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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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RAGBRAI has always loved a good donut!
How the donut man from Bunkers Dunkers in Jefferson By CHUCK OFFENBURGER A friendly greeting and a handshake extended to a stranger three years ago by a Jefferson resident who was 1,500 miles away from home on vacation, has now resulted in a huge boost for the community – RAGBRAI will stay overnight in Jefferson on Monday, July 21. Leaders of RAGBRAI – that’s the Des Moines Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa – were in Jefferson Wednesday to offer the hosting opportunity to the Jefferson Area Chamber of Commerce and other local leaders, who gave a unanimous “yes.” T. J. Juskiewicz, now starting his fourth year as RAGBRAI director, started his presentation to the group by saying that he began thinking of Jefferson as an overnight host town “about three years ago.
“Then the guy said, ‘Well, I run a donut shop in Jefferson, Iowa, and I’m on the city council there, and if RAGBRAI ever wants to come to Jefferson, we’d sure love to have you!’ Nice guy!” The six local residents in the Chamber of Commerce office for the meeting all broke out in smiles and almost in unison yelled, “Randy Bunkers!” Juskiewicz then said, “Is he still here? Is he still on the city council? I wonder if he even remembers that conversation.” Oh, he’s still here all right! The 56-year-old Bunkers, partner with his wife Phyllis in Bunkers Dunkers Bakery on the east side of the Greene County Courthouse square, chose not to run for the council again and his term ended this month. But he’s still promoting the town and county every day to everyone who walks into the donut shop, and he was thrilled Thursday morning to hear the RAGBRAI news. “This is just great for the town, really big for the town, just great!” he said. When he was told that RAGBRAI director Juskiewicz wondered whether the Jefferson man would remember that conversation, Bunkers erupted. “Oh, my God, yes I remember it!” Bunkers said. “I still have his business card right here from that conversation! As I recall, we were standing in the line for pineapple ice cream. Hey, just because I’m on vacation doesn’t mean I don’t still get to eat sweets!” Phyllis Bunkers said she, too, remembers the conversation. “Randy is always one to start talking to people when we’re away somewhere, and he makes friends so quick, and this particular conversation was just typical,” she said. “The funny thing about this one was, we were standing there in the ice cream line, and there was a restroom nearby, so I decided to run over there. When I left, Randy was just standing there, but when I came back a couple of minutes later, he’s in this big conversation with this guy, talking about RAGBRAI, and about how it happened that T.J. knows someone I went to school with and other things we had in common.”
When RAGBRAI last stayed overnight in Jefferson in 1989, Bunkers Dunkers Bakery had a memorable part in the fun. “We were over in our earlier location then, about where the ATM machine is there beside the Greene County Community Center,” Randy Bunkers said. “Our little building there was painted white, was about 12 feet wide and maybe 60 feet long. We decided since it was white, we’d invite all the RAGBRAIers to autograph it. We kept markers out there for them to use, and there were thousands and thousands of signatures all over that building. We had people sign it who’d come all the way from Australia to ride their bikes into Jefferson, Iowa!” Juskiewicz also mentioned to the group on Wednesday that he’s heard a lot of favorable things about Jefferson “from my next door neighbor in Ankeny, John Evers, who’s from Jefferson. He’s always telling me about things going on here and what a good community it is.” The 54-year-old Evers, the son of Cliff and Carol Evers of Jefferson, is a lieutenant on the Ankeny Police Department. His wife is another Jefferson native, the former Kathy Smith. “Those Juskiewiczes are just the nicest neighbors for John and Kathy,” said Carol Evers. “I make popcorn balls that the family likes, and once when I made them there in Ankeny, the neighbors were over and ate some of them, and I remember Mrs. Juskiewicz saying, “Oooo, we’re sure like to have more of those.’ I said, ‘Well, you’ll sure get some.’ So the next time John and Kathy were here, I made some more popcorn balls and sent them back with them for the Juskiewiczes.” So those Evers popcorn balls may have helped bring RAGBRAI to Jefferson, too. You can write the columnist at chuck@Offenburger.com.
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