I am a firm believer that our upbringing makes us who we are. I often talk about how I grew up on our family farm with my parents giving me impossible things to do.

C ounty C ourthouse N ews Deaths Calvin Lee Vosika, 76 yrs., June 22, 2023, Sioux Falls, SD. Eleanor Clark, 97 yrs., September 9, 2020, Gregory, SD.

I am back, readers, from the smoke country caused by wildfires in the far north which became national news when the smoke hit New York City. But first, kudos to Todd County Tribune’s owners, the Scherers, in their makeover of that newspaper. Local newspapers are very valuable to our communities. Now to the continuing unpredictable weather weirding.... Meteorologists tell us that at this point in 2023, they are recording the Earth’s warmest average temperatures on record, and as I have pointed out before, the warming is four times faster in the polar regions.

Representatives of the beef industry - the industry that starts when live cattle raised by America’s farmers and ranchers are delivered to a packing plant for slaughter are providing testimony to Congress that all is well with the cattle market. They say cattle prices have increased in the face of short cattle supplies and this proves the marketplace is functioning just like a competitive market should.

Committees: Chair of Health & Human Services, Executive Board, Agriculture and Natural Resources, State Affairs Capitol Address: 500 E. Capitol Ave.

A c c o rding to Noah Webster’s American Dictionary, one of the two definitions of politics defined in the 1828 edition was, “The management of a political party; the conduct and contests of parties with reference to political measures or the administration of public affairs; the advancement of candidates to office; in a bad sense, artful or dishonest management to secure the success of political candidates or parties; political trickery.”