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Show A6 The Emery County Review, Tuesday, June 24, 2008 VIEWPOINT Opinion and Letters to the Editor The Example of Servant Leadership Josie Luke Established January 2, 2007 James L. Davis, Publisher & Editor w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w Colleen A. Davis, Co-Publisher, Office & Advertising Manager Josie Luke, Assistant Editor Lyndsay Reid, Advertising Design Charlotte Williams, Advertising Sales Kathy P. Ockey, Staff Journalist Casey Wood, Webmaster Our Vision To be a valued member of the communities we serve and to be trusted as an honest, truthful and reliable source of news. w w w Our Mission To inform, entertain and provide a public forum for the discussion of events impacting the people of the Emery County area and to inform with news and features relevant to those who call the Castle Valley area home w w w Our Principles We will be ethical in all of our efforts to provide information to the public. We will be unbiased in our reporting and will report the facts as we see them and do our best to focus on the good news of the county, its people, history and way of life. We will be strong and active members of the community and assist in any way that we are able. We will strive to provide the best quality product possible to our readers and advertisers...always. We will verify the details of news we are reporting and if a mistake is made on our part we will correct it immediately. We will always listen to suggestions on how to do our job better. Editorial Submission Guidelines The Emery County Review welcomes and invites letters to the editor and guest opinion articles on public policy or current events. We welcome letters of thanks to individuals who have helped make our community a better place to live, work and play. The editorial staff reserves the right to edit all submissions for space constraints, clarity and errors in fact. Submissions must include author’s name and contact information. Contact information will not be published. Letter’s and opinion articles can be sent to jldavis@theemerycountyreview.com, mailed to The Emery County Review, P.O. Box 487, Orangeville, UT. 84537 or faxed to 435-748-2543. PUBLIC FORUM Check Your Insurance Coverage With the number of natural disasters that have occurred recently nationwide and with the earthquakes in Wells, Nev., the floods in the Midwest, and the fires across the country, we as insurance agents within this county felt the need to provide a general bulletin. Your home is one of your greatest assets. Please take the time to review your homeowner’s coverage. Most insurance carriers do not cover flood and/or earthquake coverage as part of the standard homeowner’s policy. That coverage is purchased separately at an additional expense. Ask your agent exactly what your policy covers and determine what is best for you, so that you are covered in the event of a natural disaster. As agents, we are committed to providing the highest quality of service and coverage we can, at a premium you can afford. Though price is very important, it should not be the determining factor in choosing protection for you and your family. Ask for an annual review of your policies to make sure you are covered in the unexpected event of a tragedy. As your local insurance professionals, and in an effort to reach as many people as possible, we are taking this proactive approach to assist our valued customers and help the community understand the issues so they can make a well informed decision about their insurance needs. - Tyler Jeffs - Kathy Justice - Tracy Wilcox As the only female riding in a van with seven guys, one might assume that I wouldn’t be very comfortable, or quite possibly a bit bored. One would be wrong. I found myself in this situation this past week while as a member of the media, I attended a tour of the site where Arrow Corps5 was taking place. Sitting in a large passenger van on the way back from Buckhorn Wash, I had the opportunity to interview members of the site and national leadership of the Order of the Arrow, the Boy Scout’s National Honor Society. I marveled as I sat with a group of young men, who were more than simply good guys, they were amazing, and I listened as they quite eloquently expressed their pleasure at the opportunity to spend a week in the hot sun chopping down what they referred to as the “deadly invasive tamarisk.” The group had selected the project nearly three years earlier and had worked diligently to pull it off. They had succeeded in bringing in a huge number of their fellow Arrowmen to a small town in rural Utah, even though those scouts had to pay a $250 participation fee along with their travel expenses. I asked several of them how they had managed what I viewed as a striking feet, and they all responded with the same general idea– the scouts viewed it as a privilege to give such service. Jake Wellman, the national chief of the Order of the Arrow explained, “Servant Leadership is what we try to instill in all of our Arrowmen. Most of the people in the order of the Arrow have given service and they stay with it because they realize that one: it’s fun, and two: it’s rewarding. “It feels great to provide hands-on service. It’s hard to explain the intangible benefit that you get, the brotherhood you feel when you’re out there in the wash cutting down tamarisk with some guy you’ve never met before, but you know there’s a common reason you both came to this point in your life.” Hearing the group speak about their reasons for providing service reminded me of the feelings I have had while doing it myself. Service is truly a gift to both the giver and the receiver. James M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, put it this way, “Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves.” The scouts and members of the Forest Service and Bureau of Land management who participated in this project should be commended for their service. As someone who saw it first hand, I can attest that it was amazing to see, and would recommend that any local boy scout who has the opportunity to be a member of the Order of the Arrow should accept the chance. One of they “guys” in the van, David Dowdy, Instructor Corps Director stated, “I think I could probably speak for everyone here in saying, I would not be the person I am today if it wasn’t for the Boy Scouts, especially the Order of the Arrow. And I would encourage anybody, anybody, to join a local troop or pack, and to really get interested in it because it’s exciting. And as they can attest, it will literally change your life.” Facts About the Vice Presidency Herbert G. Klein Copley News Service National election attention centers on the candidates for president, but some of the most intriguing behind-the-scenes