Letter to the Editor

Thanks, volunteers

Thursday, July 27, 2006

Dear Editor,

I was very dismayed at the letter from Arlan Klein criticizing Dennis Berry for serving on the McCook City Council and as mayor of McCook, while also serving as principal in the McCook City School system. The charge was that Mr. Berry should spend all of his time as principal for the McCook Schools.

With that kind of thinking, I wonder who is going to serve on the multitude of volunteer positions and boards that make our cities and counties a better place to live? Every church organization, school board, county board, city council, YMCA board, health boards, hospital volunteer groups, city and district boards of all kinds -- they all depend on people who have full time jobs willing to give up what free time they have to improve our corner of the world. Mr Berry is a quality employee of the school system, spending well over 40 hours a week as a principal, and it would be easy for him to say "That's it, I'm not going to give up my free time," and not offer his services to the city.  But he and all of the others give unselfishly of their free time with little or no compensation and quite often very little recognition, and they are the backbone of literally all of the great things and services happening around us.

We should all get down on our knees and thank these volunteers working for us in so many ways. But better yet, we should all say "How can I help?" and become a volunteer. I challenge everyone to ask themselves "What kind of town would this town be, if everyone in it were just like me?"

Don Blank,

McCook

Respond to this story

Posting a comment requires free registration: