Star News Top Stories

December 17, 2009

JoAnn Simek retiring from city council
The time has come to seek retirement from the Medford City Council.
I have enjoyed the 14 years I have been a council member for District 3.
Having grown up in Medford, I have seen the many additions and changes that have taken place. How our boundaries have stretched and stretched. There is a lot of history in our small city. Check it out at the library.
Best wishes to the one who will be elected to take my place.
— JoAnn Simek, Medford

Says thanks for helping during snowstorm
I want to send out a much needed thank you to the gentleman who helped me out of a snow drift and get onto Highway 13 last Wednesday in the “Blizzard.”
My car made it through many snow drifts that morning, but the one at the corner of Elm Ave and Highway 13 was apparently just too much.
I am extremely grateful for his kindness and was ashamed I didn’t get a chance to thank him. If not for his willingness to turn around and to crawl around under my car in the frigid wind and snow I would have been sitting there until I could get a hold of a family member to come and help (if they were able to get to me!). I greatly appreciate his efforts and only wish I would have gotten his name so I could give him the credit he is due. Thank You!
— Erin Clausnitzer, Medford

Make charitable gifts through your IRA in 2009
aNearly every household in America has benefited in some way from the lifesaving mission of the Red Cross. Our impact doesn’t end here at home; you help us reach across the country and around the world to impact millions of lives every year. No other organization has the scale, scope and trust needed to respond to disasters, reconnect families and educate the next generation of lifesavers as efficiently and effectively as the Red Cross.
In 2008, Congress extended the law allowing people who have Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) – and who are age 70-1/2 or older – to make charitable gifts through their IRAs. However, this opportunity expires at the end of 2009.
Why are IRA gifts attractive to donors? Some feel they have no need of their required annual distributions and would prefer that they go directly to a worthwhile cause, such as the Red Cross. The amount the Red Cross receives, then, will be free of income taxes and will count as your IRA distribution. This type of distribution is not counted as income so it will not affect your deductions.
Making IRA gifts is easy. Simply contact your IRA trustee or custodian and notify our office so we may ensure proper transfer and receipting of the gift for 2009.
Consider making a gift to the Red Cross through your IRA or other means. A gift of any size will save the day when the next disaster strikes, when a neighbor’s house burns, when someone needs a lifesaving blood transfusion or when a family needs to contact a deployed service member in an emergency. To learn more, simply contact us at 715-842-2156.
— Carole Hess, philanthropy chair, Marathon County Red Cross, Wausau

Writer is worried about state of morality in America these days
As I sit here at my kitchen table thinking about things going on in our country today, my heart feels heavy and my body feels helpless. There are so many issues I could touch on from legalizing gay marriages here in the U.S., the war in Iraq, education of today’s children and so much more.
I am a 37 year old woman with a husband and four beautiful children. When I was growing up, divorce was a huge ordeal, gay people “lived in San Francisco,” and Dick, Jane, and Spot were what we learned to read. Abortion was totally taboo, especially in our community.
As I went through high school, I remember hearing the rumors. Either “So-n-So” was pregnant or another “So-n-So” had an abortion, and those were big deals. These days, people mention divorce and people shrug. If you mention gay people, couples or marriages, people might raise an eyebrow.
Unfortunately, I do find myself as a “victim” of divorce. Yes I did re-marry a man who is all about commitment, both to me and our children. Was this my plan? No. Should I have made a few different choices a long time ago? Yes.
My parents sent us to private school for our first six years. Did they struggle to make ends meet and have to worry about paying tuition for us? You bet! Did we, as children, think much about it? Not so much, but I do remember wondering why it was a big deal going to the private school. Today, I understand what it really was about, feeling thankful for my parents and their concerns.
Today, I sit here worrying about what the public schools are really bringing to our children because I have three in school today. What are they going to teach my 3-year-old when he’s in first or second grade? What are they going to teach my high school children in the next few years? Are they going to tell them gay is okay after I’ve told them that that’s not what we believe or how we live? Are they teaching history the way it really happened or changing it so as not to “offend” anyone? How long will today’s children and tomorrow’s leaders be allowed to say “The Pledge of Allegiance?” I don’t believe the schools should be making any of our children read about “alternative lifestyles.” That is our job as parents.
Does anyone remember the freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, or the freedom of religion anymore? Honestly, what has happened to our country? I love my country and I love my land. We have managed to elect such individuals who want to slowly take it all away. A small group of people who didn’t like “The Ten Commandments” in a courthouse – got it removed. Isn’t that part of our freedom of speech as well as religion? Everyone has to be “politically” correct as to not “offend” anyone or group. Isn’t that part of what the freedom of speech is about? To be able to stand up for what we believe in without worry of ridicule.
I do not believe in gay marriage and won’t support it. I do not believe in abortion and won’t support that either. If I offend anyone in saying that, I’m just using my freedom in a way that I believe in. Anyone who agrees should stand up and put it out there. The only way to get our country back is for us to start speaking out as we have that right.
We need to take our beliefs to the polls when we vote again in November. I believe it’s one step to saving our country. If we stick together, we the people, can start taking it back.
— Candice Riley, Medford

Christmas is coming, the geese are getting lean
Most of the wild geese have left the Medford Mill Pond as they usually do, and their droppings will no longer be a problem on the River Walk.
We have been wondering and watching to see what will happen to the domestic fowl, especially the eight tame geese, on the Mill Pond since the city council decreed that no more feeding should take place. Most Medford people know the tame geese cannot fly away. What has been planned for their future?
• Will the anonymous, irresponsible people who originally dumped the geese at the Mill Pond reconsider and take responsibility to now go out on thin ice and retrieve them?
• Will members of the city council go out and capture them, pluck them, and have roast goose at an upcoming council meeting?
• Will the tame geese be ignored? Will they gradually freeze or die of slow starvation? Will foxes eventually tear their bodies? That happened to a white, tame goose several years ago. People will be able to view the remains as they go by on the River Walk.
• Because the ice is thin, council members will not venture out now. Will the tame geese eventually be rescued by the fire department because of the equipment they have? Will there be a bill to pay for their work?
• Will someone allow the gracious folks who have been feeding the birds to continue to feed them so that someone can catch them and take them to a farm where they might be cared for?
• Will someone take the geese to the Humane Society? They are not equipped to handle poultry, but a collection could be taken to improve their facilities so that they can care for the geese until someone takes them in.
• Will the geese be ignored and will council members hope that somehow the geese will vanish and people will forget?
People will be watching.
— Hildegard Kuse and Loretta Kuse, Medford