(Editor’s note: Letters to the editor can be submitted via The Spectator’s website. The Spectator reserves the right to edit letters for grammar and style. The views and comments expressed are those of the writer and not necessarily those of The Spectator.)

I grew up and came of age in Eau Claire during the ‘50s and ‘60s. I lived on Roosevelt Ave. just about two blocks from the university. In fact, I spent my grade school and middle school years attending the old Campus School there on Garfield Ave. I spent a lot of time on the small campus that was then Wisconsin State Teachers’ College.

Though I traveled far and wide, and have lived the last 40 years of my life near the beach in southern California, I have never forgotten that place and those times.

I have followed the growth and increasing prestige of UW-Eau Claire for all these years. I have seen not one, but two Rhodes Scholars pass through its portals. Whether you all appreciate it now or not, you students have been afforded a great gift — not just the gift of education, but the subsequent gift of being able to make a difference, to give a damn.

Now, more than ever, this nation of increasingly small, angry, thoughtless, fearful and bigoted minds is in desperate need of the knowledge and experience that attending UW-Eau Claire has given you.

Don’t waste it, go out there and make a difference and show others that with a little positive effort they can make a difference, too.

Don’t let this country or our Constitution fall into disarray and disrepair; you have the tools, you have the strength.

Now go out there and MAKE a DIFFERENCE; go out there and GIVE a DAMN.

— Ron Halpern, Dana Point, Calif.