Letters to the Editor for May 14, 2009

Hope club gives students’ support

To the editor:

This is a direct response to the recent “Opposed to new club at high school” letter. I am saddened to see such a message of intolerance being promoted in our community. Being lesbian or gay is not a crime and I do not think these impressionable young teenagers should be ashamed or stripped of a club where they seek to be accepted and understood by their peers.

I’m hopeful that this new club will bring support, camaraderie, and help to promote safe and healthy lifestyle choices for these students.

I can’t help but think if you or I had a child in this situation, how much they might need the support this club could offer them.

For more information on this subject, I encourage you to visit PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) at www.pflag.org.            

Heather Mack

Baker City

Anesthetist will be missed

To the editor:

I wish to recognize and commend Dave Loper, CRNA, for the many years of outstanding anesthesia care he provided to this community. I had the privilege of working with Dave and appreciated his professionalism and medical expertise.

On a personal level, I was grateful for the care he provided to members of my family when they required surgery. He was extremely qualified and talented and will be greatly missed.           

David Richards

Baker City

What’s your vision of city’s future?

To the editor:

A special thank you to my focus group participants. The city asked me to organize a focus group to participate in a Community Visioning process as a part of the bigger Periodic Review. The last thing any of us need is to go to another meeting, but I want to thank Ron and Sheralee Bell from Powder River Electric, Kent Bailey from Guyer and Associates, and Renee Estes from A Therapeutic Massage for participating in our group last Monday night.

They spent just over an hour and half talking about what their vision of the future of Baker City looks like. The City is collecting data from many of these focus groups and will tabulate the answers to better understand what the people in Baker City want our city to look like 20 or more years from now. What a great opportunity for me as the Chamber Director to learn more about three very valuable members of the Chamber of Commerce and their viewpoints on issues that affect economic commerce in our community.

If you are interested in getting involved in future focus groups like this, please call me at the Chamber and let me know so I can get you on my next call list — 523-5855.            

Debra Bainter

Executive Director

Baker County Chamber of Commerce

Baker City

Everyone should have same rights

To the editor:

Linda Opperman’s letter — “Opposed to new club at high school” — asked how many will stand for truth and righteousness in opposition to a club for gay/lesbian high school students. Truth and righteousness, to my mind, is giving everyone the same rights and privileges regardless of their sexual orientation, which after all is something we have no more control over than our race or gender.            

Mary Sue Rightmire

Baker City

A great response to Mayce’s day

To the editor:

For Mayce Collard: I remember your friends writing good-bye messages to you following your accident. I hope you will not mind if I write a message of my own. Of course, this is just a letter to the editor to recognize May Day is Mayce Day, a day dedicated to the J. Mayce Memorial Scholarship, where the Baker High School Learning Center Bulldog Blender sells drinks to raise money and awareness (it was a success, over $1,200!)

But this is also for you, Mayce, gone at 16, yet ineradicable because of the photograph of your bright witty face, now sadly familiar to most of us in Baker City. The loving friends and family you leave behind recognize all too well the helplessness before us. If we are honest we will admit that we will never really understand the “whys” of the accident that took you from us. I, who have lived two times your years, have rarely understood the occurrences in the world that we all pretend to give order to. Also, I am not one to believe that life is revealed in its “wake-up” calls but rather in repose, when people go about the quieter moments of who they are. Your death is a reminder to look where the noise is not.

One can tell far more interesting things about you when you were writing poems, performing in plays, or just dreaming without a sound, than when your accident made you more “known” in our community. Of course, your abbreviated life makes one especially aware of how much of our lives are unknowable and untidy but most importantly to embrace it.

We know in their private hours, your parents imagine you as a Class of 2009 graduate, a college student, an actress in the movies perhaps. We at BHS Learning Center will remember your kindness and ability to overlook “differences” to see the person inside. At such a young age this truly made you stand out. We are grateful we got the chance to know you while you were here.

Thank you, Baker City, for an awesome response to the 2nd May Day is Mayce Day — Drink Pink!           

Amy Powell

Baker City