To the Editor:

The Board of Education, administration, and staff of the Fulton Schools would like to thank the area businesses for their support of Teacher/Staff Appreciation week at Fulton Schools.

The school district values the support of area businesses and believes that strong school/business relationships help create strong communities. To the businesses that donated goods and/or services that helped make the staff appreciation reception a success, your interest and support of Fulton Schools and the staff are appreciated.

Daymond R. Grifka, Superintendent Fulton Schools

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To the Editor:

This is John Pavlik Auctioneer writing to the fine readers of the Gratiot County Herald. I would like to personally give a big “Thank You” to Bader & Sons John Deere, for the help and assistance they provided at a recent auction of mine.

A few weeks ago, I had a very large auction in St. Louis for the Gail Mepham Estate, located on Riverside Drive. The sale was huge and the crowd was enormous. At the sale the parking was a bit tough, especially being on Riverside Drive. Cars were parked up and down the curvy road as far as could be seen. The walk to the auction was long and a bit dangerous because of the traffic.

Even with the parking predicaments, the sale was a great success and the huge crowd was in a cheerful mood all day. A big reason for the success of the sale and the mood of the crowd was a result from the shuttle accommodations provided to people attending the sale. Bader’s offered and provided me a John Deere Gator to shuttle people to and from the auction. I received numerous compliments from people for the shuttle service. So again, I give a big thanks to Paul and Matt at Bader’s for providing the Gator, and to Ted Komperda from Bader’s for driving it all day long at the sale.

Thank you guys for helping to make my auction a great success.

Sincerely, John Pavlik, Auctioneer

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To the Editor:

JUST WHO IS SACRIFICING?

We hear the phrase “shared sacrifice” frequently being bantered about by both Washington D.C. and Lansing. In reality though, just who is sacrificing? It’s certainly not our politicians!

Washington politicians receive full pay during their retirement after merely 1 term. In contrast, our brave men and women in uniform, who truly sacrifice every day to defend us and to preserve our liberties receive only 50% retirement after a whole 20 years of service.

Months ago, when there was talk of a federal government shut down our brave men/women in uniform would have gone without pay. However, the politician’s pay would have continued as usual.

Many of our children and grandchildren are burdened with massive student loan debt. Did you know that family members of our politicians don’t have to repay student loans?

Lansing recently passed legislation requiring public employees pay 20% of their health insurance premium. However, the politicians are exempt.

Politicians are exempt from the nearly broke social security system. They, of course, have a far more luxurious plan to count on. Our senior citizens have not even received a cost of living adjustment in years. So can you believe that our elected ‘leaders’ voted for themselves to receive (certainly not earn) a $36,000 a year cost of living increase?

Also, our politicians have made themselves exempt from both Obama Care and Medicare. Once again they have provided themselves with a far superior plan. And the monthly per person Medicare insurance premium will almost triple by 2014.

These are only just a few examples of the special privileges and tax free benefits our politicians have blessed themselves with at our expense.

So the next time a politician says “shared sacrifice,” be sure to ask him or her, “who is the one really doing the sacrificing around here?”

Michael Trebesh St Johns