Sunday, February 17, 2008

America Laughs at Texas Leadership

The New York Times ran an article on the front page, Wed. Feb. 13, 2008, "Alice Journal: Tale of Dead Texas Dog Bites Mayor Who Told It," by Ralph Blumenthal. The article describes how Mayor Grace Saenz-Lopez was accused of stealing a neighbor's dog, then lying about it.

It's a pretty sad story. The author also reminded America that Alice, Texas, stuffed Ballot Box 13 long ago to help LBJ win a primary election. I remember seeing a documentary that described how LBJ cheated his way into politics. The documentary showed a photo of LBJ with buddies posing with the famous ballot box, grinning broadly.

The New York Times is read widely across America. It is probably read world-wide, and Texas was made a laughing stock on the front page because of poor leadership in Alice, Texas.

Texas needs better leaders. We cannot drive to Alice, Texas, and teach them how to develop better leaders. We can, however, develop good leaders here in Plano. We can describe a program for developing leadership in our schools that other communities can copy.

Texas needs better leaders, and we ought to develop those leaders here in Plano schools.

Robert

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