On Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2014, I was honored to welcome and introduce several members of the Military Order of the Purple Heart during their visit to the State Capitol. We owe a great amount of gratitude to these heroes for their service and what they’ve done. Most of the time, the General Assembly honors these servicemen and women, but this week the group honored the Senate and the state of Missouri with an award from its organization. I cannot stress enough how thankful I am, as part of my job, to meet such great Missourians.

Everett Kelly, Buffalo; Clayton Jones, Nixa; and Jimmy Young, John Dismer and Paul Schmitz, Springfield; members of the Military Order of the Purple Heart.