Friday, January 2, 2026
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Beating the winter blues

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Guest Columnist
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During the winter, we may find ourselves feeling down. The lack of sunlight and shorter daylight hours can have a large impact on our moods. Less sunlight can throw off our body’s circadian rhythm, also known as sleep cycle or internal clock; the increased hours of darkness can lead us to sleep more than we do during other seasons. Sunlight exposure helps the brain produce serotonin, so we may experience a decrease in production, contributing to mood decline, during days with less sunshine.  Additionally, our skin produces vitamin D in response to sunlight, so we may also experience a vitamin D deficiency during the wintertime.

Ways to boost your mood during the winter months

  • Get outside and move around.
  • Keep up healthy eating habits.
  • Consult with your health care provider on ways to add vitamin D to your diet.
  • Consider using a light therapy lamp to help mimic the sun’s rays.
  • Turn on more lights in your home in the evenings.
  • Wake up earlier to experience more daylight.
  • Stay socially engaged.

The winter months and the holidays that occur during them can also contribute to experiencing higher amounts of grief. As holidays approach, you may feel overwhelmed and wonder how to handle gatherings in the absence of a deceased loved one. Holidays are often built around traditions and relationships, both of which may look different when someone is no longer there.

Tips on navigating grief during the holidays

  • Express and validate all your feelings. Grief is complicated, and there are a variety of reactions. Be compassionate and avoid judging your feelings or the feelings of others.
  • Take care of yourself. Self-care is extremely important during this time. Make sure you are getting enough sleep and maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
  • While socialization is important, be honest with yourself about what you want to do. We often receive many invitations during the holiday season, and it is O.K. to only accept those you can handle.
  • Evaluate holiday traditions and choose those that are most important to you, or think of ways to be flexible with that tradition. It can be easy to want to change everything to avoid sad feelings. Find ways to keep that sense of connection and meaning with your loved ones to honor those no longer with you.
  • Check in on each other and ask how you can best support one another.

Green Thieves

By
Lee Pitts
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lee pitts
Normally I’m a pretty peaceful guy but you want to know what really makes me mad? It’s these fake- meat veg-heads who are stealing our terms like steak and burger to describe their plant-based and lab-concocted vegetarian and vegan products that they can’t sell on their own merits. To get people to buy their  rubbish they are trying to pull the wool over the consumer’s eyes and trying to trick them into buying their inferior fare. And with several of these fake meat companies going broke and Beyond Meat teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, the veg-heads are getting really desperate.
We don’t have to guess how this can get out of hand in a hurry unless we nip it in the bud. Take milk for example. We’ve gone from cow, goat and sheep milk to oat milk, soy milk, almond milk, coconut milk, cashew milk, pea milk, macadamia milk, rice milk, hazelnut milk, flaxseed milk, pistachio milk, banana milk, walnut milk, potato milk, sesame milk, peanut milk and even hemp milk. What’s next asparagus milk? Or how does a refreshing arugula milkshake sound? And all of them brag they’re better than cow’s milk despite the fact that many of these so-called “milks” lack essential amino acids found in real milk and may contain inflammatory seeds and oils that can play havoc with the human digestive system. Not to mention that most of these new “milks” lack the calcium and vitamin A that are found in real milk. And many are too high in starch. Pimply faced teenagers might also be interested to know that some fake milks have been found to cause acne.
Poultry growers should also be foaming at the beak that some veggies have coopted their names too like eggplant, drumstick and even a vegetable called fat hen! That alone should be grounds for a defamation lawsuit! Horse people should be infuriated that there are vegetables called Horse gram, horseradish and sorrel. And there’s no doubt that sheepherders have less money in their purse because of an inferior vegetable called shepherds purse. Not to mention lamb’s lettuce. The veg-heads have even managed to insult pig growers, which I thought was impossible, by naming a vegetable pignut. What’s next, ham of yam I am? (This is starting to sound like a Dr. Seuss story.)
If I was from Switzerland I’d be furious that there’s a vegetable called Swiss chard which is extremely bitter. I’d be annoyed by the implication if I was Swiss. There’s not a more lovable animal on the planet  than elephants and the veg-heads had the nerve to ride on the pachyderm’s good reputation by naming one vegetable elephant garlic and another elephant foot yam. I’m told that it tastes an awful lot like elephant foot toe jam.
I’m telling you if we don’t stop this madness of veg-heads riding on our good name it won’t be too long before we end up with ribeye of beet, rump of tofu, brisket of turnip and Porterhouse butter nut squash. There will be Brussel sprout filet mignon, turnip green London broil and Lima bean steak. YUCK! On one hand you have the worst tasting foodstuff in the Lima bean and the best tasting food on the planet in steak.
In the future I can envision walking into a grocery store and seeing carrot ribs, tenderloin of potato, tomato top sirloin, collared greens ground round, fluted pumpkin flank, celery shanks, cucumber skirt steak, lettuce stroganoff, T bone of cabbage, back-rib bell peppers, loin of spinach, stew meat soybeans and the vegetable that needs our good name the most: zucchini chateaubriand.
The veg-heads will continue to steal other words usually associated with meat like barbecued Bok choy, aged radicchio and chickweed Quarter Pounders. I ask you, where and when will it all end?
It’s bad enough that vegetables and fruits have to be identified as to what country they were grown in, an advantage not granted to meat. To take advantage of their protection from foreign imports perhaps we should take a page out of the veg-head’s book and start calling beef “second generation corn,” which would be as devious as the veg-heads using our words. Only in this case it would be entirely true. Cattle eat the corn and people eat the cattle.

