The U.S. Department of Agriculture inducted the former senator from Kansas, the bear and scientists George Washington Carver and Hugh Hammond Bennett into its new Hall of Heroes. The waddling Smokey stole the show, but Dole seemed to expect no less from the guardian of the nation's forests. That's probably why I lost. One recent survey found that 98 percent of Americans over age 10 could identify Smokey by his picture, compared with 27 percent for Dole, said Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman. Dole, who has two Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, said being in the Hall of Heroes was also a valued honor.
Agriculture is never partisan.
There is very little politics in agriculture, so I'm proud to be here. Carver, a southwest Missouri native born into slavery in 1861, was a teacher and scientist who developed industrial chemical products from organic materials. Bennett crusaded for soil conservation at the Department of Agriculture in the wake of the Dust Bowl of the middle 1930s. Smokey Bear was created as a cartoon character for the U.S. Forest Service in 1944.