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Iowa Hall of Pride netINS, Inc. Butler House on Grand B&B Sam's Barber Shop Breitbach's Country Dining Douglas T. Bates III, Attorney KMA Radio's ''Chuck & Don Show'' The Monks of New Melleray Abbey
How the donut man from Bunkers Dunkers in Jefferson helped land RAGBRAI XXXVI for an overnight stop here!
Our hometown of  What’s the deal with the black & white saddle shoes?  Click here for the story of our farm in Greene County, Iowa. Here's looking at life at Simple Serenity Farm  Carla Offenburger got the lawn work season started Sunday, April 20. We saw rhubarb and lilac bushes budding, but the bad news is that we realized we must have the three ugliest trees in Greene County. Click here for larger format Earlier photos in this series 
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The route for the 2008 RAGBRAI -- that's the Des Moines Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa -- includes our Greene County seat of Jefferson as an overnight stop on Monday, July 21. An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people will be in Jefferson that night. Read the amazing story here about a chance encounter three years ago in Florida, where our vacationing local donut king Randy Bunkers warmly greeted a stranger who was wearing a RAGBRAI T-shirt. The fellow happened to be RAGBRAI director T.J. Juskiewicz -- and now, hurrah! RAGBRAI is coming our way!
There’s the annual Cooper Prom (for all ages), concerts, basketball, suppers, ice cream socials and people coming through all the time on the Raccoon River Valley Trail. Here is the story on the little community in Greene County, Iowa, that is now home for the Offenburgers.
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It gets a little messy decorating Easter eggs  Our eggsclusive coverage of the Lawton family's By CHUCK OFFENBURGER Our friends Karen and Doug Lawton, who farm a mile northeast of Cooper, have a fun Easter tradition that is now four years old. On Good Friday evening, they host an Easter egg decorating contest for all ages. Contestants come from their extended family, friends and sometimes a few strays. A key collaborator is Matt Schutt, who lives in Jefferson and teaches instrumental music in the East Greene schools. Schutt has given the event its actual name, “The Great Friday Egg Decorating Contest.” He apologizes “if that’s sacrilegious, but this party is so much fun that it makes Good Friday a great Friday.” We Offenburgers have served as judges the last three years, and we set the categories, which we announce a few days before the contest. This year’s categories included “RAGBRAI-EGGS” in honor of RAGBRAI (the Des Moines Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa) coming through Greene County this July, “Britney Spears,” “Ethanol Eggstravaganza,” “Martha Stewart Eggs” for fancy ones, “Successful Farming,” “Draegg Bulldog” in honor of the great season by the Drake University men’s basketball team, “Presidential Eggs,” “Almost Paradise Eggs” to use the theme for the upcoming Cooper Prom, and several other categories. The Lawtons and pals say they browse the Internet for decorating ideas. Karen Lawton admitted she also tries to watch Martha Stewart when she does Easter egg decorating on her TV show. “I think it’s probably a sickness, but you know, I could spend all day decorating eggs with Martha,” Karen said. “I really enjoy that.” Doug Lawton said he made a special trip to the crafts area of the Ben Franklin store in Jefferson. And the Lawtons’ son-in-law Justin Towers, who now lives in Huxley, asked his mother Julie Towers in Churdan if he could go through her crafts supplies to pick up a few things he could use on his eggs. Justin, who is a carpenter, is actually one of the most consistently creative of the egg decorators. Schutt reported that nine dozen eggs were hard-boiled for this year’s contest. The event opened with a “gadget supper,” for which everybody was supposed to cook food using various kitchen gadgets that we all seem to accumulate but seldom ever use. You can check out some of the fun in the photos below.                     You can write the columnist at chuck@Offenburger.com.
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