Needless waste of childrens' lives

Kellogg and the Silver Valley has something in common with Plains.

Five years ago this summer, Plains lost Stephen “Bubba” Ash in a senseless drug-related killing. Last week Kellogg lost two kids, gunned down and left in the woods in more dope-inspired insanity.

In the Kellogg case, a huckleberry picker found the bodies. A few days later, the alleged killer turned himself in. Ty Hampton, a reporter for the Shoshone News-Press in Kellogg, told me what he saw as the gunman was read his rights and formally told of the charges against him. He didn’t see a drug-crazed loon. He saw a raccoon-eyed lad in shock at what he’d allegedly done and what he’ll be facing for many, many years. The photo Ty took makes the killer look like Lucifer. The reality, he said, is a scared kid.

The reality is that the Silver Valley saw the face of evil last week just as Plains did five years ago. Teenagers dying in drug-soaked gunshots happens in big cities. It happens in movies. It shouldn’t happen in our small towns. But it does. The face of evil doesn’t go away. It may go over the mountains into the next town. And then it reappears, and more families are devastated.

The face of evil affects all of us. We know the victims, we know the killers, we know the families, we know the cops. The gunshots reverberate around our small-town sense of community and we’re all a little less secure.

As I write this I’m looking out the office window at a sunny summer afternoon. Stephen Ash has missed five summers, five Christmases, five years of a young life. Two more young people — a couple who had a nine-month-old son — have joined Stephen. It’s wrong.

It’s the face of evil, a face made of white powder and of scared kids. Of dead kids. They made bad choices, true. But they’re still just kids. Your kids? My kids? The neighbor’s kids?

What do we do? Hug your kids and grandkids and steer them along a good path. Call the cops when you suspect druggies dealing their death. Elect tough prosecutors.

And if you, personally, are looking at the powdery face of evil make a different choice. It isn’t easy. It’s a phone call away. The alternative is lying in a huckleberry patch up in the woods somewhere.