This letter is to applaud a job well done.

Ninth Street has been disrupted for several weeks due to work on the water lines. Traffic and parking have been difficult. Today (with notice, thank you) our water was turned off for the 700 block of Ninth Street.

As a busy hair salon; this was a challenge. We brought containers; my wonderful husband Doug drained the hot water tank ;William bought liter bottles of water and we filled many lovely containers. Our customers getting only haircuts shampooed their hair ahead of time. Teamwork-teamwork-teamwork.

I have never been prouder of the Wavelengths staff. I did not hear one complaint – and some of the containers were heavy and mixing hot and cold was tricky. The floor was slippery because of all we spilled. We pretended we were camping and Amira (a Kenya native) said she thought she was back home. Hazel Ryan felt transported back to the Ukraine where they only turn on the untreated water for one hour a day.

So we all learned to appreciate the clean flowing water and I saw some mighty fine folks step up to the plate, take responsibility and do a great job. Thank you Brittany Rich, Brenda Clayton, William McBroom, Amira Chappel, Hannah Nicholson, Kanha Johnson and Brianna Holbert and to all our customers who smiled through it.

Sherry Clayton Stanley

Wavelengths

The Russians are coming

The Kostroma Committee of Sister Cities of Durham is excited to announce the visit of three Russian delegates from Kostroma, Russia, to Durham from Oct. 19-27.

While in Durham, the delegates will meet with, among others, the staff of KidZNotes, the Nasher Museum at Duke University, Mallarme, Durham School of the Arts, and the HAND program at Duke Hospital. They will visit the NCCU Art Museum and Golden Belt. They will also tour Duke Chapel and historic sites and major attractions in Durham and sample various kinds of regional cuisine

The delegates are Nadija Viktorovna Bitkolova, Exhibition Manager, Kostroma City Art Gallery; Pavel Yakovlevich Gershtyn, artistic and music director, Kostroma City Symphony Orchestra; and Tatiana Vladimirovna Repina, director/deputy director/music teacher, Music School for Children No. 9, Kostroma City.

Homestays with local residents will allow the delegates to experience American family life. One evening will be given to a performance by the North Carolina Symphony and another afternoon to a performance by the Durham Choral Society Chamber choir, the Ciompi Quartet and pianist Randall Love of works by local composers. They will also enjoy a personal tour of the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh.

The Kostroma Committee of Sister Cities of Durham, is hosting the delegation for Open World. Managed by the independent Open World Leadership Center at the Library of Congress, Open World enables emerging Eurasian political and civic leaders to work with their U.S. counterparts and experience American-style democracy and culture at the local level.

More than 12,000 Open World participants have been hosted in all 50 U.S. states since the program’s inception in 1999. Delegates range from members of parliament to mayors, from innovative nonprofit directors to experienced journalists, and from political party activists to regional administrators.

Anne Berkley

Sister Cities of Durham

High school art contest

Durham high schoolers in public and private schools and homeschoolers are invited to enter art work in the Durham Woman’s Club’s annual Arts Festival set for Nov. 14.

First-place winners receive cash prizes and will continue on to the District VI Arts Festival in Raleigh in February. Best in Show will win a $100 gift certificate.

The categories open this year are jewelry, black and white photography, water colors, pen and ink, graphite pencil, charcoal and mixed media. Art work needs to available Monday, Nov. 12, for pick up. Judging will take place Nov. 14 at the Hill House.

All Durham Public School and many private school art teachers have received information about this art competition. Intent to enter the competition needs to be made by Nov. 1.

For more information, students can talk with their art teachers or contact Art Committee Chair Dona Koeberl at dkoeberl@frontier.com.

Lynn Odom

Durham

Partisan politicking

Barry Saunders’ column (“Affordable healthcare transcends politics,” N&O, Sept. 30, bit.ly/TfOQ9A) misses the mark in so many ways.

Contrary to Saunders’ statements, the GOP’s concern is that Lincoln Community Health Center, a public health center, supported by our tax dollars, was improperly used to help promote the Obama campaign. Public facilities should not be used to support partisan campaigns.

The “Health Fair” by the Obama group, Doctors for America, was held at midday on a workday to create a news event for the campaign.

Saunders claims that Doctors for America is not an Obama campaign front. But it was founded by exactly the same three individuals who created Doctors for Obama for the 2008 campaign.

Even if Mr. Saunders cannot understand, it was shameful to use our tax dollars for this partisan event, especially at a Community Health Clinic. Have the Democrats no shame??

Daniel Cote

Vice chairman

Durham County Republican Party

Lesson for Romney

Mitt Romney says that corporations are people and therefore can contribute without limits to political campaigns. I am subsequently incredulous, reading in the N&O’s Sept. 26 campaign report, that for him teachers should not be allowed to contribute, too! I guess that in his mind teachers are not people. They most certainly must be part of that 47 percent fringe.

I am married to one, and I can tell Romney and his cronies that teachers care deeply about children, definitely more than corporations in general do, as is demonstrated notably by their insistence in selling obesity-inducing products even in schools. Yes teacher unions are also about protecting the interests of teachers, which happen to typically go hand in hand with the ones of children. As a matter of fact, the academically most achieving states are also the ones with teacher unions.

I wish this were a unionized state; we probably would not be 43rd in the nation then.

If Romney were not so bent on protecting, not the interests of children but rather those of billionaires like him and his friends, such hard facts would be obvious to a person of his presumed intelligence.

Jean-Christian Rostagni

Durham

Teaming up for charity

Servpro of South Durham and Orange County held the second annual “Golf and Give Tournament” at Croasdaile Country Club in Durham. This year’s event, held on Aug. 27, raised $12,000 in support of the recently expanded Ronald McDonald House of Durham.

With Mayor Bill Bell opening the day’s events, a full course of distinguished golf enthusiasts came out to support the organization which provides lodging, a warm meal and support each night for 55 families with seriously ill children.

Dana Richardson

Servpro of South Durham and Orange County

Lindsay Hege

Ronald McDonald House of Durham