Editorial: Thumbs

To summer vacation.

Whether it is college students coming back to town or grade-school kids excited to swim in the city pool, Albert Lea always has a nice summer atmosphere. Boats are on Fountain Lake. Pedestrians are out and about. Children are playing outside with neighbor kids. Parks are filled with people. The smell of grilling lingers in the air. Everyone just seems more relaxed, too. Savor the season.

 

To people not paying attention at stoplights.

This is becoming more and more common: You are at a stoplight. It turns green. The driver in front of you does nothing. You are forced to wait and wait until you either honk or the driver realizes what’s going on.

Usually, the reason seems to be a cellphone. The driver’s head often appears to be facing down and not looking outward at the real world. Sometimes, though, the reasons are the classic ones: The driver is chatting with passengers or gawking at the warm-weather scenery.

We urge local drivers to pay more attention at intersections and put away the cellphones until arriving at destinations.

 

To Brad Kruckeberg.

College athletes are granted scholarships quite regularly before they enter classes. What’s rare is for a college athlete to be granted a scholarship after classes. But that is just the type of scholarship that Gustavus Adolphus football player Brad Kruckeberg received from the NCAA itself. He was only one of 29 college athletes in the country at all levels of play to receive a post-graduate scholarship. The Ellendale native graduated from New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva in 2008.