People

Interviewed by Monty Siekerman
Mike Gossman knows farming, so the Ada Icon asked him about this year’s crop since farming is, by far, the biggest industry in the county.

Gossman said the bean and corn crops are “really good” this year because the weather has been almost perfect for growing with no flooding rains in the spring, intermittent rains throughout the summer and fall, and lots of hot weather.

In the spring, the bean and corn seeds emerged “the best I’ve ever seen,” he said.  Mike has been farming since his sophomore year in high school and just turned 60, so he has seen a lot of springs and knows a year that has good germination.

FROM BLUFFTON ICON - During her inaugural address as Bluffton University’s 10th president, Dr. Jane Wood pondered a fact that many people in Yoder Recital Hall likely didn’t realize.

This year’s incoming freshmen, the class of 2022, were born in the year 2000. They have lived in a century and a world that has never known life without the internet or Google.

“So the question before us, in many ways, becomes, what does it mean to have a university education when students can hold in their hands a smartphone, which can access more information and produce more facts than our counterparts in the Middle Ages could have ever imagined?” asked Dr. Wood.