Today, I pay tribute to an outstanding Iowan, who celebrated her 65th birthday February 9th.
An astronaut and patriotic American, Peggy Whitson has never stopped reaching for the stars.
Her hometown is located in Ringgold County.
The Beaconsfield Community Building is also the birthplace of another Iowa icon – the Hy-Vee supermarket, famous in about seven Midwestern states.
Peggy Whitson spent 675 days in space – more than any American astronaut or woman in the world.
This year, she’s heading right back to space for a historic fifth space mission.
By all accounts, she’s driven to help humanity.
We don’t often think of space travel as helping humanity, but she does it, from tracking cancer cell growth to developing therapies that save and extend the quality of life here on earth.
So, there’s something very heavenly, that has some earthly good.
This United States Senator is proud to wish my fellow Iowan, Peggy, “Happy Birthday.”
Peggy, may you continue to defy gravity and achieve stellar, good things for many years to come.
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