In Parkersburg, Iowa, “we’re known as the crazy couple who’re always running,” said Grundy County REC’s Derek Snakenberg and wife, Megan, an operating room nurse.
In other parts of the state, he’s known online as #Derekiscrazy—an homage to the late Ozzy Osbourne’s hit Crazy Train—for running 52 miles of the state’s famed RAGBRAI cycling event while hoisting an American flag over one shoulder to raise awareness and funds for the Veterans Flagpole Initiative, which installs flagpoles in the yards of veterans at no cost.
Snakenberg raised more $5,000 during the July event, much of it from three electric cooperatives and two generation and transmission cooperatives, and his efforts made the local news and racked up some 250,000 views on Facebook, according to VFI. When he wasn’t on the route, he helped VFI cyclists install a few poles for the mission-within-a-mission dubbed FLAGBRAI.
“I was training for an ultra-marathon [the 100-mile Leadville Trail in Colorado] and figured I’d have no problem running with a flag while others rode,” said the journeyman lineman at the Grundy Center-based co-op.
VFI’s goal of delivering and installing flagpoles at veterans’ homes in all 99 Iowa counties captured Snakenberg’s heart during an impromptu installation this year at a Parkersburg home.
“It was a surprise flagpole for a Vietnam vet,” said Snakenberg, who isn’t a veteran himself but has family members who served. “He was very emotional, and I remember thinking it was such a cool and easy way to honor someone.”
VFI’s “Operation 99” is about halfway to meeting its 2028 goal. Each veteran gets a 20-foot telescopic flagpole, two flags (U.S. and Iowa) and a solar-powered light. Overall, volunteers for VFI have installed more than 150 poles in Iowa, Texas, Montana and Illinois.
Snakenberg’s run from Iowa Falls to Cedar Falls has raised VFI’s profile tremendously, said the group’s president, Eric Dolash, a childhood friend. “We’ve been on the news, and we’ve had spikes of interest. But in terms of a face of one of our campaigns, this was hands-down the most impactful thing that we’ve ever had.”
Snakenberg’s race isn’t over yet. He wants to install a flagpole for every veteran living on Iowa co-op lines. But he and the VFI need to raise money, find veterans and donors to sponsor a flagpole at $750 each—and, of course, recruit volunteers.
To mark Veterans Day this year, Snakenberg participated in VFI’s campaign to install 30 new poles on Nov. 8 and 9. The installations weren’t in Grundy County REC’s territory, but that didn’t matter.
“I will be there helping out and giving back to our veterans,” he said. “The VFI believes in the same principles as co-ops, that we are a stronger community when we give back.”
Victoria A. Rocha is a staff writer for NRECA.