Gunnison Valley Gazette | 2007-10-04 | Page 2

Opinions Page 2 The Gunnison Valley Gazette Didn’t you pay attention in English? Just A Thought By MARK HENLINE Just after one of my first articles was published a couple of years back, my father called me and counseled me that I had better start brushing up on my English. He told me that in my article I had written that “the contestant had preformed a beautiful piano solo.” He then told me that you don’t “preform” a piano solo, you “preform” concrete. When you play a piano solo you “perform”. I have taken his advice and since that time I have honestly tried to do a better job with my writing. But I am a painfully slow study. I admit that I am an English teacher’s nightmare. I can just picture a teacher holding up one of my articles and telling her students, “This is how not to write.” Despite this knowledge I press on and try to do better. This brings me to last week when I really messed up big time. Our deadline was fast approaching and it was after 11 in the evening when I wrote the article on the Barex Dairy. When I got it finished and put it on the page, it didn’t get proofed properly. The deadline arrived, we sent the paper to the printer and I thought all was well. Two days later I stuck my head in Leisa’s Beauty Shop to give Leisa a message, when from the corner Celia Jensen said, “Mark, who proofs your paper?” I replied that I did. To that Celia responded that I didn’t do a very good job last week. Celia then went on to explain that when you speak you utter, u-t-te-r. Cows have udders, u-d-d-er-s. A cow belongs in a herd, he-r-d. Not a heard, h-e-a-r-d. A We’re here when you need us Loans from $150 - $900* • Easy Monthly Payments • No Checking Account Required • Credit Starter Loans Available • Fixed Income Welcome • Phone Applications Accepted Mon. - Thur. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fri. 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. [phone] SECURITY FINANCE Your Friend When You Need $$$ [phone] Chandra Hunt, Branch Manager Jody Cox, Assistant Manager * All loans are subject to the lender’s liberal credit policy and credit limitations, if any. cow gets bred, b-r-e-d. You eat bread, b-r-e-a-d. Then she told me her mother always said, “If you’re going to do something, take the time to do it right.” With that I apologized and said I would try harder. Then I went home and told my wife, Jodi, what I had done. Jodi hadn’t read the article yet so she picked up a copy and started reading. A few minutes later she said, “Mark, this is so embarrassing. Didn’t you ever pay attention in English? That night as I lie in bed I thought back to high school and realized I really hadn’t paid attention in English class. When I was a junior, my teacher was a left over from the hippie era. She dressed in shabby clothes, hated the government, hated organized religion and all forms of authority. She spent a lot of her time trying to convince her students that anarchy was the answer. She also had a way of acting superior to her students who didn’t have the passion for or the command of the English language like she did. To say the least, I couldn’t stand that class and I don’t remember learning much except how not to treat other people. When I was a senior, Mrs. Stonehocker was my English teacher. I think she was a far better teacher but I had two huge disadvantages in that class. First of all I had senioritis. I wanted to get out of high school in the worst way. Second, I sat in the senior corner directly behind Natalie, who in my opinion was the cutest girl in the school. So when most of the class was studying English, I was trying to come up with clever things to say to Natalie. I remember one day Natalie laid her head back on my desk, her blonde hair spilling over my books, she looked into my eyes and then purred like a kitten. It goes without saying that I had a hard time focusing on sentence structure that day. When I was a meat cutter, we had a saying that went like this, “You can always grind your mistakes.” In other words, when I would mess up cutting meat, I could always throw the meat into the grinding tub and make hamburger out of it and nobody was the wiser. It’s just a little different with the newspaper. When you mess up it’s there for all to see. Looking back on my life I certainly would have focused and paid more attention in English class if I knew what life had in store for me. My cousin Steve is the editor of the Spanish Fork News. When I told him what I had done he just laughed and said, “Well, I guess we can all be grateful that you’re not a surgeon.” It’s just a thought. WEATHER Lane Henderson, Publisher Mark Henline, Editor & Advertising Jodi Henline, Office Manager Call: [phone] for subscription, news or advertising. FAX: [phone] E-mail [e-mail] The Gunnison Valley Gazette is published each Thursday by Gunnison Valley Gazette, L.L.C., 328 North Valley Drive, P.O. Box 143 Gunnison, Utah 84634. Bulk rate postage (permit No. 11) is paid at Gunnison, Utah. