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Heartwarming to read article about youth caregiver

What a great article: "A heart for service" in the Nov. 4 Roanoke Times. Congratulations go out to Ruth Davis-Leonard and her sister Sara for their devotion and care giving they have shown to their grandmother Shirley Wood.

Davis-Leonard is a deserving person for the Governor's Caregiver Recognition Award at the Nov. 17 ceremony in Richmond. I am proud that she has chosen to be at her grandmother's side to help her, and I'm sure there have been many times she has given up the opportunity to spend time with some of her friends as well.

Davis-Leonard is quite a role model to everyone, and she will surely be blessed for her service. It sounds like she has figured out that her grandmother helped her with her first steps and now it's Davis-Leonard's turn to help her with her steps.

By the way -- my mom enjoys attending and spending time with Davis-Leonard's grandmother, Shirley Wood, at the Adult Day Care Center.

Let nature take care of carbon problems

In response to "Capturing carbon" (Oct. 31 news story):

I have an idea; stop cutting down trees in order to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere. Recall high school biology: Plants take CO2 and water in the presence of sunlight to make oxygen and sugar. Leave the trees where they stand, and let them do their job.

You can follow the changes in the landscapes of nearly every city in America, and you'll see this trend of cutting down more trees in order to build more buildings. Take a look around at all the empty buildings. Imagine if we used the buildings already available.

The rain forest provides us with 80 percent of our oxygen needs and carbon dioxide collection, yet it is being torn down at an astronomical rate.

No wonder CO2 continues to rise in the atmosphere. Nature has the perfect plan for CO2 decrease, yet we continue to ignore nature.

There will always be consequences for bad choices and maybe we will figure this out in time. What a simple solution to a major problem, and it doesn't cost nearly what it would cost to have some industry collect carbon. Human beings don't have to fix everything. Maybe we could just leave some things alone.

Biology Teacher

Cave Spring High School

Residents annoyed by county W&L partiers

I read with great interest your fine story, "Parties pushed off campus," (Oct. 25). In previous articles in the series, I was impressed by how well the police and university officials at Radford and Longwood seemed to cooperate, especially in enforcing laws against underage drinking off-campus.

W&L students move to the county because enforcement there, not only of underage drinking laws but of noise and littering ordinances, is much laxer than in the city and because the university appears to turn a blind eye to what goes on in the county unless someone gets hurt.

Until the sheriff's department in Rockbridge County, W&L officials, and landlords (making profits from the houses they built expressly to rent to W&L sorority and fraternity members) get serious about enforcement, those of us who live close to these student areas will continue to suffer from the drunken revelry that goes on.

I might add that as a former W&L faculty member who lived in Lexington for more than 30 years and has now lived in the county for the past three, I feel ashamed at the negative perception that many local residents I know have of W&L because of the behavior of more than a few of its students.

Council's reaction to easement shocking

When Gov. Tim Kaine announced that a sizable portion of the top of Mill Mountain would be placed under a conservation easement, he caught the city council unaware. Their response was as if someone had stolen their cheese. How dare the governor appropriate one of their favorite squabbles?

Poor Kaine. He failed to realize that the need for controversy outweighed the need for a solution. God bless our local soap opera. It is entertaining and has little sex in it.