Rural Issues

Several times over the past few weeks I’ve been approached by a friendly stranger. They wanted to know if I would comment on an issue and sign my name in support or opposition.

It has become customary this time of year for me to offer up some advice in this column with soon-to-be-newly-minted high school and college graduates.

Did the reaction to COVID-19 change the way you communicate? I have asked that question several times since March 2020, when the world as we knew it rocked on its axis for a bit.

Each year, the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri and its collaborators put together a baseline projection for the U.S. and world ag sectors for the major grains, oilseeds, biofuels, livestock and dairy commodities.

This is my favorite time of the year. It is the time when new life is created.

"As I flip the page on the calendar from March to April, I find myself just one year away from my fourth decade in the radio business," Cyndi Young-Puyear writes in her latest column.

The official start of spring is today and Easter is right around the corner. Days are longer, hyacinths and narcissus are blooming and the grass is greening up in pastures and yards. It is my favorite time of the year.

Like many of you, I was a member of FFA in high school and then a member of collegiate FFA. The heart and soul of National FFA is the local chapter. That is where it all begins.

Election Day is less than nine months away. Media coverage of the campaigning and polling leading up to the Nov. 5 presidential election ranges from entertaining to appalling.

One of the best jobs I ever had was at Scott County Nursing Center when I was a senior at Winchester High School. Through the co-op class, I went to school the first half of the day and worked in the office at the nursing center the second half.

AI is all the buzz these days. But artificial insemination is not the AI getting all the attention these days. The AI most are talking about and experimenting with is artificial intelligence.

The Endangered Species Act turned 50 years old late last month. Signed by President Richard Nixon in 1973, the legislation was expansive and controversial.

Another year has passed with an outcry for improved sustainability on our planet. If you ask 10 people to define sustainability, you will get 10 different answers.

It has been a blessed Christmas season. The halls are decked, presents have been wrapped and you can hear Faron Young singing Christmas carols when you step in the backdoor of our house.

Twenty years ago, on Dec. 23, I received a call from the Office of Communications at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C.