There's No Place Like Home

There's no place like home, where the sky is perfectly blue, there are plenty of hay bales to hop and ponds to fish.  Home is the community that has helped raise me alongside my parents and family. Home is where I developed a love for the country and a passion for agriculture.  Whether the place you call home is a small, agricultural community or a bustling town,  we all have those things we love about our homes. And we all have one thing in common, Kansas is the place we call home.

There's no place like home-Dorothy got that right.  Kansas is the place that many of us call home-from the rolling Flint Hills to the open plains of western Kansas, we are all proud to be Kansans.  The country is my home in Kansas, but I know that there is much more to our state than that.  

There's no place like home-who knew so many types of people could call one place home? College has taught me to open my eyes up to the diversity of people with all different backgrounds who call Kansas home.  While Kansas is consistently ranked number one in wheat production and produces just under 20 percent of the total U.S. beef, among other agricultural commodities, there are Kansans that don't know this side of Kansas. We Kansans should all be proud of our agriculture industry and our role in feeding the world's population.  However, there are still many people that haven't heard all of agriculture's story. Likewise, I am still striving to learn more about the culture and way of life of the well over a million Johnson and Sedgwick county residents.

 I challenge each of you to not only share the story of agriculture, but also to listen to our fellow Kansans' stories so that we can all know more about the diversity of Kansas, both in and out of the agriculture industry.  Then can all proudly say together,"There's No Place Like Home, There's No Place Like Home, There's No Place Like Home."