It is interesting to read about the wide range of commencement speakers at graduation ceremonies around the country. Some offer useful information, others have a political message, and a few seem to just like to hear themselves talk.

While I doubt that I’ll ever be asked to speak to a graduating class, there is no doubt about what I’d share with those young people: it isn’t about you, join in with society, and our great nation is facing serious challenges that require your input.

Life is not about you. It is about how you interact with others. It is healthy to have ambition, to set goals and make plans, but you need to realize that the highpoints of your life are supposed to be the times where you make the lives of others sweeter. It isn’t what you get, but what you give that gives you the satisfaction of a life well lived.

Look in the faces of your parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles and see their pride in your achievements. Regardless of whether you aced every test or struggled for every passing grade, you have made others proud of you. Your choices, work, and effort to be sitting here today have had an impact on many others. Even your teachers and friends feel pride in your accomplishments.

When you find that special person and make the decision to be with them for the rest of your life, it will be about them, not you. It will make you feel great to be with them, but it is your actions that will bring joy to your husband or wife.

The day you are blessed with a child will mark a change in your life. When you hold that infant, they will look at you with pure innocence. Their life will be yours to affect. Love them, work for them, spend time with them and teach them well. They will be the best measure of your life, not your career, not the positions you’ll hold, and definitely not the fifteen seconds of fame most people strive for.

Charity is a part of realizing it isn’t about you. Choose your charities by what your heart and values tell you. It is important to give of your time as well as of your money. It isn’t about feeling good, but seeing the faces of those you help.

Life’s journey will offer many opportunities to you, but never forget that the best things in your life are not about you.

Life is about joining with others to make things better. American society is about independent people joining together in groups, clubs, associations, and churches to help themselves and their families to grow to their full potential. Together we make our communities better places to live.

The strength of the individual is never as strong as when the individual becomes part of a larger group. Your unique talents and abilities can be magnified when you unite with others in common cause.

Learn to work and play with others and life will be far more enjoyable. When you give a smile to a stranger, you will normally get one back. A kind word can make someone’s day, and when you help make another’s day a bit better, you build a better day for yourself.

Civic groups, business associations, churches, recreational clubs, and fraternal orders all offer opportunities for you to grow and learn in your community. Join, pay dues, be the one who cross-pollinates between groups in the community you choose to call home. Take the opportunity to serve others by accepting leadership when it is offered.

When you build a team and watch others grow into the people and leaders they desire to be, your reward is immeasurable. Our nation is about working with others to accomplish impossible tasks, and it always starts with a small group of passionate individuals.

There are a number of organizations that rise to the forefront when I think of the groups I’ve belonged to over my lifetime. I’ve chosen the Grange as the primary organization to be active in because it is focused on the family and community. As I’ve grown and changed, new opportunities have always been available.

America needs each of you to step up to the plate now. Not in a decade or two, but now. Government spending and sky-rocketing debt, regulation of most aspects of our professional and private lives is increasing at an astonishing rate and we cannot sustain it.

Are we going to be a people who face our problems and find new solutions? Is our independent spirit going to be crushed by an ever-growing government? Will the American dream of giving our children a better life started to die?

I don’t believe it. Millions of Americans through thousands of groups will supply the answers to today’s crisis’s. Your input and active participation are not just needed, they are required.

Your opinions will change and evolved as your pass through life. New problems will arise and require new solutions. If you remember that it isn’t about you and that it is by joining in with society that we find the answers, I’m not worried about our American future.

A wonderful life awaits and may God bless each of you!

The U.S. Postal Service announced this week it has canceled plans to close nearly 3,850 mostly rural post offices nationwide because of community and congressional pressure, but it said many of those facilities face drastically reduced service hours and minimal staffing.

Several Northeast Mississippi post offices had been on the closure list; dozens in the region are on an hours reduction list.

The cancellation of the closures nationwide is backed by many in Congress, including Sens. Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker, who joined 43 colleagues in urging a moratorium on the closures.

Dozens were on the original hit list in Mississippi. Tupelo’s mail processing center had been slated for closure and movement to Grenada, but an earlier moratorium spared that move.

Read the full story here.

The Postal Service has dropped plans to close thousands of the nation’s rural post offices, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said today.

Under the new plan, subject to public comment and regulatory approvals, more than 13,000 rural mail facilities could see reduced operations trimmed to between two and six hours per day, Donahoe said.

The new strategy would take two years to complete and save an estimated half billion dollars annually, he said.

“This is just part of the way there. … America needs a strong postal service,” Donahoe said.