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Gunnison Valley Gazette, P.O. Box 143 Gunnison, Utah 84634 Deadlines: News and advertising, Noon, Monday prior to publication. Subscription prices: One year, $25 in Sanpete County, one year, $30 outside Sanpete County. Single copy price 75 cents. Advertising rates available upon request. All articles and photographs submitted for publication are subject to editing and only will be used if the editor deems them newsworthy. The editor reserves the right to hold submitted news items for space reasons. Copyright Gunnison Valley Gazette, Gunnison, Utah 2005. All rights reserved. Reproduction, reuse or transmittal of all matter herein is prohibited without prior written permission by the publisher or editor. Thursday 72/42 Partly Cloudy Friday 59/30 Showers Saturday 54/29 Few Showers Sunday 63/34 Sunny Gunnison’s Weather brought to you by Gunnison Telephone Co. Thursday, October 4, 2007 Letters to the editor... THE COST OF THE COURT FACILITY There has been a lot of talk lately about the cost residents will pay to build the proposed court facility. The bottom line is, not a dime. The proposed court facility—including the property, design, construction, ongoing maintenance, operations, insurance, bailiffs, security, you name it—will be paid by the State of Utah. The confusion comes in the funding mechanism. Sanpete County has secured funding— which is subject to approval on the November ballot—to build the new court facility. However, the state will pay the funding back. So what’s the catch? There isn’t one. For the past 20 years, counties throughout the state—including Beaver, Emery, Piute, and Sevier—have funded new court facilities the same way. The result is new court facilities, which are better able to serve the local communities. The upside is the state pays back the loan through a lease agreement and everyone wins. Sanpete’s local government has generously committed to build the court facility and then lease it to the state. So why doesn’t the state just step forward with funding to build a new court facility? It very well could do so in 2017. The reality is the courts must compete with numerous other worthy building projects that need funding. It traditionally takes 8 to 10 years for a building request such as this to make it to the top of the list. In ten years, land and building costs will have increased 60 percent making it even more difficult to secure state funding. The current facility can no longer adequately meet the needs of the courts. The timing is right to build a new court facility. If we let this opportunity slip by, we will all lose in the end. Sincerely, Brent Bowcutt Sixth District Court Trial Court Executive Utah State Courts REMEMBER TO VOTE As the general election is a month away, I urge voters in the Gunnison area to make sure they are registered to vote. Being a member of the Concerned Citizens for Sanpete County, I hope voters remember that a year ago now we obtained hundreds of signatures in a very short time in our valley, to bring the issue of the courts building to the voters. If almost 3,000 voters had not signed those petitions, county- wide, when they did, you would have had your fairgrounds torn out and moved to another location. Because of pressure from Sanpete citizens and our group, the county commissioners have said they will leave the fairgrounds alone. Now the courts building, for the state of Utah, is being put before us to fund with so-called “free money”. As Commissioner Jarrett calls it, the county jail and the courts building are both running over budget and the county hasn’t bought the land for the new building yet. I believe, like the majority of citizens in our county, that the people will see there is no such thing as “free money”. If the state needs this building, let them figure out how to get some of that “free money”. Grant Mogle Centerfield Remember When... 1965 GVHS 7th Grade Brent Jensen, Vice President and Sherwin Sorenson, Reporter Sponsored by HERMANSEN’S MILL 204 South 1st East • Gunnison 528-3136 Feeds • Grain Storage • Fertilizer Seeds • Farm Supplies • Chemicals Senior Lunch Menu Thur Oct 4 Roast Pork Cheesy Potatoes Sliced Beets Apple Sauce Roll and Butter Fri Oct 5 Salisbury Steak Macaroni & Cheese Mixed Vegetables Fruit Salad Bread and Butter Tue Oct 11 Chicken Cordon Bleu Scalloped Potatoes California Blend Vegetables Shortcake with Fruit Bread and Butter Wed Sept 12 Roast Beef Whipped Potatoes Gravy Peas Fruit Cup Roll and Butter Fri. Oct. 5 - Flu Shots - will be held at the Gunnison Senior Citizens Center from 10 until 11:30 a.m. Wed. Oct. 10 - Shopping Trip to Richfield. The bus will leave the center at 1 p.m. Please call the center by Tue. the 9th to secure a spot on the bus. If you need to be picked up at your home call the center and let us know. Mon. Oct. 15 - Monthly Blood Pressure & Blood Sugar Screening - 11 to 11:45 a.m. at the Gunnison Senior Center. Now Playing At The Casino Star Theatre Balls of Fury Playing October 4th - 11th Rated PG-13 Mon-Thurs = 7:00 pm nightly Fri & Sat = 7 pm & 9 pm Tuesday Night is Bargain Night! All seats just $3.50 Ticket Prices $5.50 - Adults $3.50 - Children under 12 & Senior Citizens