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Community Voices

God fills our world with color

If our worth is to be measured by our lawns, I am in trouble. You’ve seen those perfectly manicured lawns in the nice parts of town. Then there are farmyards that look like the cover of Country Living magazine. Our lawn is there because something needs to grow between the buildings and the fields. Some of it was seeded to lawn grasses in a distant past. Some of it’s just what grew there. All that said, in my simple-minded way, the yard looked spectacular this spring. Everything greened up as winter withdrew. A two-inch rain lushed it up. Amid the vivid green were bright ...

E-15 is fueling America’s future

For too long, a common-sense solution to lower gas prices and support American energy independence has been tied up in red tape. Families and farmers in Western Minnesota and across the country have been subjected to frustrating, outdated, and unnecessary regulations. The House of Representatives has taken a major step toward cutting that tape by passing H.R. 1346, the Nationwide Consumer and Fuel Retailer Choice Act, which included my language for permanent, nationwide, year-round E15. I was proud to lead the efforts through my seat on the Rules Committee for this bipartisan bill, ...

Renewable resources should be vital to nation’s energy strategy

Thirty years ago some of the most important topics I covered for the Independent involved renewable energy and rural development. The 1990s were an exciting time for it in the Marshall area and throughout the Upper Midwest. One reason was Minnesota Corn Processors, which became the world’s second largest producer of ethanol fuel. MCP branched out from Marshall to establish a second plant in Columbus, Nebraska, in the early 1990s. It then undertook a major expansion in the area of corn based sweeteners. MCP fell on hard times in 1996 due to high corn prices, which led to a 30 ...

Coach Webb setting the standards at SMSU

Not every great coach had great playing careers. In fact, some were better players in a different sport that the sport they ended up coaching in. Take former New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick. He was a better lacrosse player than a football player. He did become a sub-par ...

Leadership Academy grads make a difference

The headline I wrote for the May 8 edition of the Independent: Klobuchar listens to child care needs. The U.S. senator paid a visit to Marshall on May 7 and held a roundtable discussion with local leaders and business people to discuss child care needs. “Housing and day care are our ...

Here’s a history lesson on the Minnesota state flag

As the Vice-Chair of the State Emblems Redesign Commission — the group tasked by the Minnesota Legislature to redesign the state’s flag and seal — I find it necessary to respond to the false information our local legislators continue to spread about our new state flag. Since our new state emblems — both the flag and the seal — have been in place for over two years now, it seems they continue to make these statements out of what can only be called willful ignorance. Rep. Paul Torkelson claimed in a New Ulm Journal interview “not all sides were considered during the ...