Participating in 'life'

When thinking about a title for this writing to encourage participation in the FSA Committee election process (deadline for ballots is Dec. 3 by the way), the heading "Participating in Life" crossed my mind, but I continued to seek other possibilities thinking something else would surely be more appropriate. However, the more I thought about it, the more I thought this an appropriate introduction.

When checking the Microsoft dictionary on my computer, synonyms for the word "life" include existence, living, energy, excitement, soul and a word I rarely see used -- vivacity. The opposite (antonym) of life, of course, is death. We all know that death is inevitable, obviously, so now (while we are still breathing) would be the time for participating in "life," right?

Those who agree to seek election and to serve on the Farm Service Agency County Committees each year have thankfully made a choice to "participate" -- to contribute to the farm community of our county and state, to offer their knowledge of agriculture in this county to help make USDA programs as available and reasonable as possible -- to "participate in life" certainly.

Eligible voters, too, can participate by casting their ballot in this year's FSA committee election. Ballots were mailed out early in November and are due back to the applicable FSA office by Monday, Dec. 3, 2012. If mailed back, the returned ballot will be considered timely received if the postmark shows the Dec. 3 date or earlier. Bourbon County's ballots will be counted at 8:30 a.m. Dec. 6 in the conference room of the USDA Service Center, 1515 S. Judson, Fort Scott.

Committee member elections are staggered with one of the three regular members being elected to a three-year term each year. This year, the election involves Bourbon County's Local Administrative Area 2 which includes the townships of Timberhill, Freedom, Osage, Mill Creek, and Scott north of U.S. Highway 54. The candidates (in alphabetical order) are Donnie Brown, Beth Snyder and Brian Snyder. The incumbent for this position, Edward Karleskint, opted not to seek another term.

So, "mark and mail" those ballots now, or drop them by our office by the deadline.

PROGRAM NOTE: In an effort to correlate acreage reporting deadlines with crop insurance needs, our wheat and barley reporting deadline is now Dec. 15. The ultimate goal with this modification is to use our crop report for all USDA programs including crop insurance and eliminate producers having to duplicate this effort between FSA and their crop insurance agent.