Sen. Lydia Brasch of Bancroft made a lot of friends in the past year.

She went from one end of District 16 to the other, marched in parades, attended fairs and knocked on doors in her campaign to become state senator.

With her first legislative session about to begin on Wednesday, Brasch wants to continue the relationships she's forged with the residents of her district, which includes Thurston, Stanton, Cuming, Burt and part of Washington counties.

"It's an honor, it's a privilege, I am absolutely excited and in awe," Brasch said.

"I spent a lot of time out in the district, all five counties, going door to door," she said. "The biggest message I can have is that I'm elected to represent every single person in this district. I am their facilitator, I am their voice. My goal is to stay very visible, very active, and very responsive.

"My agenda will focus on what the constituents would like me to do, their priorities. I have a good strong feeling of them from spending over eight months daily within the district," she said. "I learned a lot, but there's a lot more to learn about our district. The one thing I do know is that the economic health of our district affects everyone from birth to our golden years."

As a farm wife who sells educational software, some of her top issues involve agriculture, water resources, education and health.

"The last 10 years I have worked closely with school superintendents across the country in various formats and meetings," Brasch said. "I've been to a lot of seminars nationally and have become very interested in education.

"I don't know what committees I will be on," she said. "In working with fellow educators, if there is legislation they would like me to take forward in the legislature I am very interested."

Brasch attended orientation activities for freshmen senators, and got up to speed on issues by visiting with other senators.

Her first session will include plenty of unknowns, she said, "but the biggest thing we do know is we're facing a challenging budget. That is the 800-pound gorilla in the room right now.

"We definitely need to reduce government spending," Brasch said. "When the economy is declining, that means that there are less sales tax receipts and there are less income tax revenues coming in. Our revenues are growing smaller, so therefore we need to look at how we can consolidate and combine anything that we can do to avoid raising taxes.

"It doesn't make sense to raise taxes when people have less money, that's not growing our economy," she continued. "We do need to grow our economy and look at our resources. We have a lot of potential for growth here in Nebraska, whether it's through technology, businesses, agriculture, helping our farmers become more productive or helping our Main Streets with their growth."

Budget cutting needs to be done with care, she added.

"We need to look at what is truly essential, what is important, what impact cuts will have," she said.

Learning the status of the budget was a big part of her preparation for the Unicameral, Brasch said. She visited with Sen. Lavon Heidemann of Elk Creek, chairman of appropriations, and Michael Calvert, fiscal and program analysis director with the Legislative Council.

"I spent two and a half hours one-on-one in (Calvert's) office," she said.

"I did have a very good informational session to increase my understanding of what our challenges are," Brasch said.

The budget picture will become clearer when people start filing their income taxes, she said.

Taking care of existing roads and infrastructure is important, Brasch said.

"That will be a primary focus because we can grow our food but we also need to get it to market somehow," she said.

Replacing water resource funding has to be a priority, too, she said.

"Health services is also something we need to pay close attention to," Brasch said. "I believe that in a tight budget like this we need to make sure that all of our children, all of our elderly and all of our veterans have priority care. Communities are really going to need to look at ways to be resourceful and to be good neighbors.

"I believe our people are very resilient and we have a lot of assets, but right now we are in a challenging time in our history," Brasch said. "My role is to be an advocate and represent the people of this district, to help them be resourceful. My ear is to the ground for ways we can help the entire state."