In last week’s issue of The Lake Orion Review we were treated to the annual Lake Orion High School Graduation insert. It is an opportunity to scan graduation pictures of offspring and friends. In addition to the formal pictures there are pictures of various students at the commencement ceremony all of course with hearty smiles.
Many of the merchants and companies in the community also took the opportunity to congratulate the seniors with ads and phrases such as, “A new beginning”, “A world of well wishes”, “The sky’s the limit”, and my favorite from a local eye care center: “These students are so bright, they gotta wear shades”. Three of the pizzerias in the area also got in on the congrats with colorful ads.
What caught my eye though was a full page color ad from Orion Township with the caption, “From our TEAM to yours – Best of Luck!” Now on the surface that seems like a commendable way to honor the grads but in further review one notices that it is nothing more than a political ad. Some in the ad have the designation of “Trustee” or “Supervisor” before their name but two in the picture have “for Township Clerk” and “for Treasurer” after their name. Now I don’t know about you but if you utilize abductive reasoning and conclude that “if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck”. In this instance, this was an unabashed political ad and therefore it is a duck.
There are places and times for political ads and heaven knows we will be fed with such ad nauseam but this was not the place nor the time for a political ad in a high school graduation insert. Any denials would certainly be a challenge to our intelligence because at the bottom of the ad are these revealing letters: “CTE” which stands for “Citizens To Elect”. Can you hear the quacking?
The ad also raises the question of who are actually on the team because two current employees are interestingly missing, namely Mark Thurber and Penny Shults. Guess they didn’t make the team cut. In sports jargon, maybe they were traded for “players to be named at a later date”.
Now my intention is not to besmirch anyone running for office. Heck, I worked for Governor Engler for ten years and know a little bit about politics. I also know that at times running a political campaign and continuing to maintain an elected position in the State or County or Township can be an arduous balancing act – one is not supposed to juxtapose one on the other. So let’s give the Township so-called “team” the benefit of the doubt and conclude, as is said in baseball when a pitcher throws a bad pitch resulting in an adverse outcome, the “team” here might want to have this pitch back. In this case, I’m sure the intentions were good and honorable and admirable but the delivery was subject to debate. Five of our grandchildren have either graduated from high school and college and nowhere in the materials was there a political ad.
As mentioned there were three pizzerias who congratulated the seniors but in my own warped sense of humor on the issue, the Orion Township ad was the cheesiest. Quack quack
Bill Kalmar
Lake Orion resident