March 20's Letters to the Editor

Dear Edi­tor,

It’s time for Con­gress to sup­port uni­ver­sal back­ground checks for gun buy­ers. This is one of sev­eral moves they can make to reduce the num­ber of guns that get into the hands of peo­ple who are crim­i­nals or oth­ers who have anti-social men­tal dis­or­ders. These back­ground checks can be done at any of the thou­sands of gun shops in the coun­try, even for sales by pri­vate own­ers to pri­vate buy­ers. The only rea­son not to sup­port this is if some­one makes more money by being able to sell guns to crim­i­nals and men­tally ill peo­ple. We shouldn’t be a nation that puts ques­tion­able prof­its above com­mon sense. No, these won’t stop all shoot­ers, but checks might pre­vent some of the sui­cides and shoot­ings of fam­ily, friends, and chil­dren, as well as crim­i­nal activities.Of course the Found­ing Fathers would think this fell under the scope of “well-regulated” in the Sec­ond Amend­ment. An enor­mous major­ity of Amer­i­cans are for these checks; it’s time for Con­gress to catch up and be brave.

Jill Grubb, Marengo

Dear Fam­ily, Friends, & Neighbors:

Sat­ur­day, March 9, was one of the most amaz­ing nights of my life! To live in a com­mu­nity with such love, sup­port and gen­eros­ity is such a bless­ing. This won­der­ful com­mu­nity had a ben­e­fit for me to help with all the finan­cial bur­dens I am deal­ing with due to advanced lung cancer.

Friends and fam­ily wanted to do some­thing for me to show their love and sup­port. The ben­e­fit was held at North­mor School where I taught for 32 years. I taught with an amaz­ing fac­ulty and staff. How do you say thank you to such a won­der­ful and car­ing crew of peo­ple? My heart is so full of love and my eyes are full of tears every time I think of all the work and love that went into host­ing this event.

I expected to see a hun­dred or so peo­ple, but the turn-out was beyond belief. As a friend and neigh­bor expressed, “There were more peo­ple here than the Mor­row County Fair”. Fam­ily, friends, neigh­bors, fac­ulty, staff, stu­dents and past stu­dents attended to show me their love and sup­port. The prayers, hugs, cards, let­ters, emails, texts, and gifts were and are immense. My fam­ily and I were dev­as­tated to hear the lung can­cer diag­no­sis since I’ve never smoked or been around it. For my won­der­ful com­mu­nity to spon­sor this ben­e­fit was such a bless­ing that God gave me. He can turn tragedies into bless­ings which is what happened.

Never in a mil­lion years could I believe the peo­ple who came to the ben­e­fit. Many I had not seen in years. One past stu­dent drove three hours one way to come and give his sup­port. He, him­self, is in remis­sion from two kinds of can­cer. Another stu­dent drove from Can­ton to be there for me. Many fam­ily mem­bers drove from Ten­nessee to gladly give their sup­port. I am still awestruck by this out­pour­ing of love and con­cern. As a retired teacher, I remem­ber many days feel­ing like I was beat­ing my head against a brick wall and not get­ting through to my stu­dents. I won­dered if I was even get­ting through to any of my stu­dents. To walk in the doors of North­mor on Sat­ur­day and actu­ally see the crowd of peo­ple who came to sup­port me, I just sobbed. What an amaz­ing group of peo­ple! Past stu­dents kept com­ing up to me and thank­ing me for being such an inspi­ra­tion to them. I was and still am overwhelmed!

What bless­ings I have been given! North­mor staff gen­er­ously cre­ated, sewed and signed a quilt for me which I will cher­ish always. Those peo­ple and busi­nesses who donated the baked goods, food items, craft items and silent auc­tion items will always hold a spe­cial place in my heart. The cooks, sec­re­taries, staff, cus­to­di­ans, prin­ci­pals, super­in­ten­dent and friends were a dri­ving force for this ben­e­fit. I love you all so much for donat­ing your time, resources and sup­port. My fam­ily who showed up in force to help wher­ever and when­ever needed are the biggest bless­ings ever. They help keep my spir­its up and keep me going.

The list of those help­ing with the ben­e­fit is never end­ing. It would fill up an entire news­pa­per. I am writ­ing this let­ter to show you how much you all mean to me and tell you “THANK YOU” from the bot­tom of my heart. To all of the stu­dents show­cas­ing their amaz­ing tal­ents to enter­tain peo­ple, thank you! I wish I could have spo­ken with every­one at the ben­e­fit and given them a hug. I did have the oppor­tu­nity to speak with many friends, stu­dents, and fam­ily mem­bers for which I am grate­ful, but there were many peo­ple I never had the chance to see. Bless you all for your sup­port! My heart is so full of bless­ings and my life full of love! My life HAS had mean­ing and I am so thank­ful all of you have rein­forced that mean­ing for me.

God Bless every­one for all you have done for me. Thank you!

With all my love, Diane Fulk

Posted by Randa Wagner on Mar 19 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.