Say it isn’t so, Iowa boy. After 26 years at the Des Moines Register, you decided to pack it in because of the mistreatment of your older co-workers and changes in column placement.

You needed to cut out of there … fast.

In tribute to your fine public service for promoting the State of Iowa, I am sending you this open letter in gratitude:

Dear Iowa Boy (Chuck Offenberger):

Who is going to replace you?

For 21 years you have graced the Des Moines Register with your “on-the-road” commentaries from different points of Iowa and beyond in the never-ending search for quirky characters who make this state a remarkable place to live.

You were the encyclopedia of Iowa after spending the past 21 years traveling every backroad and interstate (with visits outside of Iowa to track down as many ex-Iowans as you could find) to connect with as many fellow Iowans as possible.

Who will tell about adopted high school basketball teams, opera singer Simon Estes, school song contests, smaller town newspapers and RAGBRAI? How will we go on without your accounts of sharing personal milestones with Carla, Andrew, and the rest of the Offenberger clan?

What really gives, Iowa Boy?

You must have been deeply appalled by the horrendous treatment of older Register employees by its current owners.

As a personal healing process, consider filing a class action age discrimination lawsuit against your former newspaper in honor of these displaced ex-employees.

Did writing four columns a week during your 21 years lead to professional burnout?

I can feel your pain when trying to develop my own new ideas each week. As an editorial columnist myself, I wholeheartedly relate to you — writing once a week can sometimes be very taxing.

Knowing Iowa both backwards and forwards, you wrote with great compassion for your characters.

Well done!

Most Iowans, who don’t have an opportunity to thoroughly explore their own home state by themselves in a lifetime, benefitted from your work.

As the Iowa Boy, you did it for them and elected to stay put while so many other writers left.

It was stated that you were very unhappy with the new placement of the column since your supervisors failed to give prior notice.

Professionally, I can understand your viewpoint since there were times during both incarnations of this column when I disliked the placement or (worse) had trouble finding it.

I have a few more things to say before ending this letter, so I will spare you further pettiness on column placement.

When I started reading your column three years ago, I was originally from New Jersey, and I found your ongoing passionate love for Iowa extremely strange.

Even when I didn’t want to read you, I read you anyway because (like sweet corn) it grew on me as the featured Iowans didn’t precisely fit the basic stereotype of farmers.

You characterized your Iowans without any trace of arrogant pomposity.

The Register, as a final tribute to you, should officially retire the “Iowa Boy” column since your sudden resignation has left it completely impossible to replace you.

You were simply one-of-a-kind.

When you are done with co-hosting RAGBRAI, chill out a little before heading over to The Iowan. You need to take in some overdue downtime from all of that intrastate traveling.

Just let me know if you want to become the Jersey Boy, and I will send a map of New Jersey with a Bruce Springsteen CD for alleviating traffic jams on either the Garden State Parkway or the New Jersey Turnpike.

Cordially,

Jersey Girl

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Adrian De Vore is a senior in hotel, restaurant and institution management from Newark, N.J.