I must confess that when my kids were in attendance in the Grafton (N.D.) School System, I seldom had much good to say about the administrators whom I had to deal with from time to time. On a good day, they were condescending; on a normal day, they were arrogant.
Little did I realize that I didn't know the half of it.
Years ago, before the new high school was built, there was a brass memorial plaque on the wall of the old school, just inside the main entrance. This plaque contained the names of the servicemen from Walsh County who were killed in action during the Second World War.
When the new school building was opened, the plaque was taken down and moved to the new building. Now, one would think that having taken the trouble to move the plaque halfway across town, the administration would have remounted it where it could be seen. Sad to say, this never happened.
Instead, the plaque was set aside in a room where it sat for years, until someone finally decided to get rid of it by giving it to the North Dakota Developmental Center, where it eventually was cut up and used to make trophies.
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What an utter lack of respect-for the people who originally had paid for the monument plaque, for the families of the men who were named on the plaque and most of all, for the memories of the men who died.
And I'm sure that one of the county's veteran's organizations, the National Guard armory or another public building would have been glad to have taken the plaque and displayed it, had those groups been asked.
I realize that it's years too late to do anything about this now. Whoever gave the go-ahead for this idiocy is no doubt long gone, and the memorial has long since been recycled.
But by writing this, I hope I might shame someone away from doing something similar in the future.
To the current crop of Grafton school system administrators: if you've ever wondered why you get no respect from the kids you teach, you might consider your own institutional lack of respect as a reason.
Nicholas Link
Grafton, N.D.
