The U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency encourages all farmers, ranchers and FSA program participants to take part in the county committee election nomination process.

I was recently talking to Brian Thorsten of Thorsten Financial Services Inc. for an upcoming article in the Benton County News’ Salute to Business section coming out next week. We were talking about financial forecasting and investments. Thorsten said he could follow all the market fundamentals perfectly, pick a stock that everybody thinks is going to fly, and then, when push comes to shove, the stock plummets.

In my farmyard, several paths blown free of snow between buildings made it easier for the deer to access certain areas, easier to find footing than in the piles and drifts of snow, and the depth of snow grew week by week. They gathered in the perennial gardens, chewing frozen bark, pawing any ground not snowbound and looking for food where there was none.

When we are planting a crop at 5-6 mph or simply trying to look down the rows from a windshield view driving by, it is easy to take for granted how amazing a corn crop really is.

As many of you have heard, with my wife and I’s plan to move to Florida, July will be my last month with the Benton County News and the company that owns the paper, Star Publications. 

Legislators who, by nature, seek quick remedies for possibly menacing, sensitive problems insist the acting out behavior of youngsters enrolled in public schools is too harshly dealt with. 

Mahamta Gandhi said “An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind.” Interpersonal conflict happens. In fact, harassment complaints consistently rank in the top five most reported crimes in Benton County. 

I used to think there was always a right and wrong solution to just about every question or decision to be made. Even when it was not clear or even when the perfect answer had yet to be discovered, I always believed there was one idea, one answer or one methodology that would be best suited for the problem.

When Roy Latterell (who owned a not-too-busy fix-it shop) and all three hardware stores in Foley (each with an employee who attempted to repair small tools often quite unfixable) decided in the post-WWII era that it was reasonable to double the longtime price of sharpening lawnmower blades, folks balked. They thought 50 cents was fair; $1, a kick in the lawn.

With my wife and I getting set to move to Florida in a few months, we have talked many times in the last year about what we hope to accomplish while in the south. Our conversations are forged by ecstasy, optimism, faith and just a little bit of existential dread.

Recreational adult-use cannabis, or marijuana, was passed by the legislature and signed into law by Gov. Tim Walz. The bill enacting this shift in policy is 319 pages long and makes many significant changes to the status of cannabis use and possession here.

When I was in high school, I took an astronomy class with one of the best teachers in the district, Mr. Kortenkamp. He was revered by students across the spectrum for his character, but he was also an extraordinary teacher and held an astonishing knowledge of the cosmos. As any great teacher would, he took complex topics and made them digestible and understandable.