Opinion

It’s a little known fact that members of Congress don’t have to live in the districts from which they are elected. That’s not the case for school board members in Colorado.

There was some question about the residency of candidate Regan Benson during the recent school board election in Jefferson County, but as it didn’t appear (or occur) that she would be a particularly viable candidate, the issue went away pretty quietly.

As we enter the holiday season, I’m thinking about a big do and a big don’t.

The big do is Colorado Gives Day. In its five-year history, Colorado Gives has become the preferred way of making end-of-year charitable gifts for many people in our state. An initiative of the Community First Foundation and First Bank, Colorado Gives Day is an easy way to make contributions to more than 1,800 of our state’s nonprofit organizations.

Few things are more important to our four newspapers than coverage of high school sports, and few journalists could have brought that coverage to our readers more completely or competently than Michael Hicks. But after five years, Michael is leaving his post as sports editor at Evergreen Newspapers for his next challenge at the Boulder Daily Camera, and that paper is beyond lucky to have him.

Imagine the impact of a Bernie Sanders-versus-Donald Trump presidential election in 2016. Property values in Canada would likely skyrocket with the biggest exodus of Americans to Canada since the end of the draft.

Fourteen months before the next presidential election, the biggest surprise has been the emergence of Sanders and Trump when conventional wisdom suggests that neither has any chance, or business, of becoming president of the United States. Their seeming viability results from completely different circumstances in our two major political parties.

For our youths in the foothills, summer brings a freedom from school schedules for three brief months — you can read what you WANT to read. I was always excited about the first book of the summer — my choice. I love books. I love the feel of their weight, the smell and the look. To me, they represent a new beginning, hidden knowledge and the best of humanity. This may seem a bit romantic but … so be it — it’s summer!

These life events just keep marching on. Our baby turns 21 next week.

Since we moved to Evergreen almost 18 years ago, we’ve been through a lot of milestones. Two kids started school. Three kids completed elementary school, middle school and high school. Three kids had bat-mitzvahs. I turned 40 … and then 50 … and then more. (Luckily my wife is ageless and avoided these milestones.) We celebrated a silver wedding anniversary. Two kids graduated from college, one cum laude and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

Jefferson County students got a real-life lesson in civil disobedience last September when school board member Julie Williams suggested that a curriculum review committee be established that would, among other things, look into Advance Placement U.S. history classes with direction that “materials should not encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law.”

Pigs get fat. Hogs get slaughtered!

That should be the simple lesson for some grousing small arts organizations that have argued that the proposal to continue the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District and shift modest revenues from large organizations to smaller ones doesn’t give them enough.

It’s pretty well documented now that the “Prince of Pigskins,” Tom Brady, cheated in the championship game, and in all probability in many other games as well. He is likely to be fined and suspended. His team will probably be punished, reminding us of their involvement in “film-gate” a scandal in which the league found the Patriots’ actions to be outside the rules. In a way, it’s a predictable situation when each team brings its own footballs. How about the NFL bring the pigskins, and everyone uses them?