Not much can compete with this year as the best in Clint Stennett's life.
He's been told his brain cancer has not spread and is even inactive.
Which means 53-year-old state Sen. Stennett can plan a return to the Idaho upper house as minority leader of Democrats and resume duties he temporarily relinquished a year and half ago when the cancer was diagnosed.
And that good news is just in time for Hailey's Fourth of July parade where Stennett and his wife, Michelle, will appear as grand marshals in the largest public venue since he was stricken. What a rousing greeting the holiday crowds will give him.
With more than 18 years in the state House and Senate, Stennett's return to the Capitol chambers is a testament to dogged determination and optimism that he could conquer his illness and resume public service.
Despite the contentious differences between Stennett and his political opponents in the state Senate, Stennett undoubtedly will be welcomed back with robust good wishes and raucous greetings by Republicans who can appreciate the terrible ordeal Stennett has endured in radiation and chemotherapy treatments and who admire his unshakable belief that he would win. Stennett was so optimistic, he considered his Senate fill-in, former Sun Valley Mayor Jon Thorson, just that.
Toughened by challenges of surviving cancer, Stennett will resume his lawmaking role perhaps more determined and with a more acute perspective of Idahoans' needs than others who have not experienced the uncertain vagaries of cancer.
