RV’s important article on the editorial page on Jan. 11 is well worth our attention, because it displays the Butler Eagle’s long-standing role in the guardianship of the county’s community values.

The message is clear and does not need rehashing, only repeated reading for today and tomorrow.

One simple and eloquent phrase in particular stood out for me: “remember the basic lessons you were taught growing up here.”

Butler has been around a long time, enduring through thick and thin, but always enduring.

Growing up here has been and must continue to be filled with the basic lessons of social respect and responsibility.

We are struggling to move beyond multiple forms of human pandemics toward our ideals of health, prosperity, diversity, plurality, equality, civility, liberty and justice for all.

Despite extremely hard financial and critical times for newspapers, the Butler Eagle has endured with, and for, the local community.

Historically, but especially in these immediate and trying times, the Eagle emphasizes community over divisiveness, and shines a light on what we often too easily dismiss as lofty ideals and values by quality reporting on everyday life in Butler.

The Eagle’s existence and endurance should be our daily reminder that, through our present thick and thin, Butler must build on the lessons it has grown up with.

Despite denials of the extremes, we are all in this together.

You can read about it in the Eagle: the Butler Eagle.

Dave McKinnis, Butler