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EDITORIAL: Last Man's club veteran support laudable

Free Press - 4/5/2021

Apr. 3—Thumbs up to the growth of the Last Man Club of Vietnam War Era of St. Peter Area chapter.

The club started in 2011 and has grown to 350 members, welcoming Vietnam War era vets from across the country, although most are from this area.

Not wanting the last surviving member of the club to be left drinking alone, the club bylaws call for the final two surviving members to break the seal of a bottle of Bulleit Bourbon and share it.

But the club is about more than sharing whiskey. On Monday the chapter hosted a ceremony commemorating Vietnam War Veterans Day at the Veterans Memorial in St. Peter'sMinnesota Square Park.

The club not only allows the vets to socialize and remember lost comrades together but has demonstrated its community support in times of need, such as when the community experienced flooding and tornado damage.

Rebuild IRS

Thumbs up to efforts in Congress to restore needed funding for the Internal Revenue Service.

The IRS is a favored target of the public, particularly during tax season. But Americans also know the agency is necessary to collect the revenues that fund all public programs and projects. And it is the agency that is supposed to catch tax cheats and collect taxes they owe as well as apply penalties.

But for years Republican-led Congresses have cut funding for the IRS, leaving it short on staff and resources to effectively do basic operations, much less try to recoup the hundreds of billions in annual taxes that are unpaid.

Farm stewardship

Thumbs up to Cleveland farmer Leo Koppelman, the Le Sueur County Soil and Water Conservation District and the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil resources for creating a wetland restoration project that prevents runoff into Middle Lake Jefferson and helps improve the water quality.

The project is holding back water runoff and reducing the amount of phosphorus, sediment and other nutrients getting into the lake.

The project has been in the works for several years and was aided by part of funding from a $387,000Clean Water Fund grant from the state. The local project cost about $40,000 and was a joint effort by Koppelman, the soil and water district and the Greater Jefferson-German Lakes Association.

Middle Jefferson has been identified as a lake that is impaired for aquatic recreation due to nutrient loading. The area is also part of the Cannon River watershed that eventually drains into the Mississippi River.

The project is a good example of public private partnerships and good use of Minnesota's Clean Water Fund, funding of which was approved in 2008 by Minnesotans agreeing to a three-eighths percent increase in the sales tax.

A state of hoops

Thumbs up to Paige Bueckers and Jalen Suggs, the Minnesota-raised freshmen leaders of Final Four teams in the NCAA women's and men's basketball tournaments respectively.

Bueckers, who played her high school basketball for Hopkins and now stars for the perennial powerhouse University of Connecticut, was earlier this week named the player of the year by The Associated Press. Suggs (Minnehaha Academy) shines for a Gonzaga squad that is the first men's team in decades to reach the Final Four undefeated.

Their rapid ascension to stardom is indicative of the challenges for the University of Minnesota's basketball coaches. There was a time when Minnesota prep basketball produced maybe one player a year capable of playing at the major college level, and that most of them stayed close to home. But those days are past. The state of hockey now produces top-notch hoops recruits prolifically, and top programs — such as UConn and Gonzaga — are fully aware of that.

Both U of M coaches, Lindsay Whalen and Ben Johnson, are Minnesota natives who played for the Gophers. Their success hinges on their ability to convince the state's top prep players that they should do the same.

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