Lincoln Day Event comes to Caribou County
Representative Mike Veile.
Caribou County officials, candidates, and voters met at the event center on Saturday morning for a Lincoln Day breakfast and gathering.
In attendance were State Controller Brandon Woolf, Senator Mark Harris, Representative Mike Veile, candidate Chad Christensen, county commissioners Bryce Somsen and Mark Mathews, County Clerk Jill Stoor, and former State Senator Steven Thayne, as well as a number of other county officials. Representatives from the offices of James Risch, Mike Crapo, and Mike Simpson were also on site.
Young Republican Alana Burns, with Steven Thayne and Trent Clark.
During the morning, the crowd was treated to comments by many of the above, who spoke about their commitment to southeast Idaho values and the things they would like to accomplish in the future.
Mike Veile, who was appointed by the governor to serve as D35 Representative after Kevin Andrus accepted a position with the Trump administration, spoke was one of the speaker who has announced his candidacy for this year, and will be on the ballot in November.
Many of the other speakers had been through a number of campaigns in their careers, including Steven Thayne, Brandon Woolf, and the other Caribou County officials. Chad Christensen has served in the legislature previously as well, but this cycle announced his candidacy for the D35 seat.
There is not enough space here to recount what the candidates talked about, but Representative Veile caught the shared mood, when he said “I have loved living in Soda Springs. Working at the plant over the years, they want you to move to other places at times,” he said, leading into a discussion of how while working on a project in Iowa, he had never once looked out the window and seen a bull elk. “So I stayed in Idaho,” he laughed. “And I love it here. This is where I belong. I think the success of our country really started with a good education system. That, mixed with our freedoms, really made us strong. Education is still the cornerstone of our society.”
State Controller Brandon Woolf and County Clerk Jill Stoor.
The pro-Idaho sentiment was universal to the candidates who spoke throughout the morning, as was the staking out of a specific major topic that spoke to them. As the campaign season begins to pick up, we will take a look at what the candidates are looking forward to speaking to voters at large about.
