March 09th, 2017

I am a 65 year old Methodist pastor, a Democrat, a liberal, a folk singer and a tree hugger. I voted for Bernie and Hillary and I’ve lived in Wilmington, Ohio for 16 years. It has been my home and I love it and the people who live here, and I strenuously object to the dismissive and condescending tone of this article. Even more disappointing are the cruel, heartless, and insulting comments of so many of my fellow liberals which follow it.

Yes, we have more than our share o...f shallow, narrow minded, conservatives. But many conservatives in this county are kind, gentle, generous souls who are my friends. We have a judge who has gone far beyond his duty to serve those who are in the throes of addiction. We have a vibrant, thriving arts community – actors, directors, authors, composers, musicians, artists, and sculptors. We have schools that produce National Merit Scholars and Rotary and Lions Clubs who support and encourage them.

We have Christian fundamentalist, evangelical, and mainline liberal clergy who brought together a group of citizens of different races with our chief of police and sheriff to address the issue of race and policing and we created a citizens advisory committee which meets quarterly with the police chief. And we did all of this while similar groups in the big cities were still wringing their hands. Fifteen years ago, those same Wilmington clergy brought their churches together in welcoming Spanish speaking immigrants to the community without regard to their immigration status, solving a problem that the federal government is still struggling to fix.

We have a college, a hospital, an award winning retirement community, a homeless shelter, a food pantry, a soup kitchen, and a Community Action Program that is celebrating its 40th year of service to the community. We created the first brick and mortar Benefit Bank in the state of Ohio for the unemployed and those who were in need of help after DHL pulled out and took more than 6,000 jobs with them.

What a pity that the writer of this piece couldn’t be bothered to go to more than two small groups and then spin a fantasy community of dullards and bumpkins from the few things he heard.

​https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/03/08/nobody-really-cares-in-this-ohio-town-trump-and-russia-arent-really-on-the-radar/?utm_term=.7281b495cb77