Thank you also Governor Sebelius for having the confidence in me to allow me this opportunity to serve in statewide office. Thank you also for allowing me to continue as a liason between your administration and the City of Greensburg and Kiowa County for our rebuilding efforts.

I also want to recognize two special guests, the President of the Greensburg City Council, Gary Goodheart, and our Mayor, Bob Dixson, who have traveled the 250 miles from Greensburg to celebrate with us here today.

A special note: those of us from Greensburg know that we can not say thank you often enough. The term neighbor is defined in the Bible when, after telling the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus asked the young lawyer, "who was this man's neighbor?" The answer, of course, was "the one who showed him mercy." Those of us in Greensburg are proud to say that when a community in Kansas is in trouble the Governor, the Adjutant General, and 2.5 million other Kansans have been and will be your neighbors.

Leaving the House of Representatives is not easy for me. To serve here was an honor. To be in leadership here was an even greater honor. Legislatures never fare well in opinion polls. But I know that the quality of the people who fill these seats and the quality of the process put into action here are second to none. Whether you look at our progress over time or compare us to other nations, the evidence of history would show that we have done well here in the Peoples' House.

Moving into the Treasurer's Office I have become excited. I have learned that we have an excellent staff.

Many of the duties of the Treasurer may not be flashy but they are important and serious. The Treasurer performs duties in trust for the People of Kansas. Duties such as monitoring receipts, disbursements, and fund balances all point to a greater duty to be the watchdog for the financial integrity of the State of Kansas. Surely that is why the Treasurer's Office has its own seal, one with a watchdog planted firmly in front of the doors of a vault.

The Treasurer also holds in trust the unclaimed property of others and works to return this property to the rightful owners-a sign of the value we place on the right to ownership of private property in our capitalist free market system.

The Treasurer also encourages thrift, saving, and investment in education through the education savings program-a sign of the value we place on hard work and education as the primary means of opportunity by which we advance ourselves and our families. My hope is that we can expand the perception of the education savings program to have it understood as an avenue to technical education as well as college-as a means to many of the best career opportunities in our 21st century economy.

Perhaps most important are the leadership opportunities available to the Treasurer to partner with the Governor, the Legislature, city and county leaders, business leaders, as well as leaders from the nonprofit service organizations and faith based organizations to help people find long term opportunities to improve their families and communities. The Kansas Investment in Developing Scholars Program in which we match education savings investments for some of our poorest working families is an example of where we create opportunity by encouraging hard work and investment.

I look forward to the challenges of being State Treasurer in this new time. We will seek to fulfill the trust given to us by the people of Kansas. We will work with others to find new ways to grow businesses and jobs.

I start this job having learned an important lesson in the last year and a half. I was raised in a pull yourself up by your own boot straps culture. But one day my house was gone and I stood with the Governor in the school at Haviland and looked at an entire gymnasium full of my neighbors whose homes and community were gone. And we had to admit to ourselves and others that we needed help. From that lesson I gained a much greater appreciation of compassion and faith.

Our message to the people of Kansas in these challenging times is this: if we stand together as neighbors, keep our faith in God, and make our decisions with compassion, then we can say with the Apostle Paul that while we may be hard pressed we will not be crushed, we may be perplexed but we will not be in despair, we may be struck down but we are not destroyed, and we are moving to the stars through difficulties.

Thank you again.