[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 80 (Tuesday, May 9, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Page S2849]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                         Tribute to Sherry Bess

  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, every week I have been coming to the 
floor to recognize someone in my State who has made a difference, 
someone who has devoted time and energy to making my State a better 
place to live for others. We call these individuals our Alaskan of the 
Week.
  As I have said repeatedly, I believe my State is the most beautiful 
State in the country. We have visitors. We want to welcome more and 
more visitors. Come on up. I guarantee it will be the trip of a 
lifetime.
  When you go to Alaska, one town that nobody should miss is Homer, AK. 
It is surrounded by the glistening waters of Kachemak Bay, jagged 
mountains, glaciers, and snowcapped volcanoes. Some people call it the 
Halibut Fishing Capital of the World. Others call it the Cosmic Hamlet 
by the Sea. Some, like me, call it a slice of Heaven.
  I was there a few weeks ago holding a community meeting. I thanked 
them then, and I want to thank them all today for the very warm welcome 
I received.
  I also wish to thank Homer for the very warm welcome they gave to 
Navy destroyer USS Hopper, which spent a few days in Homer before 
participating in a joint naval exercise with the Army in the Gulf of 
Alaska. The 300-member crew of the USS Hopper was greeted by hundreds 
of cheering, flag-waving Homer residents. The commander of the Hopper, 
J.D. Gainey, wrote that in his 24 years of naval service, ``I have 
never seen as much patriotism as we enjoyed in Homer.'' Thank you, 
Homer, from all of us. Alaskans love Homer.
  They see it for the landscape but also for the people. It is a tight-
knit community. They might not always agree with one another, 
particularly with regard to politics, but they look out for each other. 
Like any community with a heart, they look out for their animals.
  This week I want to recognize a special person as our Alaskan of the 
week, Sherry Bess, who spent nearly 30 years--three decades--taking 
care of Homer's animals as the manager of the Homer Animal Shelter. In 
1989, when Sherry began to volunteer at the pet shelter in Homer, there 
was one building, no phone, and only four cages to hold cats. ``It was 
basically a shack,'' she said. The snow would come in through the dog 
door. The drains in the water bowls would freeze. Sherry's hands and 
feet were always cold, and it was infested with mice. There was no 
bathroom. Oftentimes, when the shelter was too busy and when the 
animals needed extra care, Sherry would take them to her home, where 
she would care for them.
  Sherry and a handful of residents cared for over 1,200 animals each 
year in that little shelter. Along the way, she gathered both happy 
stories and heartbreaking stories about the animals she found that were 
abused and the ones she found homes for. In fact, one of the members of 
my team in Alaska took a puppy that had been abandoned in a crate in 
the woods near Homer, took him home, fed him, and Mick Fleagle on my 
staff now has a dog. His dog Sookie, 8 years old, has the full reign of 
the house. He is loved.

  Thanks to Sherry, stories like that abound throughout Homer. For 26 
years, she has worked night and day, 7 days a week, for the pets in 
that community. She recently stepped down from that job. She is taking 
care of her own pets, lots of them--her family she calls them--but she 
will always be known to so many people in Homer for what she has done 
for their pets and their animals.
  ``Over the years, those animals that came to me,'' she said, `` . . . 
unwanted and sad and depressed, and then you help them and you love 
them and they go to a home and they're loved. That's the most rewarding 
thing about what I did.''
  Sherry said over the years she has noticed that the residents of 
Homer and throughout the country have been kinder to their pets. Part 
of that is the result of what Sherry and others like her across the 
country do to educate the public on taking care of animals through 
vaccinations, neutering. Some of it is more and more because people 
like Sherry are considering pets as their families.
  So I want to thank Sherry, as our Alaskan of the Week, for all she 
has done and for all she has done for pets in our great State. Great 
job.
  I yield the floor.

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