Columns

SEN. RICHARD LUGAR
GUEST COLUMNIST
Following are excerpts from the prepared text of a speech delivered Wednesday by U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar. The U.S. Senate’s most senior Republican and longest serving member of Congress in Indiana history is leaving the Senate after 36 years of service.

Santa Claus
General Delivery
North Pole

Dear Santa:
As Christmas approaches, I hope all is well with you and Mrs. C. Sorry I didn’t get to talk with you at the many parades you’ve taken part in over the past couple of weeks. I don’t see how you do it … getting to as many places as you do. I suppose magic reindeer are a big help.

By FRANK SANDAGE
Guest Columnist

I want to add a bit of lore to Editor Vince Luecke’s Oct. 29 column on mountain lions and panthers.

My dad, Frank Sandage Sr., (1907-1994) drove a school bus for the Anderson Township Schools from 1951 to 1966 until the new Perry Central School Corp. was organized.

In early 1960 or 1961 Dad was returning from his early-morning run. This was before the new Indiana 37 was built.

By DON COURSEY
Guest Columnist

Federal regulators recently roiled America’s farmers with the release of new rules for financial instruments. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, one of the agencies charged with implementing the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, officially announced the new requirements and said they would take effect by year’s end.

What does Dodd-Frank, passed in response to the 2008 economic crisis and aimed at reforming a vast swathe of the financial sector, have to do with farmers?