Vendor’s treatment was inexcusable
I was quite disturbed by the Saturday (Sept. 20) article regarding fair officials booting a local vendor for low prices. I am appalled at this situation for several reasons. As a parent, I know how expensive an evening at the fair can be. Many families in this county cannot afford such an excursion because of excessive prices of admission, rides and concessions. I applaud Rhonda Stirewalt and the members of Immanuel Lutheran Church for trying to put a smile on a child’s face without robbing the parents.
I have had several opportunities to volunteer in Ms. Stirewalt’s concession trailer. She has always sold her cotton candy and drinks at a reasonable price and refuses to gouge her customers. I helped at the county fair last year, and we sold bags of cotton candy for $3 ó same as this year. Ms. Stirewalt has never sold it for a dollar a bag, as stated by fair manager Johnny Love in the article.
If fair officials took issue with Ms. Stirewalt’s business practices in 2007, why did they invite her to return this year? They gladly accepted her $400 vendor fee and then wrongfully ousted her from the fairgrounds. Since fair contracts “prohibit vendors from charging excessively high prices,” officials should be more concerned with evicting those vendors charging $6 for a bag of cotton candy!
Mr. Love and the Rowan County Fair Association should be ashamed of their inexcusable maltreatment toward Ms. Stirewalt, Pastor Sheeks and church volunteers. I hope this unfortunate experience will not discourage Ms. Stirewalt from continuing her community service. This selfless woman has raised thousands of dollars for Nazareth Children’s Home, and numerous other school, church and civic organizations. I am proud to know there are still people in this world who aren’t out for the almighty dollar and who truly desire to help their neighbor.
ó Amy Cozart
Salisbury
The perils of Palin
Is it possible that the fundamentalist right may have put its control of the Republican Party in jeopardy?
Sen. John McCain’s choice of a little-known governor, Sarah Palin, is not the move of a politically savvy free agent. It smacks of efforts by the fundamentalist far-right to take this country in a direction not intended or desired by most Americans. We should be worried at the vetting procedures in which Senator McCain met with the governor on only one occasion.
Senator McCain’s choice may gain support of women as would the election of Senator Clinton, but the unknown governor has little to offer in national or international experience, other than the fact she faces the Russian federation across the Bering Straits. Her sole asset is appeasement of the Republican right which denies global warming, insists that “abstinence only” works, would drill in the pristine Alaskan wilderness rather than concentrate on alternate fuels, allows the shooting of wolves from an airplane despite a federal law disallowing it, denies the right of free choice to women who are victims of incest or rape, supports indicted Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, attacks the EPA etc. etc.
If Governor Palin has something to offer the American public, it has not yet been divulged. Her tenures as local politician and governor are to be respected. Any American desirous of helping the nation who is willing to take on the in-grown and powerful political establishments, with their self-interests, local or national, should be commended.However, her daughter’s pregnancy is not fertile ground for attack, unless to prove that abstinence is not equal to sex education; it’s a personal matter that need not be used to attack the governor’s qualifications or lack thereof.
ó Arthur Steinberg
Salisbury
Spinning at the VA
The Veterans Administration is shutting down inpatient and emergency services in the largest VA hospital in the Southeast, one which has three new surgical suites, to “… enhance services to veterans.”
Which spinner made up this announcement? Was it Carl Rove or was it Elizabeth Dole of Salisbury or her fellow senator, John McCain ó both on the Senate Armed Services Committee?
ó Karen C. Young
Salisbury