Loss of Vandal friends

I graduated from the University of Idaho, and I love the Vandals. This year has been devastating to me because so many Vandal friends have died.

My 90-year-old former Lewiston High School Bengal teammate Tom Flynn passed away last month. I believe he was the most outstanding all-around athlete to ever play for the LHS Bengals. One Saturday in his 1950 senior year, he won the 100-yard dash in a track meet, won a golf tournament and pitched a baseball victory that night. As a Vandal basketball star, Flynn was first-team all-Pacific Coast Conference. When he retired as basketball coach at Interlake High School in Bellevue, Wash., the school named the gym Flynn Court.

Bob Tatko, from Craigmont, graduated from UI in 1953, and he and his wife, Francie, had four children graduate from UI. From 1978-82, they were trustees on the Idaho Parents Board.

At LHS, Ron Karlberg was an All-American in football and then played a year of professional baseball.

Klea Copeland was a Vandal who was married to my LHS teammate Ray Copeland. On her computer, she followed PGA golfer Joel Dahmen on every hole, and she and Ray spent every NAIA World Series with us.

My beloved wife, Barbara, attended Idaho one semester, but I, two of our children, a daughter-in-law and four of our grandchildren — including current freshman Lane Riggs — attended UI.

The Sept. 10 obituary of Lewiston’s Colleen Mahoney showed she was on the UI’s Board of Regents.

Go Vandals.

Dick Riggs

Lewiston

Facts versus opinions

A Sept. 10 letter to the editor headlined “Where are scare stories?” essentially stating that climate change is a hoax, has confused opinions with scientific facts. It read, “Global warming scare stories were the next tactic to keep people in fear.” It goes on to state, “Climate change replaced the previous hoaxes.”

The letter also mentions The Washington Free Beacon reporting The Associated Press is funded by dozens of left-wing foundations which result in articles that report only the “apocalyptic nature of climate change.” It fails to mention The Washington Free Beacon is an American conservative political website funded by Paul Singer, a billionaire, conservative hedge-fund manager. It is also very anti-President Joe Biden.

The question of whether or not climate change is a left-wing hoax is answered by the report “WMO Provisional State of the Global Climate 2022,” by a nonpartisan group, the World Meteorological Organization.

Four important highlights are mentioned in the report:

1. “Concentrations of the three main greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — reached record highs in 2021. The annual increase in methane concentration was the highest on record.”

2. “Global mean temperature in 2022 is currently estimated to be 1.15 (+ or-) .13 OC above the 1850-1900 average.”

3. “Sea level continued to rise in 2022, reaching a new record high.”

4. “The Greenland Ice Sheet ended with a negative total mass balance for the 26th year in a row.”

I fear for future generations. There is nothing positive in this report.

Tom Fellows

Lewiston

Cataclysmic changes?

Can anyone name a time when the Earth was not undergoing cataclysmic changes?

Jan Lombard

Lewiston