2-21 IAN Wally's Grandaughter

Listen to this. The stars. White as liberty. Stripes of red and white triumph in the breeze. I am proud to stand before the national flag. I repeat the words as I have heard them 1 million times. "I pledge allegiance...". I exhale pride as I say the rest. I am proud to pledge allegiance to the flag because it represents the United States of America. Those words come from little Autumn Kleffner, a 10-year-old who is in the 5th grade, and is the granddaughter of my colleague Wally Butler of the Idaho farm bureau. "Wally it sounds like you had a grandchild who is something of a prodigy and here we are all worrying that the world is gone to hell in a handbasket. You have to realize you are talking to a pretty proud grandpa. She is a really gifted kid, of course what caught yours and my attention was a little essay that she wrote about the Pledge of Allegiance and it kind of gives one hope in the future of our country, if we have a few kids that realize what our country is and it seems that she does. Of course you know that I report on agriculture and she is an agriculture kid by virtue of the fact that she has the grandma and grandpa that she has. Absolutely. She loves to come out here and of course she goes shopping with her grandma and with grandpa it's, it's ahhh ( sound of a dog barking in the background) its dogs. You heard my phone ringing, huh? ( laughter).