… With three days left, only incumbents have filed for county commissioner

Craig Pierce has been instrumental in bringing about positive changes for animal welfare in Rowan County. I am grateful for everything the commissioners have done in making a better world for homeless animals in Rowan county.

— Barbara Hart

No, Jim, we don’t miss you!

— Wayne Keirn

Josh Bergeron should run for a seat! More often than not, he understands the issues better than the commissioners.

— Carl Prine

… School advice that works?

There is a statistic that many career and technical education teachers (CTE) share with their students — and I always shared with mine while teaching full time — regarding the percentage of ALL jobs that require a minimum education level at the bachelor’s degree level or higher. That percentage is 17 percent. Let me repeat that – 17 percent!

Yet we still tend to focus mainly on advising students how to get into four-year institutions of higher learning.

High Schools that Work is an excellent program that has been adopted by some of the highest-performing high schools in the country. It is, quite frankly, what RSS should consider very seriously. Even students who are truly and legitimately college-bound will still need job skills one day – something that four-year institutions do not do nearly as well as technical/trade schools, community colleges, and high school CTE classes.

I should also mention that the foundation for this program is already in place. Rowan-Salisbury Schools has an excellent staff of CTE teachers who do a great job teaching job skills already. They just need more and better resources to be even more effective than they already are. I have had the pleasure of working with many of them this past semester at Jesse Carson High School while serving as a long-term sub in the drafting program there. I encourage the RSS administration to look at this program closely and consider implementing it as soon as possible. As mentioned in the article, it is usually a five-year process, so there is no time to waste. We need this NOW!

— Randy Overcash

… Why Trump is riding high

Do we really want a president who seems to have been taught manners and civil discourse by Andrew “Dice” Clay?

— Bruce LaRue

… School board to continue discussion of office request

Myself and two other members of Sankofa’s Operating Board of Directors were told by the town of East Spencer, in a meeting about two weeks ago, that they had been working on various plans for the Long Street building, the latest iteration being possible housing for seniors.

Our Sankofa Operating Board has identified the more socially and morally pressing problems of having a town which is 6 percent of the county population and, at the same time,represents 72 percent of its poverty, with little or none of the monies collected by the county, by using those demographics, being returned to East Spencer in services or programs.

Of course, it’s difficult to return those funds to a town with no school, no library, no community center, no rec center, no health facility.

Our programs are already in development, our people lined up and ready to begin. This is a grass roots, up by the bootstraps coalition that so many judge efforts by. We are public and private entities coming together to create a space committed to renewing pride and workmanship through education and mentorship.

To begin something of value doesn’t need to take two years of planning.

— Whitney Peckman

… Reading with ‘Meme’ makes this Christmas special

What a wonderful tradition, and memory! Praying that Meme will be continuing the tradition next Advent also!

— Heather Stout

Beautiful idea and wonderful story. Praying the family has many more wonderful memories a lot more time with Meme!

— Jayne Helms

Love you, Nancy. Leave it to the teacher in you to share your love of reading with your babies!

— Patricia Foley

So incredibly special. She is an amazing, inspiring woman, and we are all lucky to know her.

— Stephanie Kelly

… My Turn: The guns don’t fire themselves

Exactly. I’ll add that the great appeal of liberalism is that once a person becomes a liberal, he or she no longer has to accept any responsibility for anything. Everything can be blamed on somebody else (as long as that somebody else isn’t a fellow liberal, of course). Liberals arrogantly believe they possess moral and intellectual superiority, while in reality, their idea of a “conversation” is always, without fail, “I talk, you listen. I’m smart, you’re not.” We cannot give an inch, ever, to this cancer.

— Steve Pender

That is interesting. I see in the no-gun-restriction position a profound unwillingness to be held accountable to, well, anybody. I perceive fueling racism and dumbing down schools to be part of the current conservative agenda. In my view, uninformed animosity toward Muslims supports terrorism. And I get a lot of the “I talk, you listen, I’m smart, you’re not” in Steve Pender’s discourse. Conservatives also arrogantly believe they possess moral and intellectual superiority. One of us is projecting.

— Luke Hamaty

… The gun conversation: Three key steps

Actually, well written and a point well made. The left and the right in this country agree on one thing; Americans have too many “rights.” They just can’t agree on which ones to take.

— Todd Paris

Some people want to take our guns. Well, they won’t get them. We’re not giving them up because we don’t want to. The Second Amendment backs us up.

— Stephen Owen

… Letters: Partisan obfuscation

Amen, Mr. Trundle. Now do away with John Hood and his Tea Party ranting.

— Ralph Walton

… Snow coming to South Rowan

Looking foward to the fun. Love my China Grove!

— Shirley Alexander