valley views Consider blank canvases I
have a confession to make: I love whiteboards. Even as a child, I was completely transfixed by the infinite possibilities they presented. I even remember asking my parents if I could cover all the walls of my room with whiteboards when I was around 11. Not surprisingly the answer was “no,” but my fixation has carried on to this day. However, in all these years, I hadn’t asked the question of where whiteboards came from until recently. In the 1950s, while working in a dark room, the photographer Martin Heit discovered that he could write on film negatives with a marker and then wipe it away. In a flash of inspiration, he realized that he could use something like this to take notes while conversing with to clients on the phone. An idea was birthed and Heit developed a board system that
utilized the same concept to be annoying. This inthat consumers could have convenience would evennext to their phones. After tually be solved by another filing a patent, he prepared inventor, Jerry Woolf, who to unveil his new invention worked for Techform at the ChiLaboratories. cago MerHe patented chandise the first-ever Mart. Tragmarker made ically, the exclusively for showcase whiteboards. where the Prior to this, new whitepeople just ben there boards were used common displayed magic markers DONE that burned on whiteBen Stone Media Production, Valley Journal down the boards. The night before new marker the planned unveiling. used a special non-toxic Martin was quite discourink formula that wouldn’t aged by this and subseabsorb into glossy surquently sold his patent to a faces. Because of this, small company that would the ink could be wiped eventually become “Driaway cleanly once it dried Mark.” without the need for moisWhiteboards became ture. The new “dry erase” available starting in the markers, as they came to early 1960s; however, early be known, also didn’t leave versions required a wet stubborn ink stains that cloth to erase. Today we would slowly dirty the refer to this method as shiny whiteboard. Solving “wet erase.” Requiring a this final problem allowed wet cloth on hand proved the whiteboard’s popular-
ity to take off starting in the 1980s. The whiteboard first gained popularity in the corporate world, seen as an icon of business creativity. The image of a bunch of executives in a board room brainstorming in front of a whiteboard covered in hastily scribbled marks became a fixture in our collective cultural lexicon. However, one more event would elevate the whiteboard to unprecedented levels of ubiquity. Starting in the late 1980s and increasing into the 1990s, more and more students in schools were beginning to suffer from environmental allergies. While the underlying cause of this shift is still unclear, one idea that gained popularity blamed chalk dust. Blackboards had been in systematic use in education and academia from the beginning of the 19th century. Suspicion arose that the dust from
blackboards was causing a concerning rise in allergy-suffering students. We now know that the dust can be irritating to the respiratory system, like any other fine air-borne particulate; however, chalk dust was not to blame for pupils’ allergy issues. The whiteboard emerged as the white knight solution to this perceived problem. Forward thinking and concerned school districts began to systematically replace blackboards with white ones. This trend continued until now, where most students will never experience the sound of chalk moving across the board. How amazing to remember all that has transpired to showcase the humble whiteboard: understated, simple, and to a degree, unremarkable. Yet, imagine all the world... creative inspiration, or problems solved by people utilizing a whiteboard.
It is generally accepted common as an old shoe” that Mike Mansfield was as the saying goes. When Montana’s greatest stateshe passed in 2001, national man. In my newspaper columnist David younger years I had two wonBroder wrote Bob Brown that we had derful opporFormer MT Secretary of State tunities to have and State Senate President just lost the extended congreatest living American. versations with Mansfield. He was “as That’s true I think, not
because “Mike” as he preferred to be called, was a power broker, or strongarm dealmaker like some of his more prominent contemporaries. It was because he was totally genuine. His constituents and his colleagues all knew they could totally trust him. They knew he was
simply incapable of placing his personal political interests above what he believed was the public interest. In keeping with that attitude, Mansfield was for gun control. The murders of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Kennedys doubt-
Let's discuss Mansfield, guns, statesmanship I
think the difference between a politician and a statesman is that the people believe a statesman will do what he or she believes is the right thing regardless of the political consequences. When it gets down to it, a statesman would rather be right than reelected. 10 - July 6, 2022
Valley Views
Valley Journal
see page11
There is something so poetic about this dichotomy, something to consider when you see a whiteboard. The next time you lay eyes on one, you can appreciate how these blank canvases became an integral part of our modern world.
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