We were very honored that Senator Johnson recognized our 25th Annual Meeting & Celebration with an official Congressional Record on November 13, 2012. It was also a great addition to our business meeting on Saturday, November 11 to have a representative from Senator Johnson’s office to join us and read the record aloud to our members. The copy of the official statement is reprinted below:
Mr. JOHNSON of South Dakota. Mr. President, today I wish to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Dakota Rural Action. I am proud to honor the members and stakeholders involved in Dakota Rural Action and extend my congratulations to them on this memorable occasion.
Dakota Rural Action is a local, grassroots organization that exhibits leadership through community organizing. They strive to give South Dakotans a strong voice by working with local, State, and Federal Government officials on issues and decisions involving family agriculture, conservation, and overall quality of life. The members of DRA were also early vocal advocates of my Country-of-Origin Labeling, COOL, law, which has enabled consumers to access information about where their food is coming from and enabled producers to get a better price for their products.
The Dakota Rural Action organization started in 1985 as a steering committee called the South Dakota Rural Organizing Project. The committee was tasked with finding substantive and effective ways to organize citizens on a grassroots level, largely due to the farm crisis of the late 1980s. When the need for a more sustained, long-term organization became evident, Dakota Rural Action was formally created. The founding members wanted to create a nonprofit, nonpartisan, community-driven organization that focused on the causes and larger issues affecting rural America, rather than just the effects of the farm crisis. On January 10, 1987, Dakota Rural Action held its first meeting in Brookings, SD, to adopt bylaws and an organizational structure, set membership dues, and to establish an issue platform.
Today, Dakota Rural Action remains a vibrant, statewide network of six chapters. They celebrated their 25th anniversary at their annual meeting in Brookings, SD on November 9 and 10, 2012. It is a great privilege for me to recognize Dakota Rural Action’s 25 years of service to South Dakotans, as well as their continuing commitment to the issues and causes that affect South Dakota and rural areas across the Nation.
Source: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r112:S13NO2-0021:/