Led by President Joe Biden, many critics on the left characterized last week’s chaotic congressional cage match to elect a new Republican Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives as an embarrassment. When 20 conservative GOP rebels (I’m going to refer to them henceforth as the “Heroic 20”) refused to vote in favor of Trump-anointed Kevin McCarthy of California as speaker, the usually speedy, rubber-stamp process of selecting a speaker from the majority party ground to a halt and eventually took four days and 15 separate votes.
Generally speaking, I am a very reflective person. I think back on every day’s events, replay conversations in my head, share fun stories about things that happened and ponder how things could have gone differently. It’s not something I do intentionally, but rather the path my brain follows naturally.
Thus, the coming of a new year always brings my reflectivity to a whole new level as I ponder the year gone by and the one just beginning.
We blinked, and 2022 passed! Where does the time go?
It seems like just yesterday we were turning the calendar to Jan. 1, 2022, and now we are in the fourth day of 2023. It is often said the older you get, the faster the time goes. That certainly seems to be the case.
What a wild year 2022 was.
As you saw on the front page of this week’s issue of the Custer County Chronicle, Jen and Marty Mechaley were named this newspaper’s Citizens of the Year. It’s an honor well-deserved, and one we decided on rather quickly and easily when the discussions started as to whom we should honor with that designation.
Carl Lewis Wilson was born May 16, 1942, in Custer, S.D.; Carl was the son of Clark and Mabel (Gray) Wilson.
Carl proudly served in the U.S. Navy. He moved to the Silver Valley in 1978 from North Platte, Neb.
Carl had first owned and operated a gravel truck business. He then served as a driver for Consolidated Freightways for 28 years.
On Christmas day I was driving with Sadie in the car when an eagle flew within arm’s reach of my window. I had been praying for a sign from God to tell me when it was her time. I knew that this was the sign.
And yet I also knew I could not take her to the emergency vet in Rapid City because of what had happened to her there two years ago. So we waited. Christmas Day I did my annual hike up Bear Butte and she waited for me patiently in the car. We took pictures after.
It’s been a long time since the Custer County Chronicle was at the center of a controversy (and more importantly, one that wasn’t in some way its own doing), but such is the case right now, as the Custer County Commission and Custer City Council wrestle with an 11th-hour pitch by a group of county residents to stop relocation of the city’s wastewater treatment effluent discharge.
China’s Communist government hates America. That may seem overly harsh or simple – but it’s a fact. They want to be the strongest nation on earth, and they see America standing in their way. Unfortunately, we have a President in Washington who is not taking this threat seriously. If he won’t protect the American people from this very real and growing threat, then states need to step up and do what we can.
Eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York’s Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897. The work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church has since become history’s most reprinted newspaper editorial, appearing in part or whole in dozens of languages in books, movies, and other editorials, and on posters and stamps.
DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
Papa says, “If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.”
I look up from my breakfast sandwich and decaf coffee. There is something off about the tiny clock perched over the cashier’s station. “Seven-Fifty-Nine”, I mouth to myself, making a squinty face.
“I’m late,” I blurt out, again to no one.
