• Next meeting of the BCRP will be September 8th. We have asked Gov. Johanns to come and be our speaker. Our October meeting will occur on Monday October 6th . Commander of the Nebraska National Guard, General Lempke has been invited to speak. Our final meeting this year will be on November 3rd and Secretary of State John Gale will speak to the gathered throng.
  
  
• Judy Jobman and Jim Berton were honored at the State GOP Founders Day Dinner in Omaha on Friday May 2cd. Judy Jobman was presented with the Outstanding SCC Member in the Third Congressional District award. She was cited for her active participation in State GOP activities, including serving as Vice Chairman for the State GOP and for clever way of using everyday items to make her point. This is the third time that Judy has been recognized for her outstanding work with the Republican Party. In 1991 she was recognized as the outstanding Third District Volunteer and in 1995 she was awarded the Distinguished Service Award. Jim Berton was awarded the Distinguished Service award for the Third District. This is Jim's third time of being recognized by the State GOP. Jim was first recognized in 1999 as the Outstanding County Chairman, Division I, and in 2001 he was recognized with the Outstanding SCC Member in the Third Congressional District award.
  
  
• BCRP will participate in several parade during the summer months. We are planning on pulling Libby the Gibbon and Shelton 4th of July parades. If you can help in the parades we would like to hear from you. E-mail Jim Berton at kearneyite@aol.com.
  
  
• BCRP is considering the development of a Teenage Republican Club at Kearney High School next year. This will be second time that a Teenage Republican group (TARs) existed in Buffalo County. The first TARs group was developed during the 70's.
  
  
• Term limits for the State Senators will kick into affect in the year 2006. In particular, State Senator Jim Cudaback of District 36, which represents all of Buffalo and Dawson counties (except for the city of Kearney) will be prevented from running for his seat again due to the term limit law. Now is the time for Republicans who are interested in running for the Unicameral from District 36 to step forward and let it be known. If you know of somebody who would make a good representative from District 36 please encourage him or her to consider running for the position.
  

BCRW News

• The Buffalo County Republican Women will not be meeting during the summer months in conjunction with the BCRP decision not to meet during the summer. The next meeting will be September 8th at 5:15 p.m.
  
  
• The BCRW has adopted the S.A.F.E. House as their Caring for America Project. Please call Shirley Thomlison if you would like to help with this worthwhile project. Every little bit helps!
  
  

• The UNK College Republicans are on the move. The campus chapter sent representatives to Omaha to attend the state college Republican convention in Omaha on May 3rd. Rick Davis was elected as Third District Representative for the CR's. The UNK CR's are planning several activities for the start of the fall semester at UNK. Be sure to look for the group in the near future.
  
  
• BCRP Declares June, July and August as Meeting-Free Zones
  
  
• Since this is a non-election year, the general meetings of the BCRP will not occur during the summer months. The BCRP executive committee will meet at its regular time. The next meeting of the BCRP will be on September 8th.
  

Service: An American Tradition
April 2, 2003

Senator Chuck Hagel

The United States was built on a foundation of public service. Throughout America's history, our freedoms have been protected and our liberty extended by those willing to serve their country. Men and women in public service are called to lead, legislate, interpret and enforce laws, fight and sometimes die for our country. America's greatest leaders and most revered heros, historic and contemporary, are distinguished by their courageous service.

America's tradition of service is evident today in the nearly two thousand Nebraskans on active duty in the National Guard and Reserves. In Iraq and across the world, Nebraskans in uniform serve their country in the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps. In addition to the hundreds of full-time active duty soldiers who call Nebraska home, as of April 2nd: 1,789 Nebraska National Guard and Reserve troops were on active duty in the Army; 133 were in the Air Force; 3 were in the Navy; and 25 were in the Marine Corps. Called from diverse backgrounds for a common cause, the men and women of the Armed Forces continue America's tradition of service.

Without seeking recognition, soldiers confront extreme emotional, physical and psychological pressures every day. They are the nation's quiet heroes, for there is no glory in war. Behind headlines and beyond breaking news, we must always remember that there is real human struggle. Lives are risked and sometimes lost.

For their service, bravery and sacrifice, the men and women of the Armed Forces deserve our recognition and admiration.

Former Nebraska U.S. Senator Carl T. Curtis was another devoted public servant worthy of recognition. Curtis represented Nebraska in Congress for 40 years, longer than any other Nebraskan. He began at an early age. A well-known anecdote depicts Curtis as a young boy near Minden, Nebraska, delivering speeches to the animals on his family's farm, in the absence of more engaging company. Not that he always found it in Congress!

During his sixteen years in the House and twenty-four years in the Senate, Curtis served on the Finance, Agriculture, Rules, and Space Committees. He helped establish a blueprint for flood control and irrigation along the Missouri River. He worked tirelessly to enact the energy tax bill and the Tax Reform Act of 1976. Throughout his life, Curtis was an advocate for small business, agriculture producers, and social security reform. He was a committed public servant who respected traditional American values but did not fail to plan for the future.

Although Curtis' journey has ended, the spirit of his service endures. My Congressional colleagues in the Nebraska Delegation and I are working on a bill to name Omaha's new riverfront Park Service Building after Curtis.

The United States was bolted together by soldiers and statesmen who were willing to unselfishly serve their country, like our Nebraska National Guard and Reserves and Carl T. Curtis. It is through this tradition of public service that America endures and inspires the world.

Sen. Joel Johnson

Budget issues in Nebraska are huge and important and all Nebraskans are stakeholders. My first thought was to address these issues. However, this past month in World Affairs reporting there has been a bigger deficit in the truth.

Edward R. Murrow was and still is considered the best news reporter radio or television has produced. Whether it was "the voice" saying, "this is Edward Murrow reporting from London" during WW II, or conducting a TV interview with his ever present cigarette, you had one constant - truth and nothing but the truth. At his retirement dinner (he was dying from lung cancer) rather than accept the pleasant congratulations on his career, he surprised his well wishers by chastising them on the direction he clearly saw television news was going. He warned that they should remember that they were reporters of the news and that they were not the news. I suspect even Murrow could not imagine the depths to which the industry has descended as we have seen in the Iraqi war. Reporters sharing political opinions mixed with selective films to "clearly show" how correct and non-biased he or she is/ I can accept our Hollywood friends voicing their opinions, but reporters doing the same leads to the loss of a valuable resource. The problem is universal, the war just illustrates it more clearly.

We call this the information age. The problem is it is also the misinformation or dis-information age. Oh for a reporter that could remember the words of Shakespeare - "this above all, to thine own self be true."

State Senator Joel Johnson