RAGBRAI Co-Chairs Announced

Staff Report

The Executive Co-Chairs for the Charles City RAGBRAI Committee have been announced as preparations continue to host the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa overnight on July 26.

Those five co-chairs are: Tom Bock, from Charles City Electric and TJ Service; Kelsey Forsyth from First Citizens Bank; local farmer Becky Meyer; Heidi Pavlovich from Cedar Ridge Golf Course; and Charles City Fire Chief Eric Whipple. Of that group, both Bock (1982) and Whipple (2010) have previously served on the Executive Committee.

Ginger Williams, the Tourism Coordinator at the Charles City Area Chamber of Commerce, and City Clerk Trudy O’Donnell will serve as recording secretary and treasurer respectively on the Executive Committee. Both of them filled the same role in 2010 as well when RAGBRAI was last in town. In all, this will mark the fifth time that Charles City has served as an overnight stop for RAGBRAI.

A local advisory board of city, county, school and chamber officials, along with RAGBRAI veterans, was assembled shortly after the Jan. 21^st announcement by The Des Moines Register that Charles City would be one of the overnight host communities. That group was charged with the recruitment of the Executive Co-Chairs who will serve as the final decision making body for the local RAGBRAI Committee. Each of those five co-chairs will oversee a number of different sub-committees, such as housing, campgrounds, entertainment, communications, etc., that are needed to host, feed and entertain an extra 20,000 people for a night.

With the co-chairs in place, work is now moving forward on assembling the various sub-committees. The Chamber has been collecting names of people already volunteering to help out in one way or another. If you are interested in helping out with RAGBRAI in some fashion, please contact the Chamber at (641) 228-4234 or info@charlescitychamber.com.