OPINION

from The Mesa Tribune - Zone 1 - 8.1.2021

by Times Media Group

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TheMesaTribune.com | @EVTNow /EVTNow

At EVIT, our mission is changing lives

The erosion of trust threatens all of us

BY DR. CHAD WILSON Tribune Guest Writer

As the East Valley Institute of Technology opens for the 2021-22 school year, we mark an important milestone: Our 30th anniversary.

For three decades, EVIT has changed the lives of students by helping them �ind their passion and a path to a career they love.

Much has changed over the years from that �irst class of 700 students to now close to 5,000 students from all over the East Valley. EVIT has grown from having one central campus to having two central campuses in Mesa and a branch campus at Apache Junction High School.

What started out as a handful of programs for high school students has grown to over 40 career training options for adults as well as teenagers.

We have former Veterinary Assistant students who are now veterinarians, former students who are earning over six �igures in industries like aviation or who now own and operate their own businesses, Fire Science alumni who are currently battling wild �ires in Arizona and the western United States, Early Childhood Education alumni who are now teachers, and countless others who got their career start at EVIT.

As much as we have changed and grown – more change is on the way. We know we can do more and more importantly, that we can do better. It starts with a simple and yet complex verb: love.

We have made it our mission at EVIT to change lives by loving our students and serving our community. That means we will strive to provide the same care and advantages for all students as we would want for our own children.

We will provide the communities in the EVIT Career Technical Education District the same quality opportunities that we want for ourselves and our own families.

We believe we do a good job, but we want to do a great job. To get us there, we are focused on restructuring our organization to better serve high school and adult students, improving staff and student retention, and improving outcomes for every student.

Physical changes are under way too. Construction on a new aviation building, including a plane hangar, will be completed at our rapidly growing Power Campus in the southeast Valley by January.

Also at the Power Campus, expansion of our Veterinary Sciences and Engineering programs and renovations to our Health Sciences and Cosmetology programs will be completed by August 2022. A third building expansion at the Power Campus is expected to begin by the 2022-23 school year.

And renovations to the 65-acre Main Campus near downtown Mesa are scheduled to begin this year with completion by 2022-23.

As part of our efforts to change and grow for the better, we also want to listen more to our students and parents and taxpayers. We want to make sure that the EVIT we expect ourselves to be is the EVIT they expect us to be. To that end, I would encourage anyone to reach out to me at cwilson@evit.com with any suggestions or concerns as we prepare EVIT to change lives by loving our students and serving our communities for the next 30 years.

Dr. Chad Wilson is the superintendent of the East Valley Institute of

Technology. ■

BY DAVID LEIBOWITZ

Tribune Columnist

A1972 poll named television anchor Walter Cronkite “the most trusted man in America.” The designation stuck until Cronkite passed away in 2009, and was featured prominently in his many obituaries.

Given that Cronkite retired from CBS when I was 15, I can’t say he was my North Star. But of this much I’m certain: If Cronkite had the misfortune of being an anchorman in 2021, his trust scores would rank down there with congressmen, priests and used car salesmen. I can say this with certainty because nowadays no one trusts anyone.

Which is a damn shame.

When I was a kid, Dr. Goldberg was our family physician. He made house calls toting his enormous black valise, and he dispensed prescriptions and wisdom, neither of which we questioned. If Dr. Goldberg said get a vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella, we got a shot. If he said give your son Naldecon four times a day for a cough, that’s what my mom did – because Goldberg was a doctor, he had parchment diplomas on the wall and we trusted him.

Now? Half of America could be bleeding out on the sidewalk and they’d insist on knowing who the paramedics voted for in 2020 before accepting life-saving medical treatment.

Get a COVID-19 vaccine because a dozen scienti�ic studies say they work? Ha! Wear a mask because the Delta variant is undoing our progress �ighting the pandemic? What are you, some kind of sheep who listens to scientists?

Actually, I am a sheep like that, as are most Americans. Gallup does an annual poll of trust in American institutions. This year for the �irst time they asked respondents how much they trust science.

Nearly two-thirds of respondents – 64 percent – reported having “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of trust in science. Another 24 percent had some trust. Only 12 percent had “very little” trust or “none at all.”

