This week’s event highlight was the Lincoln County/Fayetteville Hamburger Day on the Hill. The Lincoln County Livestock Association cooked 1,200 burgers that were provided by Pilaroc Farms’ Jennie Schutte and Walt Patrick. The Governor stopped by and visited with Rujena Dotson and all the guys cooking the burgers on the large grill parked between the Capitol and the Cordell Hull Building.

After working up an appetite smelling the great smoke all morning, the entire Legislature ate the burgers and fixins served by the 4-H’ers and several others from Lincoln County. It was a huge success and everyone up here thanks all the Lincoln County folks that helped put this one on. I especially want to thank Carolyn Denton with the FLC Chamber, Lincoln County Mayor Bill Newman, and Fayetteville City Mayor Michael Whisenant. We also got to meet the new Fayetteville City Manager- Kevin Owen. They all made this event special!

While they were here for Hamburger Day, Dan Owen and several 4-H students stopped by the office and we had a great discussion about their programs. Dan is doing a great job at the Ag Extension office as the 4-H director and also heading up the UT Extension office.

Dr. Laura Monks, TCAT Shelbyville President, and 2 others stopped by for a visit and discussed the progress of the new Shelbyville TCAT with me. They are planning a couple of opening events soon- maybe the 1st in mid-April. Can’t wait for the ground to be broken for this first class new college in Bedford County.

We got a report this week from the Comptroller’s office about reporting fraud, waste, or abuse in government. It states: If a citizen suspects or has knowledge that an agency receiving taxpayer funds is engaging in an activity that is considered to be illegal, improper, or wasteful, the citizen should make a report to the Comptroller’s Fraud, Waste, and Abuse Hotline at 1-800-232-5454 or http://comptroller.tn.gov/hotline. We have a streak of clean audits for our counties and I know everyone wants to make sure we keep it up.

One Wednesday of this week, 1st Lady Maria Lee hosted the spouses of the legislators at a reception and lunch at the Governor’s house. My wife, Mary, and about 50 spouses attended the function. Mary said it was a great event with good food, fun, and they even packed backpacks for underprivileged children.

The Governor’s Budget Amendment came out this week and it has some new items in it that are worth noting. There is an increase of $78 million proposed for airport maintenance and improvements. Also, there are proposals to make capital improvements to our many universities and colleges. This should help to keep our buildings and other many properties in good shape for future generations.

Last week, I told you about our Ag Day on the Hill. It was a huge success highlighting our biggest industry in the state- Agriculture. I want to give you a little more information about our star of Ag Day — the World Grand Champion Walking Horse! Since 1935, there have been 535,922 walking horses registered, with 246,276 that are alive today. There are over 34,000 show horses with an average age of 19 years old. The oldest horse competing is 30 years old and the average age of a competition horse is 8 years old. An amazing animal! It is the second fastest growing breed and the fifth largest equine breed in the nation! Social media was filled with pictures last week of people excited to be standing with the 2021 World Grand Champion Justified Honors and I was proud to see this breed get the recognition it deserves.

I was also glad to see the news this week that our local economy is continuing to come back strong after the pandemic. The Tennessee of Labor announced that every one of our state’s 95 counties saw lower unemployment during the second month of 2022. The highlight of the report was our very own Moore County. Moore County had Tennessee’s lowest unemployment rate at 1.8%. The nationwide rate also dropped. It is currently down to 3.8% from 6.2% this time last year.

The Legislature passed a bill this week increasing the number of hours kids can remain in a child-care drop-in center from 7 hours per day to 9 hours. HB 2559 also allows the maximum time a child can be in a drop-in center from a max of 14 hours per week to a max of 18 hours per week. This will be a huge help to busy parents who work irregular schedules and don’t have enough time to work a full shift and get their child safely to and from child care.

After working on it for the last 2 years, we recently passed the Tennessee Food Freedom Act. HB 813 removes unnecessary and anti-competitive regulations on homemade food items as long as they are not potentially hazardous. Our constituents should have the right to sell their homemade foods safely to their friends and neighbors without burdensome government interference. The bill requires homemade food items to have a label with the name, home address, and telephone number of the producer along with the ingredients in descending order of predominance. This removes a lot of prior license requirements and inspections by the state and should make it easier for people to share their talents and hobbies.