100-year reunion
Editor:
St. Vincent Home in Freeport, Ill., will celebrate its 100th
anniversary this year on July 21. Over 26,000 children were served
by the orphanage, operated between 1896 and 1973.
We wish to locate as many of these former residents as possible
so we can invite them to join our centennial festivities and be
reunited with some of the Franciscan sisters who staffed the
facility.
We encourage any of your readers who are former residents of St.
Vincent Home – or who were associated with the home in any way – to
contact us at the address below:
Centennial Committee
St. Vincent Home
659 East Jefferson St.
Freeport, Illinois 61032
(815) 232-6181/e-mail: 73162.102Q@compuserve.com
Jack O’Connor
Chairman
St. Vincent Home
Centennial Committee
Play fair
Editor:
Thank you to Marlon Jamal Green! I’ve waited for someone to try
to establish a connection between affirmative action and sports for
a while ("African American athletes carry economic weight," Jan.
17). Good job.
Green effectively proved that affirmative action supporters have
huge double standards. I think it’s time we pick the basketball
team based on affirmative action. We need some token Asian, Latino
and white players on the team. In fact, the team should be half
women – not as benchwarmers; they should get the normal 12 slots
and get to start an appropriate number of games.
Of course, Green did show that affirmative action is
unnecessary. The way he did it, though, would have gotten someone
who is not African American called a racist. Remember Jimmy the
Greek?
The professional sports system is dominated by African
Americans, as Green stated. This proves that the African American
community can make its own way without absurd legislation.
African American athletes are hired for the same reason white
and Asian persons "dominate" other fields. Maybe I assume too much,
but I understood profit maximizing in elementary school, long
before I took Economics 101, so I’m sure everyone else out there
does, too. Companies hire employees who can do the job, not because
they are a given race.
Perhaps it is time to quit wasting time and money on a wanna-be
solution that will never work and redirect resources into projects
to help people before they are disadvantaged by lack of
education.
Robert L. Peckham
Fifth-year
Mechanical engineering