Chuck Offenburger of rural Cooper will be honored by the Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN) student media department with induction into the Vanderbilt Student Media Hall of Fame later this month.
The Hall of Fame was established in 2009 to honor Vanderbilt alumni who have achieved outstanding personal or professional accomplishments and/or have made distinguished lasting contributions to their field and/or society in general, the tunnel vision alumni newsletter explains.
Offenburger grew up in Shenandoah. His first writing job was as sports editor for the Shenandoah Evening Sentinel. He was 13 years old. During his time at Vanderbilt, he majored in political science and covered speakers and programs of the era, including the civil rights and the Vietnam War for the student newspaper The Hustler.
Offenburger is well known for the more than 4,000 “Iowa Boy” columns he wrote during 21 years as a columnist for the Des Moines Register. After leaving the Register in 1998, he and his wife Carla moved to Storm Lake and Buena Vista University. They moved to Greene County a few years later and became active in many aspects of the community.
Offenburger has published six books and writes regularly for his blog, Offenburger.com. His writing appears often in local media, including GreeneCountyNewsOnline, as he handles publicity for the Greene County Historical Society.
Other Vanderbilt alums to be inducted into the Hall of Fame include technology entrepreneur Jeff Rothschild, National Public Radio executive Bridget Kelley, sports writer Dave Sheinin, and Chicago public radio (WBEZ) executive Alison Scholly.
