ViaMei

wherever we traveled. I was honored to have traveled as part of the Governor’s mission and blessed to have been surrounded by great representatives of the City of Hays.
　　Although we visited several areas of the country, it was with our Sister City, Xinzheng, in the Henan Province, that we signed a Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU). The collaborative drafting of the document featured agreement between the two cities in continuing to promote the Sister Cities Program, the designation of October as Sister Cities Month, the encouragement of entrepreneurs and business owners in becoming active in the program, the supporting of funding to perennially carry out the goals of the memorandum, and the conducting of a video conference between the two cities. The conference was held last December, not long after our return from China.
　　The document also included the language “The aforementioned parties affix their names, first in friendship, then in a commitment to further promoting culture, education, communication, tourism, and economic interaction, with full intent that Xinzheng, Henan, China, and Hays, Kansas, United States of America, continue to grow together.
　　The MOU also holds that during the Sister Cities Month of October, we enhance our efforts to bring about an awareness in our communities of each other’s culture and customs via the media and school programs.
　　I feel that the ‘first in friendship’ aspect of the Memorandum of Understanding is the most important, and that all else will fall into place accordingly. In regard to the mission, I am optimistic that what we’ve accomplished as a community will not only benefit us, but will have positive ramifications regionally as well as across the great state of Kansas. We hope that the goodwill encounters of the last visit result in a methodology that would lay the foundation for future visits. We attribute our year-to-date accomplishments in large part to the cornerstone laid by Forth Hays State University several years ago.