MILLENNIUM ESSAY CONTEST WINNERS; LOOKING BACK: A PROGRESSIVE CENTURY

We don't have time to look back over the last 1,000 years. That would take too long, so let's take a look at the last 100 years.

The first automobile, an Oldsmobile, rolled off an assembly line in 1902. In 1903 the Wright brothers flew their airplane at Kitty Hawk, and 66 years later on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped off a lunar module and said: "That's one small step for man and a giant leap for mankind."

In 1917, we were plunged into World War I when the United States declared war on Germany on April 6. In 1929 the stock market crashed and we entered a period called the Depression. Men stood in line to get bread and there were few jobs.

On Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and again we were at war.

On Nov. 22, 1963, a bullet slammed into the head of then-President John F. Kennedy, and a nation mourned. And on Aug. 8 a few years later Richard M. Nixon resigned the presidency in disgrace.

Then came Vietnam, a war that tore a nation into pieces.

Our leaders were killed, along with John Kennedy, his brother Bobby and Martin Luther King.

But through this all we came. And when a president resigned our nation went forward and the system of government worked. Unlike other nations were assassinations and coups bring disaster, we went on.

And in all of this we had our moments of greatness. We saw the invention of the motion picture industry and television. In the year of my birth two of the greatest movies of all time were made: "Gone With the Wind" and "The Wizard of Oz." On television we laughed and cried with "M*A*S*H" and "Little House on the Prairie." We saw the development of the toaster, the microwave oven, cellular phones, the computer.

We have been lucky, and we have been blessed. We have certainly had our tragedies and our scoundrels, but we had Jim Thorpe and Mark McGwire. Mohammad Ali and Chuck Yeager. We put the man on the moon, we flew the first airplane faster than the speed of sound. It was one of ours who invented the assembly line.

In Berlin in 1962 President John Kennedy said: "Our nation is not perfect, but we never had to build a wall around it to keep our people in." And it is hard to believe that wall came down.

For the past few months we have been bombarded by stories of Y2K. The soothsayers predict a collapse of banking, government and our computers will crash on Jan. 1, 2000. I think not. God has been with our country for all these years, and on Jan. 1, 2000, he will still be in business. For him there is no time, just a sea of eternity in which we all float.

In another 100 years some other writer will pen a tome about the 100 years yet to come, and the stories he will tell we can not imagine. But we will prevail. We will discover and invent, and climb more mountains and achieve more dreams. This not just the end of a millennium, it is the beginning of a new day, a new possibility, a new tomorrow, and a new opportunity to fulfill those dreams.

May God in his mercy continue to bless America!