This past Saturday, the Freeborn County Republican Party elected a new chairman to lead the county party for the next two-year period. I am writing to say thank you to the community for allowing me to serve the past two years and tolerating my Point of View articles in this paper. 

Thank you to the voters who attended the Republican Caucus in 2016 and helped to guide our election process. 

Thank you to the delegates and alternates who were elected at the caucus, and then attended our county conventions, congressional conventions and state conventions. You help elect leadership and candidates, and you provided input that helped guide the 2016 strategies.

Thank you to Rep. Peggy Bennett, Sen. Dan Sparks, Gary Schindler and Gene Dornink on running issue-based campaigns in the 27 Senate and 27A House races.

Thank you to the volunteers and donors who help lead the county party. 

Thank you to the Albert Lea Tribune staff. You are always extremely professional, extremely fair and extremely open to dialogue. We are blessed to have that in a local paper.

I look forward to helping candidates who have a positive and conservative message of moving Albert Lea forward in the years to come. 

Brian Hensley

Albert Lea