By Annabeth Miller,
ShowMe Times Editor
Ministers from the Dexter area expressed their faith in our nation and asked for wisdom and guidance on our nation’s leader in the local observance of the National Day of Prayer.
The Dexter Ministerial Alliance sponsored the event and more than 75 attended the event on the lawn in front of the Dexter City Administration Building on Stoddard Street.
Rev. Kenneth Biggs of the First General Baptist Church opened the prayer service with a verse from the Old Testament book of 1 Chronicles: ”If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
The gathering then united and faced the American Flag flying in front of the city building, and joined voices in singing “The Star Spangled Banner.”
“I know we all live in some very troubled times and many of use are disappointed in some things in our nation, and yet we are all still proud to be Americans and very thankful for the land we live in,” said Pastor Micheal Kohlbaker. He asked those gathered Thursday to consider “where we are as a nation” and then he led the first prayer of the service, a Prayer of Confession and Repentance, asking God to “forgive us as a nation where we have gone astray.”
As the birds sang, the breeze blew the leaves in the trees, trains travelled through town and traffic zipped by on Stoddard Street, those gathered for the service quietly stood casually about the front lawn. In the gathering were a number of local officials, including County Commission Carol Jarrell, Mayor Joe Weber, Sheriff Carl Hefner, and City Administrator Mark Stidham.
“Speaker of the House Tip O’Neal in the Reagan years said that ‘all politics is local’,” said Pastor Steve Tippen. He then led a prayer for the local officials in the community.
A number of pastors from the community led prayers during the noontime service:
- Pastor Micheal Kohlbaker: Prayer of Confession and Repentence
- Father David Dohong: Prayer for Federal Officials
- Pastor Josh Carpenter: Prayer for State Officials
- Pastor Steve Tippen: Prayer For Local Officials
- Pastor Roy Sherfield: Prayer for the Educational System
- Pastor Roger Wooten: Prayer for Those who Serve and Protect (Militry, Police, Fire)
- Pastor Steve Easterwood: Prayer for the Judicial System
- Pastor Lonny Mittag: Prayer for the upcoming election
The National Day of Prayer is organized each year by the NDP Task Force. The first call to prayer was done by the Continental Congress in 1775. It didn’t have an official annual observance until 1952 when President Harry Truman signed a joint resolution made by the U.S. Congress.
The idea of an annual day of prayer was enshrined in law under President Truman in 1952, and President Reagan signed a 1988 law calling for the event to be held on the first Thursday of each May.
Where President George W. Bush welcomed National Day of Prayer leaders to the White House, President Obama has taken a more aloof approach to the task force and to the Day of Prayer itself.
The White House listed the president's schedule for May 3 as including a lunch with the vice president, a meeting with senior aides, and some remarks at a Cinco de Mayo Reception in the Rose Garden. The president's proclamation included an exhortation to pray for members of America's armed forces, and for "those who are sick, mourning, or without hope," and to "ask God for the sustenance to meet the challenges we face as a Nation."
Mitt Romney, poised to become the Republican nominee for president, released his own statement of prayer. “Today I join with people of all faiths to express devotion and gratitude to the Lord, who has so richly blessed us," he said. His concluding phrase appeared to be a nod to the task force evangelicals, calling on "the Lord [to] keep us strong and free and we will remain one nation under God."
