I am writing in response to all the letters condemning the letter written by Mr. Rodeck and others. These people seem to have latched on to one line in the letter and have completely forgotten that the rest of the letter did have a very important message.

While I agree that the use of “fag” was inappropriate and offensive to some, the use of it demonstrated the rights of individuals to think as they wish.

However, the message in his letter represented the feelings of a large number of the students in this university.

This community and many of our hometown communities are supported by farming and agriculturally related jobs.

As for Ms. Chipman, your dismissal of the dilemma farmers face today is too simple. These people, 1 percent of the population, work extremely long hours to provide products that the rest of us need to live.

Products that, though extremely important, do not bring the prices needed to make a living.

Some days these people are lucky to break even. Yet, in all this, they continue to do jobs that many of you wouldn’t dream of doing.

They do them even though many times they must neglect their families, themselves and other things I am sure they would rather be doing.

Being a farmer’s daughter, I would have thought Ms. Chipman would have had a more understanding attitude.

Mr. Rodeck’s letter, although inflammatory, was very well written. The message was obscured by a bias but not just of his part.

Those who wrote in to dismiss his message did not open their minds to see the position he was coming from. They cannot accuse others of being close-minded if they cannot see beyond one word used in anger on behalf of an important group of people being taken for granted once again.

The letter was meant to draw attention to the fact that even in agricultural areas such as this one, the farmer and all he stands for is slowly being forgotten.

I for one am glad that someone spoke up to draw attention to this fact.

Ms. Schmidt also should be proud. She got all her cheap shots in as well.

Now can we all see that this name-calling has dismissed the fact that Ag Week did not get the attention it deserved and we need to work together to make sure that in the future things like this do not happen?

We have to get past the fact that the individual is not the most important part of our community.

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Kari Gaarder

Freshman

Dairy science and pre-veterinary