Joseph Allen Barksdale passed away on November 16, 2022, at Taylor House Hospice. Services will be held on Monday, November 28, 2022, at Hamilton’s near Highland Memory Gardens, 121 NW 60th Ave., Des Moines. Visitation will be from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., with service to begin at 12:00 p.m. Burial will follow the service at Highland Memory Gardens Cemetery.

Joe was born in Anniston, Alabama on October 28, 1927 to Brice Barksdale and Sally Barksdale. He married Virginia Mae Powell June 3, 1948. They were married until Virginia’s death in 2022. They had two children, Bruce and Kathy. Bruce married Jacqueline Feldman, and had one son Daniel. Kathy married Chris Cornwell. Joe’s hobbies included BBQ, fishing, hunting, and he started working with hunting dogs at field trials and was very successful, and had one national champion and many awards.

They lived in Alabama and later moved to Ohio, where he started working for Alsco Manufacturing Company, as a salesman. He later became the general manager of the Midwest division and moved to the Des Moines branch, he made his Division the most successful in the company and won many awards for his Division, he worked 34 years for the company.

He had started a food business in 1975 at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, and in 1993 he added chocolate chip cookies to the menu. The cookies became a big hit at the fairgrounds and Joe became known as the “Cookie Man”. In 2019 the family gave the business to the people of Iowa so the cookies could continue to be part of the Iowa State Fair.