Gov. Butch Otter has begun his State of the State message, joking first, “For those who wouldn’t shake my hand as I was coming down the aisle, I am coming down with something, I don’t know what it is.” But Otter said he had doused his hands with hand-sanitizer.

He asked for prayers for House Minority Leader John Rusche, whose wife is undergoing cancer treatment. And Otter shared some family news of his own: A new grandchild is on the way, and his mother is approaching her 101^st birthday. “Our families inspire us to keep working hard to provide them with a legacy of lifelong learning, an appreciation for honest effort, and abiding compassion for those less fortunate,” the governor said.