Thank you for running a news organization that provides an old graduate such as myself with online access to photos and stories of the ISU campus and community. Ames is nearly 2,000 miles from Edmonds, Wash., where I live, but not distant from the heart of an Iowan and graduate of 1970.

Years ago I wondered at the wisdom of building such a fine complex of buildings on the flat lands between Iowa State and Ames. Now the flooding of 2010 has demonstrated why flood plains can be a hazard to even the most modern of engineering and architecture.

I am proud of the quiet determination of Iowans. Despite devastation similar in effect, if not scale to Katrina’s of 2005, I do not hear of Iowans crying out for assistance and complaining of why someone else has not stepped forward to alleviate suffering and repay our losses. Self-sufficiency and resolve are virtues still found in abundance in the heartland of America.

Thanks again for making me proud to be an Iowan by birth and by heart.