Letters to the Editor: Our apologies to Donna

In the June 12, 2024, issue of the Storm Lake Times Pilot under the obituaries, there is a Donna Stanton, age 65 listed.

As it turns out this should have been Donna Salton. 

Sadly, about 300 people did not read the next line showing she was from Ayrshire and thought that it was me. So, for those of you rejoicing that I am finally dead, sorry, you are going to have to wait, I'm going to be around for a long time yet. 

And for those of you that were so sad that I had died, thank you, you made my heart very warm.

Yes, I have been MIA from the office for a bit. I have been recuperating from what my neurosurgeon described as “a very delicate, intense, extensive surgery” on my back.  But, by the later part of this week I can start back to work in the office for a few hours a day, instead of working from home. 

I was later pleased that they thought I was 65, but that’s another issue! 

However, my husband, David, was inundated with phone calls, texts and personal visits asking what they could do, extending their sympathy in so many ways. All of this was very heart warming, but he was a bit confused at first. He had not had time to look at the paper until someone told him they had seen the front page of the Times. He finally picked up his issue and called to tell me I was dead.

Please have your proof reader do a better job. My clients who saw this were quite upset. And frankly after surviving the surgery I had just gone through, there were some issues concerning that, I hoped that it was not a harbinger of things to come. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Donna Stanton, Storm Lake

Editor’s note: Our sincerest apologies to Donna Stanton for the flub on June 12, and we are delighted to hear that you are with us.

Regarding the nitrogen cycle  

Upon reading the May 5 nitrogen editorial, I was impressed with the seriousness of the nitrogen-phosphate problem and how all-encompassing the problem is.  Then I got a surprise.  The book I’m currently reading  has five pages, well into the book, about nitrogen.  Same disaster as the Storm Lake editorial described, but surprising information about how nitrogen can be captured and stored and even undergo denitrification. The author is science writer Ben Goldfarb, and the science in his book is well documented.  The book I’m reading is about beavers.  The book covers a lot of situations, all over our country and beyond. Goldfarb talks with people, many of them Beaver Lovers, with colorful personalities. Goldfarb visited places that have been scared by our stupidity and improved by re-introduction of beavers. Yes, beavers are beneficial for increasing groundwater and can be part of the solution for polluted waters too, his book documents.

The book also documents a lot of our country’s early history.  I don’t like to read about killing animals and people. I skipped a lot.  It’s probably good that it’s all documented though. 

The book is Eager Beavers Matter by Ben Goldfarb, 2018.  The nitrogen information is only five pages. Those five pages are half way in the chapter “Make the Desert Bloom,” between the bits about Elk Island National Park (in Canada) and New Mexico. Iowa is mentioned with regard to a conservation program.

Beavers love to work and they are amazing engineers. How about we let them.

Donna Cochran, Champaign, Ill.

P.S. I’m still reading and ran into nitrogen again, near the end of chapter nine. Also Mississippi River flooding. 

Too far?

Some folks look at Donald Trump and see an orange Jesus. Others look at him and see an orange jump suit.

It used to be that Americans cared about the difference between good and evil, right and wrong, truth-telling and false witness. They did an evaluation of character to decide whether to vote for a candidate.

Today people don’t think character contributes much to qualifying someone for office. What is important is the candidate’s power to bring the cost of groceries down.

Republicans have always been about protecting corporations and the wealthy, but isn’t this taking economics just a little too far?

Kimball Shinkoskey, Woods Cross, Utah