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Entrepreneurs help boost regional economies

Have you thanked an entrepreneur lately? If the answer is no, then this is a perfect opportunity as we enter National Small Business Week, May 3-9, 2026. This is my second National Small Business Week as the Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator for the U.S. Small Business Administration; I’m reminded just how much small businesses shape the strength and character of our communities. Across our region, entrepreneurs show up, take risks, and build something meaningful – not just for themselves, but for their employees, their families, and their neighborhood. From rural towns to ...

Rounding Third: It’s not just inflation, it’s the way of life

One topic of conversation among all my friends and acquaintances is the shock of today’s prices – for everything. When I was a kid, I remember vividly that Saturday movies cost 12 cents. Granted, that was 70 years ago, but it was for three cartoons, the Movietone news of the day, two movies, with the continuing serial at the end. Looking back at it now, that was an afternoon’s entertainment for 3 cents an hour. Today it costs me 3 cents every time I sneeze – just for the Kleenex. I bought ginormous Milky Ways whenever I could scrounge up a nickel. Today’s movies cost $8. For ...

Nation needs a leader to unite us

Can you imagine what the world would be like if we had a Donald Trump-like President instead of Franklin D. Roosevelt during the lead-up to and during World War II? Trump would have cozied up to the strongmen of the 1930s and 1940s. Trump’s admiration of strong men would have been in its glory as the authoritarians flexed their military strength and demanded their neighbors cede land to them. Does Venezuela and Greenland come to mind? Or calling Putin’s invasion of Ukraine a la Hitler invasion of Poland brilliant and having a reluctance to assist democratic Ukraine’s struggle ...

Keeping energy prices low makes the U.S. affordable again

The war in Iran has underscored an economic truth: higher energy prices are a killer. The war’s disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz sent oil futures soaring, pushing U.S. gas prices to an average of $4.15 as of April 10. As we approach summer, higher energy prices could hit even harder as people need to cool their homes. President Trump has made it a priority to expand American energy exploration and domestic drilling. It’s time now to double down on these commitments and bring energy prices down — even if it comes at the expense of some of his other signature ...

Rounding Third: Big time sports on big screen

The Masters Golf Tournament this year was a doozy. For us golf junkies, the Big Kahuna of the season’s contests was incredibly exciting, especially for Rory McIlroy fans. I joined that fan club about 17 years ago when he was a new name on the PGA Tour. Rory (he lets me call him by his first name) is an up-from-childhood player like Tiger Woods. His dad bought him plastic clubs at age two and he never stopped swinging. I didn’t realize until recently that he was an only child born to working-class parents. Both of them worked second jobs, hardly seeing each other, so their boy ...

Leadership runs dry in Tidioute water crisis

On March 18, the community of Tidioute was issued a boil water notice. As of the writing of this letter — four weeks later we are still under a boil water notice with seemingly no end in sight. Since the start of this water debacle we have received no official statement from our Mayor Henry Brown and nothing but boil water verbiage from Council and Southwest Warren County Municipal Authority President Steve Morrison. Last year when we had our last water emergency residents were provided with potable water and kept abreast of what was being done to fix the situation. This time, ...