Value of the arts, history exceeds $$$

I confess I have a strong feeling for the arts and history.

I can't remember a time when I didn't find myself involved in participating or being a spectator at artistic events or historical commemorations.

Reading with rapture the printed word, marveling at someone's artistry in creating sculpture or a painting, listening to music of all kinds, watching movies and plays, or learning about our past and those who came before us, I find an emotional connection.

Not everyone feels that way.

Even so, enough of us are often moved by these experiences to support the many and varied expressions of the arts and our past.

That support comes easy when financial times are good, we have a job, we can pay our bills, we're in good health. It becomes more difficult when our circumstances force us to weigh our priorities.

With our state, region, and the area always grappling with business and plant closings, unemployment, higher gas and natural energy prices, funding for the arts often hangs on the sentiment of the moment.

Priorities are reshaped based on the role that each of us believes that government should play. Nationally, debates over priorities take place in our schools regularly regarding funding for art and music and the teachers needed for those programs.

Schools weigh these decisions, along with countless others that impact what kind of offerings our children will be exposed to during the course of the school day.

Fortunately, we have strong support for our fine arts programs in our schools.

Additionally, our area also has some unique opportunities with music, plays, history and art exhibits available at Cottey College, the Bushwhacker Museum, the library and our local schools and churches, as well as the arts council, genealogical and historical societies, to mention just a few.

Our community members, our students through the band, choir, drama, debate, and speech competitions, and the Dancing with Our Stars, all get a chance to show off their talents.

The Daily Mail, through its coverage and support of these events, remains committed to the arts, our history and to the community in the belief that we must nurture and foster the expression of these forms of communication and recreation.

Doing so provides an outlet for each of us to escape the challenges we face in our daily lives and enjoy the communal sharing of expression in its many forms -- thought, word, picture, song and act.

It's doubtful that any of us would be what we are without exposure to and an acknowledgment of that greater sense of ourselves that comes often only in these art and history forms.

The fact that we can create such expression and touch others with that expression is what I believe is a factor in realizing our potential as a civilization.

In our rush to fund what we must have, let's not forget that an appreciation for and support of the arts and our past should always be on that same list of must haves. It's particularly relevant as we attend our children's school play, listen to a performance, or view an art or history exhibit.