At 10:00 a.m. on January 13th, the 91th General Assembly of the State of Iowa convened the 2025 legislative session. Last year, I worked with Iowa House Republicans to pass laws that would better Iowa communities. This is my second term in the Iowa House of Representatives, serving as the Vice ...
The 2025 legislative session is well underway. As I write this, the opening addresses from the Governor, the Chief Justice, and the head of the Iowa National Guard are all done, many bills are getting filed, and our committee work is underway. The major theme for this session will be the ...
Editor's note: Due to space constraints, Pastor Granchie's column will publish in the Friday, Jan. 24 print edition of the Sun Courier. For so many people a New Year signals a New Beginning, a time to start fresh with a clean slate. We often start by making resolutions of losing weight, saving ...
Monday, Jan. 20 is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Besides being a day off for schools and federal and state employees, the most significant part of this day is to volunteer. Use this day as a chance to serve the community. Serving one’s community by volunteering is essential to creating a ...
Currently, only two Amtrak passenger trains serve Iowans. The Southwestern Chief that goes from Chicago to Los Angeles just clips Iowa with one station in Fort Madison. The other train is the California Zephyr that passes through southern Iowa with stations in Mount Pleasant and a few other ...
Reading about the recent round of layoffs at John Deere’s Ottumwa plant got me thinking about the future of farming and the critical role of farm policy. Nearly 2,000 Iowa workers laid off in the past year is a lot of job loss, but sadly not terribly surprising. Last year was difficult for ...
The press had fair reviews of Jimmy Carter upon his passing – third quartile of past presidents, A+ for post-president contributions, wonderful person, smart, and marginal political savvy. I liked him, as did most citizen voters. The people wanted change and distance from Washington politics ...
Q: What’s new on your plate in the U.S. Senate in the 119th Congress? A: Voters in the 2024 elections delivered a fresh mandate to Washington, D.C., returning President Trump to the White House and putting Republicans in control of both houses of Congress. That means the U.S. Senate will be ...
Our lexicon has lost the word farmer. During my farming career, I felt like myself as a farmer, but elsewhere, I was looked at as a grower. I was only growing corn, soybeans, and a few cover crops, but it still felt weird. The continuation of the siloing off of livestock and grain enterprises ...
Alaska’s Izembek National Wildlife Refuge – one of the world’s most important migratory bird staging and wintering habitats – is under attack. For many years, a way to connect the remote community of King Cove to Cold Bay, a larger town with an all-weather airport and better medical ...