decisions usually involve the nominee for vice president. This year will likely be no different. In fact, the vice presidential choices may be more important than at any recent time. While there is a twoterm limit on how long a president may serve, there is no similar rule pertaining to the vice president. Until Richard Nixon became vice president, the office was considered powerless. President Eisenhower picked Nixon from 10 candidates placed on a “short list” by Tom Dewey. Historically, most presidents have selected a running mate with some national popularity who isn’t strong enough to influence policy. That was not the case with Nixon. Twice when Eisenhower was ill, quietly, with the help of Press Secretary Jim Haggarty, Nixon ran the country. Numerous vice presidents decried the lack of responsibility given their role. John Nance Garner, Franklin Roosevelt’s first vice president, described the office “not worthy of a pitcher of warm piss.” And David Webster turned it down by saying, “I do not intend to be buried until I am dead.” John Adams was the last vice president to attend a presidential Cabinet meeting in 1791 until Calvin Coolidge was invited to Cabinet meetings while President Woodrow Wilson was in Europe in 1918-1919. The cabinet invitation was dropped by Herbert Hoover, but in 1933 Roosevelt raised the prestige of the office by inviting Vice Presidents Garner and later Henry Wallace and Harry Truman to Cabinet meetings. Roosevelt’s gesture was unexpected because he had three vice presidents and ignored them all. Garner was eager to leave the office. Wallace was deemed too liberal even for Roosevelt, and when Truman was elected, Roosevelt kept him uninformed on foreign policy and the war, and, in particular, the development of the atomic bomb. The constitution originally did not foresee the development of political parties. Thus, when Federalist John Adams became president, the runner-up was Thomas Jefferson, and Jefferson became vice president. Adams and Jefferson frequently clashed on states rights and foreign policy questions. Today some vice presidential nominees have been selected as a result of curiously different philosophies, and often by secret methods. Eligibility for the vice president is simple. He or she must be a U.S.born citizen 35 years of age or older who has been a permanent resident for 14 years or longer. And, he or she must be eligible to be president under the 12th Amendment. The vice president cannot be from the same state as the president, as we learned in 2002 when Dick Cheney reverted to his home in Wyoming so as not to conflict with his temporary residence in Texas, the home of George W. Bush. The only contest for vice president in modern times came in 1956 when Democratic presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson refused to make a choice, so Sen. Estes Kefauver of Tennessee and Sen. John Kennedy of Massachusetts mounted campaigns for the office. Traditionally no one officially runs for the vice presidency. Kefauver won the nomination by a narrow margin, but Kennedy in losing had gained the attention he used four years later to seek the presidency. Nixon made an early decision to select Henry Cabot Lodge as his running mate but kept the choice secret. On the night Nixon was nominated, he called together 25 Republican leaders to hear their views. The next morning he announced Lodge as his choice with no real count having been taken from the group of 25. In 1968 after Nixon felt sure he had withstood challenges from Nelson Rockefeller and California Gov. Ronald Reagan, the former vice president had a soundproof section of his hotel equipped to invite various political figures to state their views on the vice presiden- cy. Names varied from New York Mayor John Lindsay to Oregon Sen. Mark Hatfield to Reagan and Rockefeller. No one mentioned Gov. Spiro Agnew of Maryland. Nixon’s choice surprised everyone, including his staff. When Jerry Ford became president, he selected Rockefeller to be vice president because he wanted support from the liberal wing of his party. Rockefeller became the first vice president to have an official residence. He was installed in the Naval Observatory house, replacing the chief of naval operations. Before that, vice presidents lived in the house they owned. When Ford ran for election in 1976, he won the GOP nomination narrowly over Reagan. Ford and his staff seriously considered asking Reagan to be vice president. Nancy Reagan killed the idea when she sent William French Smith to meet with Leon Parma of San Diego to elicit a promise that Ford would not offer the job to Reagan. During the campaign that followed, Reagan made a point of mentioning Ford once in each speech, but only once. When George H. W. Bush gained the nomination to be president in 1988 after serving as vice president to Reagan, most expected him to select Kansas Sen. Bob Dole or former New York Rep. Jack Kemp as his running mate. Both men remained at their hotels awaiting a phone call but to everyone’s surprise, Bush selected Dan Quayle of Indiana. Quayle was among the most surprised and was sent to a press conference with no briefing. His stumbling performance at that initial press conference damaged his career permanently. Though Bush had selected a team of political veterans to help his candidate for vice president, the team was never called into action. Bill Clinton’s selection of Al Gore as running mate was made because he said he wanted a strong partner. Clinton gave Gore more responsibility than any vice president since Nixon, which helped Gore gain the prestige to run for president in 2000. In 1996, after Dole had cinched the Republican nomination, there was much speculation on who would be his running mate. Kemp, believing he was out of contention, was driving to a family birthday party in Virginia when the car phone rang. It was Dole asking to meet him in Washington. Kemp, dressed in blue jeans, dropped off his wife Joanne at the party and returned to meet with Dole. To his surprise, he was invited to run for vice president. Dick Cheney was asked by George W. Bush to put together a “short list” of candidates for vice president. After Bush reviewed the list, he chose to ignore it and selected Cheney instead. Speculation already is rampant as to who will be the next nominees for vice president, but it is unlikely there will be any announcements until August. The best bets for the selection would be from the ranks of governors, but geography, political strength, political philosophy and power will once again be the key elements. (Klein is a national fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, retired editor in chief of Copley Newspapers and former Nixon White House director of communications. Nancy Crisci contributed to this article.0 |
