EDITOR’S DESK: History in our future

       Those who don't know history are doomed to... yeah, yeah, we all know that one.
       But does it make young people want to study history? Maybe in a cod liver oil sort of way. When I was a kid, the only history that mattered to me was the previous day's baseball statistics. Only later in life, when I discovered good writers who could show how the past meets the present - people like Victor Hanson, Dinesh D'Souza or our own Dave Hughes - did anything like an interest in history kick in.
       I think it would be fun to be a kid now on the Westside, with the Old Colorado City History Center near at hand. Especially with what the Historical Society has cooked up for this year's Founders' Day Saturday, Aug. 13. Discussions among volunteers in recent months have occasionally touched on the dearth of young people coming to the center. Judging by the events they've scheduled Saturday, they took those concerns to heart. At the top of the list is the contest to design a model of Bancroft Park's Garvin Cabin. What a neat idea! With a chance for cash prizes (OK, call it a bribe), this contest is probably stimulating several Westside youngsters into taking their first real gander at the building that was erected back when Colorado City was little more than a few sticks of timber, a creek and a lot of lonesome prairie.
       Other activities are also bound to trigger the historical glands. Presentations by a man who's studied the old fur trappers and a woman who can turn herself into Calamity Jane. Skits by the Old West Reinactors group. Traditional music. And a "broomstick rodeo" to teach the kinds of games kids used to invent before TV sapped their creativity.
       Sounds like this could be a pretty special Founders' Day this year. Maybe even, OK why not... history-making.

- K.J.