Opinion

Every community has people who quietly become part of the reason things work. These individuals organize fundraisers without being asked, check on neighbors going through difficult times, support local businesses, volunteer at events, mentor younger employees and somehow continue finding ways to give back even when their own schedules are already full.

COLUMBIA – “In Flanders fields the poppies blow / Between the crosses, row on row .... ” So begins “In Flanders Fields,” written in 1915 by John McCrae, a Canadian poet and military physician.

It doesn’t take long after a school cancellation for the comments to start rolling in. This time, it was a forecast calling for a potentially severe storm system, with enough concern about high winds and threat of tornadoes that schools across the area opted for early dismissal.

BETA TAU MEMBER Vickie Brown (left) is presented the Key Woman Educator recognition by Jana Siefkas of the Delta Kappa Gamma State Personnel Committee during the state conference..

There is something humbling about realizing you have officially become the person you used to quietly judge. For years, I was proud of the fact I had never watched Game of Thrones.

Turning 30 was expected to be a clear milestone, but it felt more like a checkpoint, raising more questions than it answered. For years, birthdays had never carried much weight.

There are museum exhibits meant to inform and museum exhibits meant to matter. The new Vietnam War exhibit, “Not Forgotten”, at the Excelsior Springs Museum belongs firmly in the second category. This is not a display you breeze past. It is detailed, immersive and deeply human. It asks visitors to slow down, read carefully, reflect and sit with a period of history that was complicated, emotional and often painful. Most importantly, it refuses to reduce the Vietnam War or the people who lived through it to a single narrative. Instead, the exhibit does what history should always do: it tells the whole story.