Photo Above: Pastor Michael Kohlbaker was one of the pastors who lead prayer at the National Day of Prayer service in Dexter Thursday. The annual service was sponsored by the Dexter Ministerial Alliance. (ShowMe Times photo by Annabeth Miller)
ShowMe May Spotlight
It's May - and it's a busy month, especially for Jessica Snider, who is in the ShowMe Spotlight for the month. Jessica is a senior at Dexter High School and will graduate with with the Class of 2012 later this month. Jessica is the daughter of Jeff and Debbie Snider, and she is the Senior Class president, a member of Dexter Honor Society, the Future Teachers of America, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Future Farmers of America, the DHS tennis team and the Kickin' Cats Dance Team. May is truly a busy month - with DHS Graduation on May 18, and a month that includes Cinco de Mayo (May 5), the anniversary of the World War II V-E Day -Victory in Europe - (May 8), Mothers Day (May 13), and Memorial Day (May 28). We also celebrate our teachers on National Teachers Day on May 8 and our nurses on Nurses Day on May 12. The ShowMe Spotlight is a monthly feature of the ShowMe Times, featuring one of the Top 12 finalists in the annual Miss Dexter Pageant sponsored by the Dexter High School Music Department. (Photo by SMT Reader Shannon Putnam. Thanks, Shannon, for everything!!)
By Annabeth Miller,
ShowMe Times Editor
Dexter residents will join with Americans from coast to coast this week, as all join hands and bow their heads in prayer for the National Day of Prayer.
The Dexter Ministerial Alliance will mark the special day with a community observance as 12:15 p.m., Thursday, May 3 at the Dexter Administrative Building on Stoddard Street. The community is invited to join pastors from a number of area churches for a few moments of prayer and community Christian fellowship.
Rev. Don Biggs said the Dexter observance would include time for prayer for national, state and local officials, as well as for the country’s military.
“We'll also pray for our fire and police protection, our educational system, for the judiciary, and for our nation’s upcoming election,” Biggs is the chairman of the Dexter Ministerial Alliance, which is hosting the local National Day of Prayer observance.
“We have found that 12:15 p.m. is a good time for us,” Biggs added. “People get out of work for lunch, and this gives them enough time to get to city hall.”
In case of rain, Biggs said the prayer service would move across the street to the First Christian Church.
Biggs said the theme to this year’s National Day of Prayer is “One Nation Under God” and is taken from Psalms 33:12: "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.”
Emphasis of prayer will be on what the NDP organization calls the seven centers of power: government, military, media, business, education, church and family.
The National Day of Prayer is an annual observance held on the first Thursday of May, inviting people of all faiths to pray for the nation. It was created in 1952 by a joint resolution of the United States Congress, and signed into law by President Harry S. Truman. On January 25, 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed into law the designation of the first Thursday in May as the annual observance for the National Day of Prayer.
The National Day of Prayer tradition predates the founding of the United States of America, evidenced by the Continental Congress’ proclamation in 1775 setting aside a day of prayer. In 1952, Congress established an annual day of prayer and, in 1988, that law was amended, designating the National Day of Prayer as the first Thursday in May.
Photo Above: Steve Easterwood of First Baptist Church, Larry Colvin, former pastor at First Christian Church, and Phil Warren of Liberty Hill Church, were members of the clergy who participated in the 2011 National Day of Prayer observance in Dexter. This year the community will gather for National Day of Prayer at 12:15 p.m., Thursday, May 3, at the Dexter City Hall. (ShowMe Times archive photo by Annabeth Miller)
Link of Interest
National Day of Prayer Video
By Annabeth Miller,
ShowMe Times Editor
The U.S. Department of Labor has withdrawn a controversial proposal that would have placed more stringent rules on minors’ work on farms.
“The decision to withdraw this rule — including provisions to define the ‘parental exemption’ — was made in response to thousands of comments expressing concerns about the effect of the proposed rules on small family-owned farms,” the Labor Department said in a written statement. “To be clear, this regulation will not be pursued for the duration of the Obama administration.”
The proposed rules would have barred children younger than 16 from operating tractors or heavy farm equipment on nonfamily farms. They would not have applied to children working on their own family farms.
After a public outcry when the regulations were proposed last year, the department said in February that it would review the possible labor laws.
U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson said Thursday evening that the proposal was out of step with the reality on family farms in Missouri.
“We don’t need much proof that this Administration doesn’t understand rural America, but this proposal was clearly out of step with the reality of growing up on a farm or ranch in Missouri and many other parts of the country,” she said. “Doing chores, driving tractors and helping out on the family farm or ranch is a fundamental part of the formative experience in rural America. It guarantees the passage of a family business from one generation to the next, and it is also how our young farmers and ranchers get a head start on their lifelong dream of having their own operation some day.”
