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Jeremiah Buntin: The Recorder of Deeds

The Missouri Governors Records from the Missouri State Archives and accessible through the Missouri Digital Heritage website is an interesting place to investigate the nooks and crannies of history. These records from 1837-1901 mostly consist of handwritten letters asking the governor for favors such as pardons and appointments, or signed petitions for various causes, or resignations from local offices. In 1852, Barry County Clerk William Hubbert, of Cassville, wrote Missouri Governor Austin Augustus King notifying him of a vacancy in the State Senate caused by the death of Littleberry Mason and that an election would be held immediately.
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Dakoda Pettigrew: The meaning of the Declaration

The rain was falling with misty, unrelenting force as President Calvin Coolidge rose to deliver the greatest speech of his life. It was Monday, July 6, 1926, and the rain beat the president’s face as he stood before a crowd of 35,000 on the grounds of the Sesquicentennial Exposition in Philadelphia, the birthplace of American independence and constitutionalism. “Despite a fine drizzle, which became a heavy downpour,” The New York Times reported the next day, “the crowds patiently lined twenty miles of streets to pay their respects” to a man whose cool and quiet demeanor hid a patriotic intellect that could not be contained.
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Janet Mills: Over the river and through the woods

Over the river and through the woods, to grandmother’s house they come! Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done? Hurrah for the pumpkin pie! Spring over the ground like a hunting hound, for here comes Thanksgiving Day! We know that all grandmas just like me are thrilled when it is their turn in the rotation for sons and daughters to journey all the way from the big city and come home to partake of the country life for Thanksgiving. It is grandma’s job to set the stage, dust off the furniture, plan the meals, fluff the pillows, and prepare activities to enhance the joys of country life for her urban visitors.
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Michelle Hilburn: What makes a library meaningful?

In Starfish by Lisa Fipps, one of my favorite young adult novels, Ellie, the main character, captures how meaningful a librarian’s presence can be: “[The librarian is] the first person to smile at me today./ The first to make me feel wanted./ Understood./I blink back tears./ It’s unknown how many students’ lives/librarians have saved/by welcoming loners at lunch.”
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Dakoda Pettigrew: Ask Not

A bitter snowstorm dropped six inches of snow on America’s capital city the day before Inauguration Day. “Many of the pre-inaugural social affairs had to be canceled,” The New York Times wrote on Friday, January 20, 1961, adding that the snowfall had “snarled traffic, disrupted air and highway travel and chilled thousands of visiting Democrats.”
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