Only two institutions were deemed more trustworthy than science: Small business at 70 percent and the military at 69 percent.

The big losers? Congress, with only 12 percent of those polled claiming signi�icant trust in that clownish body. Meanwhile, TV news – sorry Uncle Walter – was trusted by 16 percent of respondents. “Big Business” also had the trust of 16 percent of those polled.

Surprisingly, 51 percent of Americans say they have a great deal or quite a lot of trust in the police, even after the vicious onslaught directed at cops over the past few years. That’s down a dozen points in the last 15 years, but it’s still more trust we have in the Presidency (38 percent), public schools (32 percent) and newspapers (21 percent).

This erosion of trust plays a role in dividing us and rendering communities unable to solve problems large or small. The city that doesn’t trust its leaders, schools and people of faith is a city that struggles to solve its problems and to prevent those problems from recurring.

The individual who doesn’t trust a doctor, schoolteacher, minister, anchorman, CEO or Senator is someone with few ways to calculate what’s true, what works, what’s dangerous and what to avoid.

Back in the day, Walter Cronkite ended each nightly newscast with his signature line: “And that’s the way it is.” Cronkite could say that, and it drew no laughter, because people trusted him. Today? The way it is has little to do with actual facts and everything to do with who’s saying it, who’s listening and who else is saying the exact opposite.

Trust me when I tell you, a country that trusts no one is one that eventually loses everyone. ■

THE MESA TRIBUNE | AUGUST 1. 2021

Wyoming was blessed with late Sen. Enzi

BY JD HAYWORTH Tribune Columnist

Mike Enzi was never too big for his britches, nor too small for his shoes. Instead, he was just the right �it for the people of Wyoming, whom he served in the U. S. Senate for nearly a quarter of a century.

Enzi, who died July 26 at age 77 from injuries sustained in a bicycle accident, was not your typical senator. He didn’t seek out celebrated columnists to offer the lofty comments of the self-important, nor make himself “must-see TV” on the networks’ Sunday news shows.

And, unlike so many of his colleagues, he didn’t look in the mirror and see a future president.

His path to the “World’s Most Exclusive Club” was not paved by wealth, and certainly not by a famous last name.

Mike was an Eagle Scout, and he took seriously the scout motto: Be Prepared.

That’s why his initial time in Washington came not as a senator, but as a student. Enzi earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from George Washington University in 1966, 30 years before he was elected to the Senate. He followed that with an MBA from the University of Denver, where he concentrated in retail marketing.

Then, it was back to Wyoming for Enzi, who put the marketing he had learned to good use by courting and winning the hand of the former Diana Buckley in 1969. That same year, the retail component of his education came to the fore as he expanded the small business started by his dad.

Mike and Diana opened NZ Shoes in the central Wyoming town of Gillette and eventually opened two more stores.

For both the Enzi Family and the place they called home, one word described the 1970s: growth. Mike and Diane welcomed two daughters and a son while Gillette doubled in population.

Mike’s transition into politics was prompted by Sen. Alan Simpson, the man he would one day succeed in Washington. After hearing Enzi deliver a speech on community leadership at the Wyoming Jaycees Convention, Simpson told Mike, “That town you live in, Gillette, needs a mayor.”

Mike mounted a mayoral campaign, winning the of�ice in 1974 at age 29.

After eight years as mayor, Mike took a break from public life to concentrate on family and business. He returned to politics in the late ’80’s, representing Gillette and Campbell County in the legislature.

Simpson retired from the U.S. Senate in 1996; Enzi succeeded him.

The people of Wyoming liked Mike, as they returned him to the Senate in three subsequent elections.

As a legislator, he discovered that about 20 percent of issues were so partisan that no legislative remedy could be found. But that left 80 percent of the issues that could be eventually remedied.

A problem solver at heart, Enzi was at �irst surprised, then grati�ied by the casework he and his staff performed for constituents. “I went to legislate, and then I found out that probably our most important work is casework, where people are having a problem with the federal government. Often it can be solved, because there’s not a lot of common sense in the federal government,” he said.

The Good Lord blessed Mike Enzi with common sense in uncommon quantities. Wyoming was blessed to have a shoe salesman-turned-senator. ■