FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

17 January 2006

Contact: Chelsey Walden

E-mail: cwalden@iastate.edu

Telephone: (608) 469-1339

 

 

Journalist Offenburger to speak at Iowa State

 

            Veteran Iowa journalist Chuck Offenburger will speak at Iowa State on Wednesday, Feb. 1.

            Offenburger, who publishes the Web site Offenburger.com, will present a lecture titled "Consider the Source: Good lessons, grand characters and great fun from covering Iowa for 45 years." The event, sponsored by the ISU Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, will take place in the Gold Room of the Memorial Union at 5 p.m.

            A long-time columnist for the Des Moines Register, Offenburger wrote a 2005 book about the history of high school athletics in Iowa. It is titled "Bernie Saggau & the Iowa Boys/The Centennial History of the Iowa High School Athletic Association." The IHSAA turned 100 years old in 2004. Saggau served as executive director for 37 years.

            Offenburger is working on a biography of former Cyclone all-America Gary Thompson, who recently retired as a basketball analyst covering the Iowa State and the Big 12. 

            Now writing from his home near Cooper in Greene County, Offenburger began his journalism career when he was 13 as a sports writer for the Shenandoah Evening Sentinel. He received a journalism scholarship to Vanderbilt University before returning to the Sentinel as managing editor. In 1972, he moved to the Des Moines Register as a general assignment reporter. In 1977, he began the "Iowa Boy" column, which continued until July 1998. He was co-host of RAGBRAI for 16 years.

 

 

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