So, the Stanford band ridiculed and made fun of Iowa at the Rose Bowl half-time. Perhaps the youngsters should read their school’s history and the boost it got from their famous Iowa graduate Herbert Hoover. When Hoover left the White House he went to live on campus and to become one of its important benefactors. There is a Hoover School of Business at Stanford and other international schools on that campus that bear his name.

Hoover loved his wife Lou, baseball, fishing and work. When he vacationed on the Florida Keys, he had four desks installed in his living quarters, one for each of the four books he was writing simultaneously. “He never lost his appetite for the strenuous life,” Richard Norton Smith wrote in “An Uncommon Man.”

The spirit of Herbert Hoover may be my inspiration for the New Year. Hoover got things done. He who saved more people from starvation than Stalin and Hitler could murder.

“You have dreams. You have to rise to your dreams,” he proclaimed and modeled.

Hoover “fought hard for collective bargaining, the minimum wage, an end to child labor, and guaranteed equality of pay for working women.” (page 31)

When in his 90s, the doctors were speaking of his impending death. He said to his worried son, “I am going to pull through. I still have a great deal of work to do.” According to biographer Smith, “For young Hoover, who had already alerted the Kennedy White House to prepare for his father’s funeral, the next morning brought startling confirmation of the old man’s resolve. At 7:30 A.M. the patient sat up in bed, called for his pipe and announced, ‘We’re back in business.’”

2016—there’s work to be done.

“…David…served his generation according to the will of God…(Acts 13:36 NLT).

Nothing more important than to know your calling and being faithful to your assignment.

©2016 D. Dean Benton—writer & wonderer
Bentonministries.com

Blog: journeybend.wordpress.com
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