Dear Editor:

Thank you for publishing this letter I have written to Gov. Mark Gordon.

The personal cost of COVID-19 has become too high. Here’s why and this is what has happened to my dad.

He grew up in rural Weld County, Colorado, not far from Cheyenne. He attended Wyatt School, a two-room school house with two teachers. Later, as he and his wife, my mom, were college students, both taught school there. It was a neat experience for me and my younger sister. Our grandmother came out from Eaton to watch us while mom and dad taught and dad did the principal duties and kept the coal furnace stoked.

Sometimes I could go upstairs and listen to class from the stairs and sometimes I would sit in the back row. The point is, there is a lot of life learning in schooling that becomes enduring and important parts of the teachers’ and the students’ lives. Soon, dad enlisted in the Navy and then used the GI benefits to continue his schooling. To make a long story short, he taught at the University of Wyoming for 33 years in the College of Education and retired some 25 years ago. He and mom now live in Cheyenne.

The values of those social lessons continued to influence both of my parents throughout their lives. The tragedy of the COVID-19 regulation is their great-grandchildren cannot see them because their parents are afraid to pay visits. For many months my parents have not attended church and have not seen their McDonald’s coffee friends. A tremendous cost has been exacted on them and they are not unique. Right now, dad is recovering in a Cheyenne rehab facility from a stair tumble a few days ago. He became really weak because there was nothing to do but stay home. Isolation is tough duty, even for a Navy vet.

Gov. Gordon, it is time to stop this COVID-19 personal and social cost. People have to get together.

Regards,

Gary White

Powell