Dear Editor: Thank You All Who Attended

Dear Editor,

I want to thank the folks who attended the Jefferson County House district campaign kickoff last week in Whitehall. Betsy Gaines Quammen read excerpts from her book True West: Myth and Mending on the Far Side of America. True West is Quammen's second book about extremist groups, the first being American Zion, a scholarly work about the LDS church's western migration.

Betsy speaks in her book True West of the attempt by Aamon Bundy of Idaho and his followers to occupy the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. Given the long standoff, this event could have easily resulted in another Waco. However, the reason this occupation of federal land was not successful was that there were community relationships in place. The community had built a foundation of trust with federal land managers, landowners, federal leaseholds, private businesses, and individuals. This foundation, built on active listening, was able to halt the violence percolating at the standoff by presenting a united community front.

The discussion that followed Quammen's reading was lively, and the general theme was that the time has come to reach out to our neighbors with different views, listen, and have conversations to find common ground. That common ground is often our shared love of the West and its traditions. The vitriol, name-calling, and unfounded assumptions about differences of opinion must give way to the neighborliness of the Montana we know and love, where folks vote for people over party. There is more that unites than divides us.

NANCY JANE LIEN

Candidate, Montana HD75