I am a proud Sioux Cityan, by birth and education, raised in the Sioux City Public Schools, where my father taught instrumental music. Journalism began for me at The Sioux City Journal, where Clyde Van Dyke, Louise Zerschling, Bob Dodsley, Ken Sanders, Erwin Sias and a host of others nurtured in me reporting with a sense of responsibility for our community. Siouxland, it seemed, kindled a sense of love and responsibility to be better, by engaging and supporting each other. When I returned Sept. 20 for a 50th East High School reunion, I found Sioux City changed, but that ethic of community remains vibrant. I call it essential goodness.
Because that quality demands respect, I commend The Journal editorial board for calling out Rep. Steve King and endorsing J.D. Scholten for Congress. The Journal rightly defends Sioux City’s core: a neighborly love, commitment to each other and tolerance encouraging diversity – like that of my father, a first-generation Jew and Sioux City immigrant from Eastern European roots who joined my mother in building through the schools, Girl Scouts, Morningside Presbyterian Church, the Treglia Community Center, Lions, Abu Bekr Shrine, the Little Yellow Dogs, the Municipal Band and Symphony, and others, institutions that every day produce essential goodness.
Politics need not be the conduct of war in society. But it requires people who believe in essential goodness, the lasting product of life in Sioux City. To that end, I applaud The Journal’s leadership in the 4th District campaign. - Bill Israel, San Antonio, Texas