likes the earring because it
keeps him level-headed.
“It’s so stupid that it’s impossible for me to take
myself too seriously for the rest of the day,” he said.
After warming up the audience with his earring story,
Offenburger headed right in to another story highlighting the power of the
press. He stepped away from the podium, exposing his black-and-white saddle
shoes, and announced that he had been wearing similar shoes since sixth grade.
He said that earlier in his career, he had spent
several years writing a column for the Des Moines Register entitled Iowa Boy.
During that time, he had an 8-year-old pair of Bass black-and-white saddle
shoes that had become so worn his right big-toe was sticking out.
He explained that he went to the shoe store, and much
to his dismay – it had been so long since he’d last purchased saddle
shoes that no shoe companies seemed to carry them anymore.
After finding he couldn’t even obtain them via mail
order, Offenburger said he called Bass directly to try and custom order a pair
of men’s black and white saddle shoes. After talking to a sales associate, he
said he was turned down indefinitely.
"I talked to that sales associate and she said, 'Mr.
Offenburger, we’re the Bass shoe company. We're the largest shoe company in the
world and we don’t special make a pair of shoes for anybody,' " he said.
The journalist decided to use his weekly column to
rant about his shoeless dilemma and he mailed a copy to Bass. After garnering a
surprising amount of reader response, the journalist wrote more columns,
snowballing reader response and continuing to mail his columns to Bass.
He said eventually he received a letter from the
senior vice president of the Bass Shoe Company declaring their “surrender” and
agreeing to make one order of Bass shoes for himself and his friends in Iowa.
Offenburger wrote one last column, declaring the
greatest victory in the history of victories and encouraging writers to place
orders for one last shipment of saddle shoes.
He said that amazingly enough readers placed orders
for a whopping 675 pairs of black-and-white saddle shoes with checks totaling
$48,000. Bass was overwhelmed and began mass-producing the saddle shoes all
across the nation. The New York Times actually put Offenburger and the saddle
shoes in its fashion section.
"When I walk into a room wearing these shoes, [people]
don’t notice my earring near as quick," Offenburger said, earning a laugh from
the audience.
The rest of his lecture included a plethora of other
witty stories and anecdotes, all emphasizing different parts of his five key
points. He repeatedly reminded the audience how fun journalism can be, if taken
by the right approach.
"This field is like a damn drug," he said. "It just
hooks you."
(Dan McClanahan is a sophomore journalism major and an editor with the Iowa State Daily.)
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