Barbara Patton: Cronkite was true story of character

Front page news — “The most trusted man in America” Walter Cronkite!

Honorable, objective, evenhanded, honest, professional, used good judgment, valued accuracy and understated compassion. Wow – what a wonderful epitaph.

This is a story of character! This is a man who aimed to be fair but professional. “He condemned TV practices that put entertainment values ahead of news judgment,” as one reporter noted.

How much better for us to read about a man’s legacy with these qualities than to read about others who leave legacies of questionable lives! How much better for our young people to know about someone like Walter Cronkite.

Trust matters. Because of all we see and read about in many of our leaders and many of those who are front and center in government, business, athletics and entertainment, it must be time to go back to the basics. It must be time to recognize that it is important how we conduct ourselves at all times and to acknowledge that we cannot expect our young people to grow up to adhere to certain standards if they do not see it in us.

We need trusted leadership. We need the old fashioned “My word is my bond.” We need to do what we say we will do. We need to build a climate of trust in order to move on to other issues. It’s not all gloom and doom. We do have character in much of our leadership, but we need for it to be more pervasive.

There are stories of character right here! Stan Cox at the Opelika High School already has a packet of information on individuals of character that he has collected. Envision Opelika has had stories of character e-mailed to us. Mark Neighbors, Steve Carson, Brenda Ricketts and others are addressing having mentors for children that need role models in their lives. There are many examples of people that are working on the basics to instill character.

As a young person, I use to love to read biographies. I can still see that long shelf in the library that contained a row of orange books – all biographies – and I was inspired by people just like Cronkite. The books must have been hand selected because they were all individuals that you would want to strive to imitate.

The Opelika Character Council is striving to promote character in the lives of young people and is supporting the Opelika City Schools in its efforts to emphasize and make character an important part of everyday life. The character trait emphasis this month is courage. We have to have the courage to trust.

Thank you to the Opelika-Auburn News for putting the trait on the community page on Wednesdays. The News is just one of the entities working with us to bring more awareness to character and its importance. I hope you have seen the character trait of the month in many places. If you would like to be a part of this emphasis, please contact us for more information.

Barbara Patton is executive director of Envision Opelika and writes a column for the Opelika-Auburn News.