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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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It’s huge news for a town like Jefferson, Iowa, when you find out that RAGBRAI – the biggest and oldest bicycle touring event in the world – is going to put 15,000 to 20,000 people in your community for an overnight stay in July! “I felt a flood of emotions – excitement, terror and pride just to name a few,” said Amy Milligan, the local Chamber of Commerce executive director when she got the call. But after the RAGBRAI leaders put our minds at ease, she said, “This is an excellent opportunity for our community, and we are up for the challenge!” January 24, 2008 RAGBRAI XXXVI will roll into Jefferson with its crowd of 10,000 cyclists on Monday, July 21, and stay overnight here. That was confirmed Wednesday afternoon when the leaders of RAGBRAI – that’s the Des Moines Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa met with local officials at the Jefferson Area Chamber of Commerce office. Here representing the newspaper and its big cycling event were T.J. Juskiewicz, the RAGBRAI director; Brian Duffy, the Register’s editorial cartoonist who rides as the host on RAGBRAI; Wes Hall, the assistant director of the event, and Sgt. Genie Clemens of the Iowa State Patrol, who is coordinator of the Patrol’s 14 safety education officers who guide the cyclists across the state. Juskiewicz said he has had Jefferson under consideration as an overnight stop on RAGBRAI for three years, since having a chance conversation in Florida with Randy Bunkers, partner in Bunkers Dunkers Bakery in Jefferson and a former member of the city council here. (See accompanying story for the details of their encounter.) RAGBRAI, which will be crossing Iowa for the 36th consecutive summer, is recognized as “the biggest and oldest bicycle touring event in the world.” The cyclists come from all 50 states and usually 12 to 15 other nations. Only about 40 percent of them currently live in Iowa, according to the RAGBRAI Handbook that Chamber officials were given. The cyclists typically range in age from elementary-school years to some in their 80s, but the average age is 44. The week-long riders will gather in Missouri Valley near Iowa’s western border on Saturday, July 19. The ride begins there Sunday morning, July 20, with the stop that evening in Harlan. Then it’s on to Jefferson on Monday. The overnight stops the rest of the week will be Tuesday in Ames, Wednesday in Tama-Toledo, Thursday in North Liberty, Friday in Tipton and then the ride will finish on Saturday, July 26, in LeClaire on the Mississippi River. The route is 471 miles. With support personnel, camp followers and others coming to Jefferson to join in the fun, the crowd here that Monday night could grow to 15,000 to 20,000, according to T.J. Juskiewicz, RAGBRAI director. Multiply the number of those visitors by the $10, $20 or more that each is likely to spend while in the community, and the positive economic impact is evident, Juskiewicz said. “There will be no shortage of civic, church, school groups and others that will do very well financially by helping take care of all the visitors,” he said. “But, really, your number one goal should not be the money you might be able to make. It should be showcasing your community to a huge crowd of people who are visiting here, most of them for the first time. If you do that right, a lot of them might come back again.” Jefferson’s RAGBRAI history includes overnight stops in 1976 and 1989, with a pass-through visit in 1994. All the other communities in Greene County have had RAGBRAI pedal through at some point, even the unincorporated towns of Adaza, Farlin and Cooper. Although the overnight host towns for this year’s RAGBRAI were announced on Thursday, the pass-through towns on the route will not be announced until sometime in March. “The reason we delay that announcement is because we’re not certain of what road construction projects might be planned,” said Duffy, the cartoonist and RAGBRAI host. “That could change the route that we have picked. The overnight host towns won’t change now, but the route we use to go between them could still change.” The county’s reputation as a good cycling destination has grown with its good network of paved secondary roads and with the regionally-known Raccoon River Valley Trail having its northern trailhead in Jefferson. That 56-mile hard-surfaced trail stretches all the way south and east to connect to the trails in the Des Moines metro area. The Jefferson Area Chamber of Commerce will be the point organization as the RAGBRAI reception is planned here. An advisory committee of community leaders will be formed to serve like a board of directors in overseeing RAGBRAI’s visit here. There will be four to six co-chairs of a special RAGBRAI committee who will coordinate the planning and preparations, working with about 20 subcommittees focusing on different aspects of the visit. Two of those co-chairs will be Carla and Chuck Offenburger, of rural Cooper, who are among the county’s RAGBRAI veterans. Chuck Offenburger served as RAGBRAI co-host from 1983 to 1998 when he was a Des Moines Register columnist, and both Offenburgers were among the co-chairs when RAGBRAI overnighted in 2001 in Storm Lake, where they were living then. The other co-chairs in Jefferson are to be appointed soon. Then the RAGBRAI committee will begin coordinating plans for campgrounds, entertainment, food opportunities and all the other logistical arrangements. “If you’re really successful at this,” said Duffy, “you’ll wind up with an event that will touch every single person in this community. It’s an event that will draw all kinds of people into getting involved in the community that never have before. You’ll find local people who have talents you were never aware of until now. That’s one of the long-range benefits of RAGBRAI.” Juskiewicz said the RAGBRAI committee will raise enough money – before and during the event – to cover the expenses, “so that RAGBRAI does not cost the taxpayers here anything.” He said all of the RAGBRAI committees in last year’s overnight host towns “made money” after expenses were made, “and of course, nearly all the groups in the towns that had food and drink stands made money, too.” The local RAGBRAI committee will be formed in the next month. Meetings will begin February 5, when Juskiewicz returns to Jefferson for further consultation. Then he or his assistant Hall will be back every other week until July 21. Among those at the Chamber office Wednesday accepting RAGBRAI’s offer to come to Jefferson were Guy Richardson, chair of the Greene County Board of Supervisors; Wade Weiss, county engineer; Diane Kennedy, interim Jefferson city administrator; Bob Smith, the Chamber president; Amy Milligan, Chamber executive director, and Chuck Offenburger. “I am thrilled we are one of the host towns for RAGBRAI XXXVI,” said Milligan, who is in her first year as Chamber director. “I got a phone call Wednesday morning from T. J. Juskiewicz, the director of RAGBRAI, asking if I had a few minutes to meet with him and a few of his staff. At that moment, I felt a flood of emotions – excitement, terror and pride just to name a few. “I quickly set up a meeting with representatives of the Chamber, county government and city government,” Milligan continued. “T.J. and the RAGBRAI staff were able to put our minds at ease. Their goal is to have our community stand out with pride during RAGBRAI. I feel this is an excellent opportunity for our community, and we are up for the challenge!” Jefferson Mayor Craig Berry was out of town at the time of the meeting, which was held on about two hours’ notice when RAGBRAI officials called from out on the route they were scouting. But the mayor had written a letter of invitation for RAGBRAI to come to Jefferson, one of several letters written by local people. “You’ve seen RAGBRAI several times over the years, but it hasn’t stayed overnight here for 19 years,” Juskiewicz said in the meeting. “It has changed a whole lot since then. But you know, there’s one thing that hasn’t changed over all the years since the columnists Donald Kaul and John Karras started RAGBRAI. Way back then, people came to Iowa to ride bicycles and enjoy our hospitality, and that hasn’t changed. We still take that very seriously today – that’s what we want our event to give to people. Of course, it’s bigger, too. With 15,000 to 20,000 people coming here, well, it’s’ a monster event. But we pick towns that we know have the ability to be a great host community, and Jefferson is one of those.”
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