A great Great Northwest Day

Dan Hegeman

This past week, I was proud to join the legislators from our region in hosting the 15th Annual Great Northwest Day, a long-standing event in which local officials, business owners, and community leaders from northwest Missouri descend on the Capitol.

It was great to see so many folks from the district make the long trek to Jefferson City. This event has truly become one of the premier events of the session and my colleagues look forward to it every year.

Having hundreds of local officials, business owners and community leaders from northwest Missouri converge on the Capitol in one day is a unique event — no other group of legislators hosts an event on this scale.

Great Northwest Day allows people from throughout our area to present, in a unified voice, the topics that most concern them, not only to our regional legislators, but to legislators and government officials from throughout the state.

The sheer number of guests makes a huge impact on the legislative body and it sends a strong message to government officials who come from other parts of the state: that we are willing to work together to accomplish our goals and we have successes and challenges just like every other part of the state.

It’s wonderful to see so many of our friends and neighbors come to the Capitol with a well spelled-out agenda concerning their priorities and proposals. I really appreciate the folks who work to put this event together and who descended on Jefferson City for the day. Their work ensures that our area is recognized for the contributions it makes to the state.

I’m grateful that over the last 15 years, this event has grown and evolved into such an important day during session.

It helps my colleagues understand that we cannot have policy tunnel vision and that we must take time to understand the both the successes and challenges that different areas of the state face as we look to craft the public policy of our state.