The community — make that the nation — will spend today remembering the 161 lives lost in the most destructive tornado in modern-day record keeping.
Some will walk through the tornado’s path, perhaps mentally reliving past horrors, and then putting old feelings aside.
Others will look to the future, attending groundbreaking ceremonies for schools and businesses. Both of Joplin’s hospitals will remember the valiant efforts of their doctors and nurses and staff in the hours, days and months after an EF-5 tornado hit Joplin.
Heroes, young and old, will be heralded all across our town.
Those who live outside our community will be watching the newscasts and the websites as they follow, and remembering with us.
But at the end of May 22 — one year later — we know that our town is ready to move forward.
We’ve spent the year moving mountains of debris, establishing funds for long-term recovery, holding meetings to get the public’s vision of what tomorrow holds. We have a blueprint. We have the tools and we have the urgency.
There are families living in trailers who need help getting into homes. There are neighborhoods to plan, parks to rebuild and memorials to create that will pay tribute to all.
It is right and appropriate that we have spent the last year honoring those who lost their lives and their homes. But we all agree that we now need to focus on actions that will help all of us move forward.
The hard work still remains.
Let’s look ahead to the vision of a new Joplin, but let’s never forget those things we lost.
Opinion
Related Photos
-
inourview.jpg
Discussion
Our View: Remembering and moving on
- Opinion
-
-
Our View: Spying on us
Distrust of government secrecy has been elevated to an exceptional level with the disclosure the Justice Department covertly examined two months of Associated Press phone records to determine who leaked details to the AP about a foiled terrorist plot.
-
Our View: Pass on the legacy
Forty hungry members of the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry began gathering corn at the Rader farm near the village of Sherwood when they were ambushed by a guerrilla band of about 70 Southern sympathizers.
-
Our View: Big Brother looms large
The federal government, working under the cloak of secrecy, has been having a heyday at the expense of all Americans.
-
Our View: Disgraceful military assault
We want to make one thing clear: A sexual assault is not a sex scandal. Nor can the rise in sexual assaults in the military be justified in any way.
-
Elliott Denniston, guest columnist: Right-to-work laws only hurt workers
Middle-class workers have been fighting an uphill battle for the past 30 years.
-
Your View: Food drive efforts
Branch No. 366 of the National Association of Letter Carriers along with the National Rural Letter Carriers Association, the American Postal Workers Union and the U.S. Postal Service would like to thank all the area communities that participated in the 2013 Stamp Out Hunger food drive.
-
Your View: More about tax credit
The Globe’s editorial in “Our View” (May 10) may have left readers with a few inaccurate impressions.
-
Other Views: Sickening disparity
Don’t feel bad if you don’t understand the wide, sometimes huge, discrepancies in fees hospitals charge for the same procedure. Or if you don’t understand the arithmetical magic the hospitals use to arrive at those fees.
-
Carol Stark: America in need of more 'momisms'
Several years ago, I attended a writing workshop where one of the sessions was called “Tell it to Mom.”
-
Our View: Keep learning
Donna Maus, a biology teacher from St. Mary’s Colgan High School in Pittsburg, Kan., told a group of top students, their parents and their teachers something we think everyone needs to hear.
- More Opinion Headlines
-
Probe Begins After Conn. Commuter Trains Crash
NTSB Begins Investigation Into Conn. Train Crash
Lotto Fever Sweeps the Country
Conn. Commuter Trains Collide; 60 Go to Hospital
Coffee Run Leads to Hatchet Hitchhiker Arrest
Fmr. IRS Head Insists No Politics in Targeting
CDC: Fecal Bacteria Common in Swimming Pools
$1 Million in Jewels Stolen at Cannes Film Fest
NM Mom Chases Down Child Abductor
Raw: Crash Sends Car Into Fla. Pool
Raw: Obama Sits Down With Elementary Kids
Raw: Bear Falls From Tampa Tree
Ousted IRS Chief: Errors Not Caused by Politics
Terror Suspect Due in Court in Idaho Friday
Raw: Driver Ejected From Truck, Over Bridge
Could Tobacco Be the Next Biofuel?
Wash. State Releases Draft Rules for Legal Pot
Dying Man's Blinks Lead to Murder Conviction
Officials: Texas Tornado Likely Had 200 Mph Wind
Brothers Arrested in NOLA Parade Shooting