The data behind breeding season success

By
Guest Columnist
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photo credit - Dennis Wilkinson
K-State beef cattle experts say accurate records, clear plan are key to successful breeding seasons.

A successful breeding season doesn’t happen by chance. According to veterinarians at the Kansas State University Beef Cattle Institute, producers can improve herd performance by focusing on three essential steps: taking accurate records, making an intentional plan, and following through on that plan.

On a recent episode of the Cattle Chat podcast, BCI experts discussed how these steps work together to strengthen a herd’s long-term success.

“Good record keeping gives you the information you need to make smart management decisions,” K-State veterinarian Brad White said. “If you don’t know which cows calved early or which heifers bred on time, it’s hard to know where you’re succeeding or where you need to make changes.”

White emphasized that records are most valuable when they guide a plan built around specific goals.

“Once you’ve got your data, use it to set clear priorities,” he said. “If your goal is to shorten your calving season or improve conception rates, your breeding plan should reflect that.”

Veterinarian Bob Larson added that planning involves more than just picking bulls; he said it’s about understanding your herd’s current performance and setting realistic targets.

“A plan needs to be something you can actually implement,” Larson said. “Start with where your herd is today and make step-by-step changes that get you closer to your goals.”

Implementing that plan, the team noted, requires discipline and consistency. “It’s easy to write a plan down,” White said “The real work is in following through, (including) making sure your nutrition, breeding dates and health protocols match the plan you made.”

The veterinarians agreed that reviewing the plan regularly helps producers adjust to changing conditions and maintain progress.

“The best plans are living documents,” Larson said. “You should revisit them every season to see what worked, what didn’t, and how your records can help guide the next round.”

The episode also addressed selecting and saving replacement heifers, reminding producers that planning early pays off later.

“If you’re saving replacements, think about what traits you want in your future cow herd,” White said. “Your records will tell you which animals are worth keeping, and your plan will keep you on track to build the herd you want.”

They also detailed the value of genetics and keeping back replacements. Learn more about this topic and others on the K-State BCI Cattle Chat podcast, available online.

