koch got out of bed and dressed and went down to the saloon.opped a coin in a slot machine and it hit. as his winnings floated out painted women were drawn to the forest supervisor, quote, one big blonde in a very low cut dress had her arm tightly around my neck, koch wrote. he ordered up drinks for the house on him, of course, and then he gathered his coins, ducked under the arm of the blonde with the free flowing cleavage and made a retreat for his bunk. welcome, sir to the low, low national forest. koch hired crews of seasonal rangers to go with his full-time assistants they strung telephone wire that first year, they built trails and rescued hunters and hikers. in the winter they snowshoe forest on little sugar, hard tack they felled trees for firewood and tried to stay warm wrapped in warm blankets years before anybody had a sleeping bag. koch learned how to read the sky and the human heart as well. now, his colleague just over the ridge in idaho had a bigger problem. for inside his national forest, there were three towns animated by debat

and on senator baucus' staff, liz fowler, bill douster, liz sullivan, kathy koch, yevette corchcorch, and shawn bitner and shawn kessler which is the pronunciation. again, we could give separate remarks about each of these individuals and their contribution. again n my office, like others, i've been blessed with wonderful people. jim fenton is my legislative directer and done a terrific job. tomaro carroll, who is sitting on the floor with me this evening. i know we're not supposed to recognize people other than members, along with jeremy sharpe have just done a wonderful, wonderful job. and i know all of my colleagues have gotten to know both of them because of their work. monica -- monica fight, lia lopez, danielle balava have made wonderful contributions as well. special thanks to billing baird present throughout the entire "help" committee and has gone way beyond. they never get the kind of recognition they deserve. they do a tremendous job in drafting the actual legislation once these ideas become -- are developed, then it requires legislative language to be written. from the adm

senator baucus' staff, liz fowler and russ sullivan and john sullivan, scott mulhauser, kathy koch, yvvette touch. &oon our "help" committee, michael meyers, our great staff director who for more than a decade has led this staff and for almost 20 years has worked for senator kennedy. as we all know, we're all sorry that senator kennedy could not be here for this, but i can say honestly that michael meyers carried on the torch as his staff director. did a magnificent job of getting us through this. and david bowen. david bowen. if there's one person that knows more about what this -- is in this bill than anyone else, it's david bowen. i can honestly say i've never asked him about something in this bill that he didn't know where it was and what it did. and he has been at every meeting, i don't care how early in the morning, how late at night. and i know he's been apart from his family and his children and i -- i just wish david the best in terms of being with his family tomorrow and over christmas. but david bowen has just done such a magnificent job of guiding and directing this bill and mak