Former “Iowa Boy” Des Moines Register columnist Chuck Offenburger is still a prolific writer and blogger — he wrote a book about Bernie Saggau and the IHSAA in 2005. Recently, he made the trip down to Diagonal to see basketball games at Iowa’s smallest high school. Accompanying him were Bud Legg of the IHSAA and former sports writer Chuck Schoffner, making for a serious wealth of knowledge going to check out a small-town event.
The it’s-a-small-world/I’m-getting-old connection is that Diagonal’s girls’ coach, Gina Gunsolley, is the sister of Zach Gunsolley, who contacted me after I wrote a column for the Iowa State Daily about the pressures rural Iowa roads and schools were facing. That was in January 2003, two years and change before Gina Gunsolley graduated from Diagonal High School. (IAGenWeb already has a Class of 2005 page up.)