Posted November 01, 2017in Lunch With...
Talking turkey and much more at Chicago Speakeasy Tai Johnson Spratt owned Iowa’s most exotic poultry facility ever until she closed Fox Hollow Farm five years ago. She was having some problems from motorcycle injuries and finding it harder than ever to make a profit raising the best-tasting birds in
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Posted October 04, 2017in Lunch With...
Lila A. T. Akrad is a patent attorney, veterinarian, dog rescuer, jewelry designer and cancer survivor. She is also the granddaughter of Dr. William Lacy Brown, the legendary scientist who was the first PhD that Henry Wallace hired at Pioneer, in 1945. Brown would serve both as president and CEO
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Posted September 06, 2017in Lunch With...
Kevin Cooney spent his professional life as a TV commentator, all but two years in service to KCCI and its predecessor KRNT. He was the longest serving anchor in Des Moines TV history and led his station to repeated landslide ratings victories. We asked him to lunch, and he proposed
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Posted August 02, 2017in Lunch With...
Bruce Gerleman is a developer, general contractor and restaurateur best known for reviving the Court Avenue district and creating Jethro’s. We asked him to lunch recently to talk about his career in Des Moines. He chose the Altoona Jethro’s. “This is the most successful store in the chain. We will
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Posted July 05, 2017in Lunch With...
As Chairman of the Board of Hubbell Realty, James (Jim) W. Hubbell III has watched Des Moines change and grow from a top-floor perch. We asked him to lunch to talk about 45 years of real estate development in Des Moines. He chose Bauder’s. “I have been coming here since
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Posted June 01, 2017in Lunch With...
To people who know him well, Bob Conley is associated with generosity and a sense of humor that ranges from dark to ironic and sometimes totally inappropriate. That’s at least partially a by-product of growing up in a funeral parlor. To those who merely know of him, he’s a gadfly
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Posted May 03, 2017in Lunch With...
Wanting to write this column with someone in law and order, I asked several people in the criminal justice system for recommendations. The unanimity amongst their responses amazed me. Waukee Police Chief John Quinn is so well respected among colleagues, and former adversaries, that phrases like “Iowa’s super cop,” “the
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Posted April 05, 2017in Lunch With...
John Ramsey has worked and played in the local automobile game for 50 years, playing a role in car dealerships at various locations bearing his family name. Cityview asked him to lunch recently to talk about a half-century in, perhaps, the most American of all businesses. He chose Trostel’s Greenbriar.
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Posted March 01, 2017in Lunch With...
Kristian Day is the only Des Moines guy I know who has a page on IMDb (Internet Movie Database, the ultimate Who’s Who of Hollywood). It’s most impressive for someone who just turned 30, with credits in 15 different areas. That’s the same number Martin Scorsese has. We asked him
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Posted February 01, 2017in Lunch With...
Frank Cownie has been called “a grown up all American boy,” and it fits. He’s tall, blonde, a champion swimmer and a successful businessman. He’s also become one of the most popular mayors in the city’s history and a surviving face of the Democrat Party of Iowa. He’s currently in
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