I hope you all had a wonderful Easter! We had a great day with beautiful weather and lots of family time. The Easter district work period concluded this week and I had some great visits around our state. I’ve now had the opportunity to visit every county in the new part of the district and it’s been so nice getting to meet many new Missourians. Here are just a few highlights from my travels: 

One of my first stops was to the new Mizzou Health Urgent Care facility and medical building in Boonville. I was honored to attend the ribbon cutting for this newly opened medical facility that will provide much needed medical care for Boonville and the surrounding parts of Cooper County. This area has been without an urgent care facility since Pinnacle Regional Hospital closed right before the pandemic in February 2020. One of my biggest priorities as the Representative of the Third District is ensuring constituents have access to quality healthcare, especially in our more rural areas. Mizzou Urgent Care in Boonville provides convenient, affordable care for Missourians three months of age and older seven days a week. This facility is filling a much-needed health care gap and I’m very glad to see it open its doors to make the Boonville community a safer place. For more information on services provided by this new facility and hours of operation, please visit https://www.muhealth.org/locations/mizzou-urgent-care-boonville.  

Also in Cooper County, I met with some local bankers to discuss the Silicon Valley and Signature Bank failures and the implications for our state and national financial systems. As I said in my column about this a couple of weeks ago, those two banks failed for a myriad of reasons, the first being their risky business models - one investing in a weakening tech industry and the other with deep ties to crypto currencies. Because we live in the age of social media, Twitter portrayed these bank failures as a disaster for every person in America. But the reality of the situation is that the American banking sector is strong, and our state’s banks are sound. That’s not to discount the major lapse in oversight and lack of action from the regulators - something that my colleagues and I on the House Financial Services Committee are keeping close tabs on in Congress. But we can remain confident that the banks, particularly the banks here in Missouri, are meeting the needs of families and small businesses. 

And I had a great afternoon in Warrenton at the Tribute to Veterans Memorial with some Missouri veterans. This beautiful memorial is dedicated to the Warren County servicemembers who made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation so we could all live in freedom. Erected in November of 2018, this memorial made of Missouri granite displays the names of heroes so they will never be forgotten and can be honored by generations of Missourians for years to come. Having the opportunity to visit this special place with Missouri veterans who could have served alongside some of the fallen servicemembers was very moving, and a memory I won’t soon forget. 

It's been great to be back in Missouri for another productive district work period (with some incredible weather!) and to see many of you. I look forward to meeting many more of you during the next work period.