Digital Edition 12.03.25

By
tammiehoeme
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0
digital edition

Digital Edition 12.03.25

JFK Remembered 62 Years After Assassination

By
Guest Columnist
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0

Richard Shank
Columnist

ABC News is to be commended for a special broadcast aired November 24, two days following the 62nd anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. After watching the two-hour special, this viewer was no closer to solving the puzzle on who all were involved in the tragic event more than six decades ago. Perhaps, there are some happenings we are not to know the full story, including the 1937 disappearance of Aviatrix Amelia Earhart.
I have found it fascinating to visit with a couple people who knew JFK, as he was affectionately called, to ask what he was really like. When JFK’s good friend Washington Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee visited Hutchinson in 2001 for a speech at the Dillon Lecture Series, I inquired about his friendship with Kennedy. Bradlee responded although Kennedy was blessed with wealth, he was never into things and objects. Kennedy drove an Oldsmobile, and Bradlee did not remember him being a particularly good driver.
Helen Thomas, the famed UPI White House correspondent, also a Dillon Lecturer, knew Kennedy and said no President had a better vision of what America should be than did JFK.
I, for one, miss a President who had a genuine sense of humor like JFK who brought smiles and laughter to a nation waged in a Cold War with the Soviet Union.
In a 1962 White House dinner for Nobel Laureates, Kennedy gazed across a room filled with honorees and said, “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent and human knowledge that has ever been gathered together in the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”
When a young man asked Kenned how he became a war hero, the President responded, “It was involuntary. They (the Japanese) sank my boat.”
Commenting on the daily briefings regarding international issues, Kennedy said, “I do not think the intelligence reports are all that hot. Some days I get more out of the New York Times.”
During the 1960 campaign, Kennedy drew applause when he said, “Do you realize the responsibility I carry? I am the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House.”
In 2015, while in Boston, we stopped by the Kennedy Presidential Library on the campus of the University of Massachusetts and it was deserving of the tour we received. Kennedy preferred the library be built on the Harvard University campus where he graduated, but it was not to be. A faction of Bostonians opposed the construction with protestations of creating traffic congestion in the area. Meanwhile, across town, the University of Massachusetts came to the table with an offer to provide 10 acres of prime real estate, and the family was only too happy to accept. I remain puzzled that Harvard turned down an opportunity to house the Kennedy Library, and assume there is more to the story.
Based on Kennedy’s love of water and sailing, it seemed only natural his library should be built alongside Boston Harbor with a backdrop of the Atlantic Ocean. His sailboat Victura, a gift from his parents, is displayed outside. The library, an 11-story glass pavilion gives the visitor a panoramic view of the vast ocean beyond.
Apparently, Kennedy and his staff kept good records, the library is a repository for 50 million pages of documents, 400,000 still photographs, 7.5 million feet of motion pictures , and 11,000 reels of audio recordings.
His Presidency set in motion a series of initiatives, many of which survive to this day. Four months after assuming the presidency, Kennedy summoned the nation to send a man to the moon and return him safely to earth. Kennedy created the Peace Corps and in doing so sent thousands of Americans to developing nations to teach everything from agriculture to literacy. In doing so, Kennedy may have done more for American diplomacy than all the diplomats who have served in our nation’s history.
A tax cut, initiated by Kennedy, and passed following his death, returned money to taxpayers and increased government revenue, something that has not been duplicated before or since.
And, let us not forget Kennedy restored his predecessor Dwight D. Eisenhower to the rank of Five Star General, a fitting tribute to a man who spent a lifetime defending his country and its way of live.
More books have been written about Kennedy than any other President, excluding Abraham Lincoln. Only 4 of the 34 Presidents who preceded him knew Kennedy, and many of the 11 who followed him tried to imitate his style and charisma, only to find out there was only one JFK.
Speaking at the groundbreaking for the Kennedy Presidential Library in 1977, his brother Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy called JFK a universal man. “He could talk with a poet or prime minister, start an astronaut toward the moon, reach a black child in the south, throw a spiral pass, haul a sail and make a Russian blink,” Senator Kennedy said.
Ronald Reagan had special words for Kennedy. “He seemed to grasp from the beginning that life is one fast moving train, and you have to jump aboard and hold on to your hat and relish the sweep as it rushes by,” Reagan said.
Perhaps, Kennedy summed up his philosophy best in nine words in what some call his greatest quote. “No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings,” Kennedy said.

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