[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Page 18202]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          RURAL AMERICA MONTH

  Mrs. LINCOLN. Mr. President, I was so pleased this week as the 
daughter of a seventh generation Arkansas farm family from rural 
eastern Arkansas, and it is with a tremendous amount of pride I come to 
the Senate today to applaud the passage of Senate Resolution 561 which 
designates September of 2006 as Rural America Month. I was pleased to 
introduce this resolution last week with Senator Reid, Senator Frist, 
and many of my colleagues.
  Rural America means a tremendous amount to this Nation. It is the 
place where our values oftentimes begin and grow. We send people from 
rural America not just to the big cities of America, but all across the 
globe to exhibit those American values that grow and begin in rural 
America.
  My values and my world view are directly tied to how I was raised in 
a small town in Helena, AR, on the Mississippi River. My upbringing 
gave me a deep and abiding love for the rural way of life. In rural 
America, you learn that in order to have good neighbors, you have to be 
a good neighbor. Importantly, you learn by the example set for members 
of the community.
  Growing up, I lived within walking distance from both sets of my 
grandparents. I learned what it meant to be a caregiver. At the age of 
14 I learned from my grandparents. I learned values, I learned stories 
of World War I and the experiences they had during the Depression and 
so many other things that I captured from a real perspective--not from 
a textbook.
  My mother would prepare dinner for our family every night, but very 
often she and my aunt would go back and forth and prepare a little bit 
extra every other night. It was my duty and my cousin's duty to take 
that dinner up to my grandparents and spend time with them, valuable 
time, where we would make them feel better, to share part of our day 
and they could share a story with us. I didn't realize at that age what 
caregiving was all about. I do now.
  Being a good neighbor is something that comes easily for rural 
Americans. It is taught early in life. I am proud to have had the 
opportunity to learn that lesson by example. I see it as a model that 
can be applied outside the family, outside the neighborhood and to so 
many relationships that we, as people of a global community, have 
around the world, when we listen to the comments of Senator Brownback 
and Senator Boxer talking about our neighbors across the globe and what 
that means to us, what our responsibility is as a global neighbor to 
those people in such need of protection, of sustenance of life, of 
education, and the ability to build for themselves a life of 
independence.
  My love for the rural way of life I grew up in, the values it taught 
me, is what drives me to want to strengthen and support rural 
communities all over our country. With the passage of this resolution 
this week, the Senate has formally acknowledged the invaluable 
contribution that rural America makes to our country.
  The experiences in my life have shown me firsthand that the more than 
55 million people residing in rural America are the embodiment of the 
values that make our country great: community, service, hard work, 
family, responsibility.
  Rural America provides significant contributions to our Nation, such 
as the safest, most abundant and affordable food supply in the world, 
as well as the renewable sources of energy with the potential to 
significantly reduce our country's dangerous dependency on foreign oil, 
not to mention what we could do for our environment.
  Americans residing in rural areas have also made a considerable 
contribution to our country's freedom. Rural Americans comprise a 
sizable percentage of our reserve, military force abroad and the 
highest concentration of military veterans live in rural communities.
  Additionally, police officers, volunteer firefighters, EMTs or 
National Guardsmen, and members of our rural communities come together 
in times of national emergencies to keep our country safe. I am 
certainly reminded of the proud, strong, courageous firefighters, 
Guardsmen, ambulance drivers, and so many more that responded from 
Arkansas to New York during September 11 and to Louisiana during 
Katrina and the entire gulf coast.
  I am proud of my heritage in rural America. I am pleased the Senate 
has acknowledged we owe rural America a considerable debt of gratitude. 
Rural America is critical to this Nation.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues to address the 
challenges and the obstacles that rural America faces so all in rural 
America can enjoy every blessing and opportunity that our Nation has to 
offer.
  I commend my colleagues for joining me in this special effort. I want 
to especially commend our leader, minority leader Harry Reid, who grew 
up in Searchlight, NV, who knows and understands the mentality, the 
values, and really has a tremendous passion for those people in rural 
America. I am proud to have joined he and Senator Frist and others in 
bringing this resolution forward.

                          ____________________