Commending our youth
Dear Editor,
I was privileged to attend some of the basketball games the last two weeks — the “Shootout” in the Meeker High School for girls and boys. It was a unanimously exhilarating experience.
Not a single final score comes to mind, but these things do: students holding the entrance and exit doors for others, “excuse me” when bumped in the crowded halls or getting up and down the auditorium seats. Seeing the crowds stand in patriotic attention with hands over their hearts for the presenting of the flags and singing of the national anthem by two of the Meeker girl participants. In the high energy of competition when a competitor was knocked or stumbled and fell, the closest player to the fallen, whether teammate or competitor would reach out a hand to help them up. I never saw an athlete argue with an official and hundreds of more off-the-court examples.
Here is the point: those actions are a learned response. Those participants have chosen not to compromise our traditional basic value system in spite of what they see and hear modeled all around them and especially through technology. I seriously want to commend the parents of students who also are choosing to instruct and model the source of these truths and values in their families.
Thanks to the community organizations, sponsors, churches, and to the school administration, teachers, staff, coaches, and athletic director for a remarkable job well done. And all of that supported by the prodigious job of keeping the walkways and parking areas cleared of snow, the clean bathrooms and commons area, including those like the lady I saw picking up trash and putting it in a garbage container.
Youth, you are demonstrating the courage to be upright and viable citizens and a light of hope in a culturally and politically darkening world.
Jim Pelley
Meeker
