From the Editor

Don Haskins and Howard Putnam. These names might not mean much to you, but for college basketball and Southwest Airlines they were game-changers.

“It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.”
—Neil Armstrong

When you visit any seedstock producer, be it in the Rockies, the Southern Plains or the Midwest, the conversation usually wanders into a friendly invitation. Will you be back for the upcoming production sale?

If the unpredictable, distasteful and unbelievable election of 2016 provided anything worth savoring, it was the reaffirmation of the power in the rural American vote.

A few years ago during a visit on Christmas Day, my dad and I started talking about holidays long gone by. After an hour or so of his familiar yarns, I asked what Christmas was like in the Army.

It’s fitting that I bring technology up for two reasons: It’s our focus topic this month, and I happen to be one of those pesky millennials – you know, the generation known for selfies, selfie sticks and thumbs that can punch out a sentence faster than you can speak. (If you don’t know what a selfie is, talk to me later.)