brigham young in vision when he came into the valley, but we as utah are proud and pleased tons -- as utahns are proud and pleased to hold this significant event. it has been about 64 years since we had this great opportunity. things have changed a bit. for example, alaska and hawaii were not states when we last posted. we are pleased to welcome them to the union. [laughter] opportunity to host them, and they will be participating, to. i will may be mentioned just the comment that it is a great opportunity for us to host the governor's. i am a big believer in the importance of the state's and governors getting together to discuss issues of importance, not only for their states, but collectively for the nation. it has been a proud tradition of governors to get together in a very bipartisan way and talk about issues of the day and learn from each other the best practices, find out what is going on in other parts of the country, try to adopt some of the best practices and learned that some of the challenges and see if we can help each other to overcome the challenges we face as states. the nati