Letters to the Editor

Bennie Beach touched many

I was one of the many people who was touched by Bennie’s life. In fact, he was one of the key people who inspired me to pursue the degree that I am currently working on. Bennie was a good man who stood by his principles and was a straight shooter. At the same time, he always had a good word, advice or story to tell.

He will be missed greatly. When I attended his wake and funeral, the sheer number of people present to pay their respects to our mutual friend told me that I was one of the hundreds of people in Bowling Green alone that Bennie had touched during his time. Bennie was a testament to a life well-lived. I am not presumptuous enough to say what Bennie would have wanted, but I can relate the lesson that I take from the life of a man who seems to have spent his time so wisely in a positive and significant way. Bennie’s example taught me that life should be lived. We should take the time to mourn him, but we should also realize how important it is to take his example to heart and make life worth living and live to the point of tears! If we make the effort, and are lucky, we will all be able to look back on our lives and see them full of great memories, stories and friendships. Then, if we’re witty enough, and sincere enough, we’ll be able to tell stories to our friends as great as the stories that Bennie was known for. When it’s all said and done, the sun still rises in the east, and there is still life to be lived and not one of us can afford to waste a second of it! So, I want to say farewell to Bennie Beach Jr. He was a good man and a good friend, and I, like many of us, am better for having known him.

Shaun Ketterman

Nashville graduate student

SGA should do own evaluations

The recent effort by some in the Student Government Association to look at faculty evaluations is both interesting and redundant. Interesting because of the timing, coming as it does, at the same time as the plus/minus debate. Redundant, because the SGA already has the right to draw up and distribute its own end-of-semester evaluations. Interestingly, they’ve never bothered to do this. Apparently it hasn’t been all that important of an issue until now. So, why not exercise a right you already have instead of trying to see confidential personnel files? What’s next, making student grades public?

Moreover, why would students want to see questions that, one, are not that indicative of what many students really want to know (i.e. should they avoid certain professors), and two, aren’t all that informative anyway? Why not simply use the mechanisms in place, create your own questions and distribute them with the administrative evaluations? What does the SGA expect to gain from the administration that it can not already get with a bit of effort on its own?

Andrew McMichael

History professor