Timmons Tinkers With This, That & ‘Tuther

Did you see the news that Purdue top man Mitch Daniels is stepping down?

Let me take a second to make something perfectly clear – I’m a big fan of our former governor. His book, Keeping the Republic: Saving America by Trusting Americans, came out a decade or so ago and was brilliant. His take on the state of politics, our national debt and several other topics couldn’t have been more right.

In addition, Daniels is a stand up guy who calls it like he sees it.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying that I am hoping he’s leaving Purdue and considering a run for the White House. You may recall that he was wooed once before and decided against it for family reasons. Here’s one guy at least hoping that those family reasons have changed for the better and this is a possibility.

And remember, he’s also got Washington experience. He was the director of the Office of Management and Budget under George W. Bush and the White House Director of Political and Intergovernmental Affairs under Ronald Reagan. He’s 73 and as the 12th president of Purdue University, led the land grant school to unprecedented successes.

For the eight or nine of you who read these ramblings, it’s no secret I think this country is on a bad path, or as my pal John Hammer says, we’re fixing to come up a bad cloud. Daniels is one of the very few guys, I think, who could pull all sides back together to at least some degree – and more importantly, get us on a much better path.

Fingers crossed.

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CONGRATS to Gina Haile, the director of the local United Way office. You may have seen in your favorite Montgomery County daily that she won our first-ever Scavenger Hunt. She also continues to do a great job on turning around what was almost a sunken ship. Thanks to her and some great volunteer help from Nancy Sennett, Kathy Steele, Michele Hunley and others, things are finally going in a better direction. That truly is good news for the many, many youth and adults who are helped by the United Way.

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NOT BEING a social media frequenter has many advantages, but a few disadvantages, too. For example, I recently heard what is now old news. Rick Holtz, one of our former staffers, apparently has moved to another state to take a new job. Congrats to Rick and his family and all the best to them!

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A GUEST column in a recent Sunday edition caught some notice. Kirk Puckett is a former police officer, college professor and public school official. He wrote of a different time in this country, a time when right was right, wrong was wrong and it was pretty easy to figure out which was which. We’ve received several comments from readers that Puckett was right on target. We agree!

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SPEAKING OF attention, our new “Who’s Hiring” feature is drawing a good bit of it as well. In an effort to help businesses find employees – often said to be the biggest single problem they face – we thought we would create something that would stick out. Of course, that’s the key to advertising. We’re just pleased it’s getting a lot of attention. (And hoping some of you might notice our two help wanted ads in there, too!)

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ON THE OFF chance that there might be a few others beyond the eight or nine of you who regularly read my ramblings, you might wonder what ‘tuther is. Well, to be fair, I’m not exactly sure. My old and best boss ever, Gaildene Hamilton, used to use it in several different contexts. Sometimes it was ‘tuther there. Or she might say, come ‘tuther instead of hither. Mostly it was a replacement for other. Dunno. But I wouldn’t be here today if not for her, so it’s now another way to remember and say thanks.

Two cents, which is about how much Timmons said his columns are worth, appears periodically on Wednesdays in The Paper. Timmons is the publisher of The Paper and can be contacted at [email protected].