Susan Brooks is a hard-working public servant who has spent her career fighting for Hoosiers. In Congress, she was the first woman from Indiana to chair a committee, and has become one of the most effective lawmakers in Washington: her dedicated work on behalf of her constituents and our state will be missed.

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with this idea of opening a restaurant back in Indiana on a little pond. The guests would order their dinner and then take a little boat out with a colored flag on the front of it. When the matching color of the flag on their boat went up on a flag pole, their dinner was ready!

I didn't realize how much of a Hoosier or a Midwesterner I was until I moved to New York. It's weird - growing up in Indiana, I wanted to get out, and now I completely romanticize Indiana. It just seems like there's a greater focus on family back there, which I suppose is something that kind of stayed with me.

I want to say to you Indiana people that I owe you a big, big debt of gratitude because nowhere in the world is a sporting group followed more than this state follows basketball. And I just want to thank you for the opportunity that I had to coach in this state - it will always be something that I will cherish.

I live in Indiana and teach at Purdue University, a wonderful school with some of the brightest students I have ever had the privilege of working with. My colleagues are powerful and intelligent and kind. The cost of living is low, the prairie is wide, and on clear nights, I can see all the stars in the sky above.

As a kid, I always wanted to be like Spielberg and to make wonderful movies. Even when I was making 'Indiana Jones,' I was looking at how he would come up with these amazing shots and how he would choreograph the blocking and all that. So I knew from early on I would go to film school and try to work behind the camera.

We want to make it clear that Indiana's open for business. We want to make it clear that Hoosier hospitality is not a slogan, it's our way of life. It's the reason why people come here from around the world and they come back again and again. Because Hoosiers are the kindest, most generous, most decent people in the world.

I was living in a small town in Indiana working as a telemarketer and a vacuum salesman. I was really bad: the vacuums seemed to always be falling apart. Every time I did a demonstration, I'd say, 'This is the material the astronauts used on Apollo 13.' And no sooner had that come out of my mouth, something would malfunction.

On the first 'Indiana Jones' movie, I tore an ACL in one of my knees - can't remember which knee. The scene in which I was fighting the big German mechanic on an airplane called a flying wing, I was run over by the landing gear and injured my knee, but I can't remember which one it was. Lots of bumps and injuries along the way.

The most exciting moment as an archaeologist happened when I was looking at the great archaeology site of Tannis, which of course we all know from 'Indiana Jones.' We got satellite imagery of the city of Tannis, we processed it, and literally from thousands of miles away from my lab in Alabama, we were able to map the entire city.

If you look in a dictionary, the word 'Indianan' may appear. But the first task, the litmus test as to whether or not someone really is from Indiana or has spent any kind of considerable time in Indiana, is whether or not they use the word 'Indianan,' because no one in Indiana ever uses that term. We refer to ourselves as Hoosiers.

And this year, when we end the cruel, defeatist practice of passing children who cannot read into fourth grade, and when our most diligent students begin to graduate from high school in 11 years, and get a head start on college costs with the dollars they earned through their hard work, others will take notice of Indiana yet again.

I think every movie I've made after 'Indiana Jones,' I've tried to make every single movie as if it was made by a different director, because I'm very conscious of not wanting to impose a consistent style on subject matter that is not necessarily suited to that style. So I try to re-invent my own eye every time I tackle a new subject.

There are a lot of dream roles that I couldn't do, like James Bond and Indiana Jones; I'd never get a look in there, but actually, Doctor Who is probably the only one that I could because he's quite quirky, and the fact that he regenerates he can actually be anyone. So one day, who knows, I might have a chance. I'd love to play that part.

If you compare Everest photographs in 1953 with its current state, things are melting. I imagine if I were a golfer in Indiana, I'd be hard-pressed to believe in climate change because nothing's going on there. But when you're up in the mountains and seeing the glaciers melt away, it's an obvious physical manifestation of a warming planet.

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