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Inside Arden Hills, MN . 55112-5734 ECR-WSS PRST STD U.S. Postage Paid Twin Cities, MN Permit #1962 Postal Customer From the City Council City Council candidate filing info Sewer & water protection Q & A Upcoming City events Lawn mowing tips A Word to the Class of 2018. A picture, actually. After all, they say a picture is worth a thousand words. A little over 50 years ago as 1968 began, I was halfway through my junior year in high school. It was perhaps one of the most violent and divisive periods of my lifetime. My wife Eileen and I recently visited the 1968 exhibit at the Minnesota History Center in Saint Paul, which brought back many of those memories. It marked the heaviest and bloodiest fighting of the Vietnam War, resulting in public opinion turning sharply negative. Widespread anti-war protests, some violent, sprang up on college campuses and spilled out into our streets. President Johnson shocked the country by announcing he would not seek, nor accept, a second term as U.S. president despite his signature Great Society initiatives advancing civil rights, voting rights, the establishment of Medicare/ Medicaid and the war on poverty. Noted civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., who had devoted his work encouraging non-violent protest, was assassinated in Memphis. U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy (NY), brother of slain President John F. Kennedy and a leading prospect to become president, was assas- sinated soon after in Los Angeles. The Democratic National Convention in Chicago was marred by massive protests, riots and arson fires. It was a long, hot summer. By contrast, Christmas of 1968 ended the year with a global message of peace and optimism. The Apollo 8 astronauts had rocketed into deep space days earlier to become the first humans to venture beyond low Earth orbit. Command Module Pilot Jim Lovell took this infamous Earthrise photo from lunar orbit while Commander Frank Borman read an excerpt from The Book of Genesis during his Christmas Eve broadcast to hundreds of millions of listeners back on Earth. The Earthrise photo is proclaimed as one of the most historically significant photographs ever taken and led to the birth of the environmental movement. It serves to remind us we occupy a very small, delicate and yet perhaps the most beautiful object in our known universe. Its fate will be up to you, the leaders of tomorrow. My generation was perhaps not the best stewards of this lovely planet. Sure, we’ve tried and made some progress, but 50 years later are still bitterly locked in debate over not only how we should treat the environment, but each other. Congratulations to the graduates of Irondale, Mounds View, Roseville, Bethel, Northwestern and the dozens of private schools, vocational schools and alternative schools. Yours Truly, Steve Scott City Councilmember