Read the full story here.

NORTH KINGSTOWN — The President was in North Kingstown on Saturday giving a talk at the Slocum Grange hall.

He came from Washington, D.C., but this President’s office is not in the White House, but next door to it, where from an 11-story building, Edward L. Luttrell heads up the 200,000-member National Grange, a group formed almost a century and a half ago to unite private citizens in improving their economic concerns.

“We’ve had a lot of ups and downs over those 150 years,” said Luttrell, Master/President of the nation’s oldest national agricultural organization, addressing State Grange members from around Rhode Island in the century-old hall at 96 Slocum Road.

“What I’m seeing now translates from a downswing to an upswing, and I fully expect that it will continue and we’re going to see a resurgence in the Grange across the country,” he predicted.

Read the full story here.

The theme was “Grangers Wear Different Hats.”

Pat Fallot gave the welcome. The presentation of the flags was given by Jenna and Megan McNeil of Lexington Grange and Eli Bosler of Robertsville Grange.

The invocation was given by Sue Harding, Pomona chaplain, of Plain Grange, prior to the Swiss steak dinner.

Following the meal, Pomona Master Bill Walter was in charge of awarding the door prizes.

Group singing was led by Joyce Hudnel with Lillian Munk at the piano. The banquet committee was composed of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Workinger of Plain Grange, Pat Fallot and Joyce Hudnel of Magnolia Grange, Bill and Nancy Walter of Robertsville Grange, and Ed and Miriam Cochran of Beach City.

Read the full story here.

The National Grange has been very vocal in its objections to the proposed rule, saying such regulations would have eliminated countless opportunities for youth to continue their work on family farms, operate standard farm equipment and assist with livestock sales and shows.

“There is no substitute for the hands-on training and cultivation of young work ethic that occurs every day on family farms and in hometown co-ops,” National Grange President Ed Luttrell said.

“The legacy of family farms is already a very expensive one to inherit and more and more we see the numbers of farmers declining,” Luttrell said. “Regulations such as those the DOL initially proposed would make it even more difficult to interest young people in farming.”

The Department of Labor noted that their decision to withdraw the rule “was made in response to thousands of comments expressing concerns about the effect of the proposed rules on small family-owned farms.”

Additionally, the agency said the set of regulations would not be pursued for the duration of the Obama administration.

“We are just glad to see that the DOL and the Obama Administration listened to the overwhelming opposition to this unnecessary regulation by the agriculture and rural communities. From a policy standpoint, the little guys really did win this one,” Legislative Director Nicole Palya Wood said.

Established in 1867, The National Grange, a nonpartisan, nonprofit fraternal organization, is the oldest agricultural and rural community service organization. With more than 2,100 local chapters, the Grange has evolved into the nation’s leading rural advocacy organization and a major benefactor to local communities. There are more than 160,000 members across the United States.

Ike Wilson, an 18-year veteran of The Frederick News-Post staff, was honored Thursday evening with the Public Service Award from the Frederick County Pomona Grange.

“He does a wonderful job covering agriculture news,” said Donna Wiles, master of the Pomona Grange, in presenting a plaque to Wilson at the Jefferson Ruritan Club.

“We know it is because of Ike that The Frederick News-Post continues to cover agriculture,” Wiles said.

The award was a surprise for Wilson, who has won journalism awards from the Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association.

“I’ve never been accused of not having something to say, but now …,” Wilson said.

Read the full story here.

“Unfortunately, the farm bill proposal before the Senate Ag Committee slashes investment in rural small business development and value-added agriculture while increasing crop insurance subsidies for some of the nation’s largest farms and wealthiest landowners. There are opportunities to fix some of these issues right now, while the Committee debates amendments to the bill,” said Traci Bruckner of the Center for Rural Affairs.

Read the full story here.

WASHINGTON — After a one day delay, Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., announced late Wednesday that the markup on the farm bill will proceed today (Thursday).

On Tuesday night, Stabenow postponed a markup scheduled for Wednesday.

The decision to proceed today gave credence to the view of Senate sources and lobbyists that the postponement occurred not because southern farm groups and the Minnesota and Colorado corn growers sent a letter urging a delay, but because negotiations were still continuing and because the Congressional Budget Office was still scoring amendments that some senators want to offer. Late Wednesday, however, another coalition of farm groups including many Midwestern and western state growers, urged markup to move forward quickly.

Meanwhile, calls for quick consideration of the bill also revealed proposed amendments that some advocates want passed in the markup.

Read the full story here.