Emerson has opposed the rule since 2011, when it was first put forward by the Department of Labor. The Eighth District Member of Congress cosponsored legislation to stop the action and sent several letters to the Administration urging that the rulemaking to abandoned.
“The agricultural sector is one bright spot in our rural and our national economy. Yet, it is fraught with risk, extremely dependent on energy, and reliant on Americans who work from sunup to sundown. This rule struck at the heart and soul of thousands of family businesses in Southern Missouri. Unfortunately, we have seen time and time again that this is an Administration which regulates first and asks questions later,” Emerson said. “I think, this time, the objections were too obvious to ignore.”
By Annabeth Miller,
ShowMe Times Editor
The word “bibliofile” comes to mind when you know Rhonda Robinson. She loves books! And she works in the perfect place for someone who appreciates, enjoys and revels in books.
Rhonda Robinson is a librarian. To be specific, she is the librarian at T.S. Hill Middle School in Dexter. She is surrounded everyday by books and she has the opportunity to encourage and to enthuse young people about the joys and the new worlds they can discover by reading.
There’s one more positive about Robinson’s career. She has the opportunity to serve on a statewide committee that reads and reviews new books – good books – for middle school readers. Robinson is one of nine teachers in Missouri chosen to serve on the Truman Reader Awards Committee. These teachers review newly- released literature for young teens, and help develop the annual list of Truman Award books for Missouri students.
Robinson explains that a book doesn’t make it to the prestigious “Truman list” overnight. First ‘reader selectors” read 25 books and rate them. The list of 25 is narrowed to 12, which in turn become the annual Truman list of books. The Truman committee – of which she is a member – reads ”hundreds of books” and narrows it to the 25.
“So far I’ve read 147 books,” she said. And they are not books to be taken lightly – the majority are hefty sized novels. She said there have been some exceptional books in the stacks she has read the year. “It’s fun, because I love to read!”
Robinson said the list includes mostly all fiction books, all new releases, and with just a couple of criteria.
“Authors have to be living, and they have to be American,” she added. The Missouri Association of School Librarians sponsors the annual program. The books must also be newly published.
The side benefit to Robinson being a member of the Truman Reader Awards Committee is that she has received bound editions of all the books that she has read and reviewed. That’s 147 newly-published books the students at T.S.Hill Middle School can find on the library shelves. And when you add up the value of those 147 books, that’s nearly $2,000 worth of new books that are in the school library – for free!
The books that Robinson has read and reviewed will be a part of next year’s Truman list – and Dexter students will have an opportunity to read those books next school year. And since Robinson is a committee member, the Dexter students will play a part in developing the upcoming Truman list for all of Missouri.
“The students will have until December 1 to read the 25 that the committee chooses,” she said. Then the students will vote on those 25 books. The top 12 vote getters statewide will become the 12 books on statewide Truman list in two years.
“So our kids are two years ahead,” she said. Students will visit the school library and Robinson will recommend a book she has enjoyed from the list she is reviewing. “It’s really good! Besides the free books for the library, they’re getting the benefit of having someone who has read them –to weed through them all.”
One of Robinson’s favorites so far has been by Ruta Septeys ’”Between Shades of Grey.”
The novel is set in post-World War II Europe, and centers on a 15-year-old girl and her family. One night, the Soviet secret police barge violently into her home, deporting her along with her mother and younger brother to Siberia. The girl’s father has been separated from the family and sentenced to death in a prison camp. The story is about the family’s journey.
“It’s been my favorite (book) so far,” Robinson said. “It’s really good.”
The Missouri librarians also have book lists for other age groups.
- Show Me Reader Awards- grades 1-3
- Mark Twain Reader Awards- grades4-6
- Truman Reader Awards – grades 6-8
- Gateway Readers Awards – grades 9-12
