Coming from a small South Dakota school, it was a different route to get to the NFL. I went from South Dakota State to the World League of American Football with the Amsterdam Admirals, and fortunately I did well enough there that the New England Patriots decided to sign me and give me a chance.

Babies are born bow-legged in South Dakota. By the age of 12, they can purchase guns. At 14, they can take their driving test. Fortunately, since the geographical area of South Dakota can accommodate both France and Germany, but has a population of only 750,000, the chances of hitting anything are pretty slim.

My first years were spent living just as my forefathers had lived - roaming the green, rolling hills of what are now the states of South Dakota and Nebraska.

I learned more about the economy from one South Dakota dust storm that I did in all my years of college.

I grew up in the Midwest. I grew up in South Dakota.

I love to drive in the Black Hills of Wyoming and South Dakota with Mount Rushmore as the central stop.

My parents were farmers' kids from South Dakota. My dad was an engineer. I wanted to be responsible and major in something pragmatic.

I go to South Dakota for ceremonies when I have the time. And when you learn what the Indian peoples have gone through to hold onto their culture and traditions... wow, it's an amazing story.

I think that there was a lot of undisclosed money that came into South Dakota, driving a message to paint me as a Washington partisan, which I don't believe that I am, but it was a message that resonated, after pounding it away for a number of weeks.

You've got two people that are well known in South Dakota, respected. We'll see how it all shakes out.

The deal we made was that if we would change our law to invite them to come to South Dakota - that's what they wanted, the invitation - if we would change our law to invite them to come to South Dakota, he would guarantee South Dakota 400 Citibank jobs.

South Dakota is a great state because of its values, not because of dependence on government.

My mother and father, with my newborn brother and me in the backseat of the 1938 Ford sedan that would be our family car for the next decade, moved to that hastily constructed Army ammunition depot called Igloo, on the alkaline and sagebrush landscape of far southwestern South Dakota. I was three years old.

I don't think the folks in the low-tax states really want to go into a fairness discussion. Residents of Connecticut and New York would love to remind them how much they pay in federal taxes to support programs for Mississippi and South Dakota.

South Dakota, like a lot of rural states, small states, there are small cities with a very big work ethic, very common sense approach. That has certainly shaped me.

I met my wife in South Dakota.

I'm sure that they will continue to look for ways to try and undermine my support, but I have every confidence that in doing this job for South Dakota, I will continue to build on my support and be able to succeed once again in November.

One thing that stands out throughout the entire year was that in South Dakota we are much more united than we are divided. Now the divided part creates news, but the united part is what moves us forward.

South Dakota was a place where you could take risks. You could break barriers and get away with it.

Incredible that liberals aren't more concerned about the monopoly of information in South Dakota.