Through snow, mud and uncertainty, we crept into April, wondering if spring is just a myth, a promise not kept or maybe, especially this year, a new kind of winter: an offshoot with slightly longer hours of daylight. 

In the past 20 years or so, the term multitasking has become a popular way to describe doing several tasks simultaneously. This has become somewhat of a legend as people take pride in their ability to multitask as well as utilize multitasking as a reason to make mistakes within the realm of doing any one of the tasks involved.

Benton Economic Partnership Inc. is pleased to announce the onboarding of Johanna Isaro Ngango as an intern for the remainder of 2023. Isaro Ngango is an international student at St. Cloud State University, who is triple majoring in political science, international relations, and planning and community development. She expects to graduate in the fall. She is originally from Kigali, Rwanda.

Following the school shooting in Tennessee that claimed six lives, which adds to the at least 125 other mass shooting events so far this year, we have a few options. Option No. 1: We do nothing and hope that the situation resolves itself. This sounds trivial, but violence can be cyclical and contagious, and I guess we could sit around and hope it passes.

Easter Sunday, an age-old holiday as variously celebrated by much of humanity as is the Christmas season, is largely a Christian holiday with secular overtones. Perhaps we who abide (not always happily) in a distinctly four seasonal environment regard Easter as an “at last, at last, done with winter” milestone. Not always a reliable exit from a stubborn winter, we welcome, however, whenever the day arrives and maintain memories associated with the anniversary.

It seems like a trend these days to avoid doing difficult things. In this avoidance, we seem to generate a more comfortable and secure existence; however, avoiding challenges only causes us to learn how to avoid difficult things. Avoiding challenges does not prepare us to do great things, only to shrink from doing great things. Educationally, we always want to provide an appropriate level of challenge to a student. Make an assignment to a class that is too easily accomplished and students are bored and unmotivated to complete the task. Give an assignment that is much too difficult and to which the student is not adequately equipped to complete, and there is a tendency for the student to not start, or once started, to give up. 

In the forgotten and the remembered history within a specific locale, the name of a family or an individual rides to the surface of our thinking now and then. We’re not sure why we’re curious about someone absolutely unknown to us; the name in question barely and casually having been referenced by persons no longer living. 

There seems to be a notion going around that the city of Foley’s wastewater regionalization project, now that it has run into a significant funding snag, was poorly timed. Some residents, whether at meetings or on social media or in my ear, believe the city should have waited until the $7 million in Point Source Implementation Grant funding was solidified before approving the project in 2022.

American actress Helen Hayes said, “The expert in anything was once a beginner.”  Oftentimes, we view those who are considered experts through a lens that begins from the moment we are introduced to their expertise. Think of the moment we see an extraordinary athletic achievement or view a specific artistic talent for the first time and are in some level of wonderment about how an individual can possibly be that talented.