Viewpoint

To gain insight on how far we live from the rest of the world, I recently attended Drag Queen Storytime at the Carpenter Library on South Grand Blvd. in St. Louis, part of the St. Louis Public Library system. In the public meeting room in the basement of this very attractive public library, a large group of adults and mostly small children had gathered for Storytime. ...

Last week gave us plenty to worry about, from the sky. Twice at The Monett Times, we sandbagged our doors. In the record of 32 floods, going back to 1908, seven have taken place in April, the most of any month. There have been six in May, if you count the three days in a row that it flooded in 1943 as three different events. So we had good reason to worry, if just from a psychological standpoint...

Graduates, the time has arrived when the whirlpool of time and circumstances will pull you away from us. While we knew this time was coming, as it does for every graduating class, now is a time fraught with more uncertainty than we’ve seen since the economic downturn 10 years ago...

Finally, a couple weeks of warm weather and it looks like winter is finally gone. We’ve come to the point in our annual calendar where like the trees, activities are blooming in every outlet. We have moved into the final weeks of school, where every school, every campus has an activity, a concert, and awards ceremony, and, in many cases, a graduation. ...

Recently, Monett attorney Jim Randall Sr. observed that in the next 30 years, the largest transfer of wealth in the history of the world will take place. Randall referred to how the Greatest Generation, those who fought through the Great Depression to rise from the lower class, many starting as impoverished immigrants, to a solid middle class. Those people have been leaving the scene for the last 20 years, and now it is their children, the Baby Boomers, who take their turn passing on...

Wednesday night offered an extraordinary glimpse into Monett’s history and the continuity of growth over decades during the dedication of the memorial to V.B. Hall. Among those attending were at least eight people who were 90 years old. Seldom before have so many deeply experienced community members assembled to honor contributions from past decades that helped forge what the community has become...

It was with considerable relief that we reported passage of the 911 sales tax for Lawrence County this week. The alternative to no reliable or adequate funding for central dispatching was too bleak to contemplate. Passing a countywide sales tax happens rarely and usually accompanies a crisis. This one snuck up on us gradually over the last 20 years as cell phones became part of everyday life, making landline surcharges as obsolete as rotary phones...

The good news is Tuesday is Election Day. It will be the end of another cycle. We have collectively come to hate campaign season with its hoopla and endless haranguing. Local elections, on the other hand, are pretty quiet. In some cases, it’s become difficult to even to get candidates to tell how they differ from the others. Reluctant candor doesn’t speak well of what will follow after the election...