At last writing, Marian Koehn was only 22 and a fascinating young lady just out of two years of commercial studies in Nettleton’s Commercial College. Looking for a job, she had been hired to teach business classes at Forestburg High school. In another world and another time, she would have been just another teacher. They come and they go. However, Miss Koehn had come to stay for at least nine months of my junior year, 1944-45. That quickly became quite important to me. She would be teaching typing and I had signed up to learn typing.
She, at age 22, and we, young pups of 15 and 16, were to be in daily classroom contact five days a week for nine months. Someone should have been riding herd on such hounds! As the fall school year moved along, nuances of rapport developed between three or four of us youngsters of the junior class and Miss Koehn. The other guys and all the girls were daily typing students who drudged their ways in and out of the typing room. For the rascals among us, here’s how it developed.
Miss Koehn was a delightful person. Always friendly, out-going, and capable, she, without intention, was drawing us into a circle of friendly give-and-take on most mornings before classes began. Little by little, guys involved would deposit books from home on our study hall desks and then meander into the typing room. We (Gene Ellingson, did that include you?) would banter back and forth with each other and with the teacher, usually hanging around until the 9 a.m. bell rang. I don’t recall that she ever asked us to leave, nor did she comment that we might have other classes to prepare for. The plain fact was that she enjoyed our company, never singling out anyone for special attention, but obviously finding her school day beginning in a delightful way. It was nice to be popular as a first-year teacher.
Therein lay a problem and the kind of issue with which I had to deal decades later as a teacher myself and as a principal. It is generally understood by effective teachers that they cannot play favorites. Class members must be treated equally no matter how the vibes may line up between teacher and student. There must be a clearly understood line between the one in authority and those who are there to learn. The very first day in the classroom is where the authority figure sets the guidelines, which will establish the success or failure of the classroom activities therein. Certain teachers innately possess the personal attribute of classroom authority; others must develop it through consistent effort. But with Miss Koehn, nice person that she was, her Nettleton classes apparently taught her subject matter but not classroom management. And being inexperienced, having friends in her typing class seemed more important than developing a more rigid teacher-student separation. At first and on the surface, special treatment of students can seem to be a delightful thing for both teacher and students. But it can become a weakness which can come back to bite the most well-intentioned teacher.
Over the years, I recommended the firing of three teachers, two of whom became unprofessionally buddy, buddy with the students. Miss Koehn and the junior boys continue next time.

By Trudy Lieberman, Rural Health News Service
The enrollment period for choosing an Obamacare policy ends on Jan. 31.  That means if you haven’t already signed up and think you want coverage from your state’s insurance marketplace, now’s the time to check your options and make a decision. But what decision will be best?
Over the last several months I have received many emails from readers of this column telling me about their experience with Affordable Care Act policies – some good, some bad. Their comments, plus the close of open enrollment, offer a chance to review a few of the basics for choosing a plan and to examine a critical question that’s been plaguing the law since the beginning:  Are policies affordable?
A 61-year-old woman in South Dakota wanted me to tell readers to look carefully at the so-called silver plans because they provide what are called cost-sharing subsidies – extra help paying those sky-high deductibles and out-of-pocket costs Obamacare policies require. Silver plans cover 70 percent of someone’s medical expenses. The woman explained the subsidies had made it possible for her to switch from a platinum policy with a high premium (and lower deductible) to the silver variety, which lowered her premium and required what she called “minimal” copays for doctor visits and medications.
She had discovered silver plans are indeed the key to affordability for most people buying policies in the state exchanges. But there’s a catch. Even though savings on out-of-pocket costs can be substantial, only certain people who buy silver plans are eligible for those subsidies. Congress concluded there wasn’t enough money in the federal budget to help all Obamacare policyholders.
Only those with incomes between 100 and 250 percent of the federal poverty level are eligible for extra help. In dollars and cents that means individuals with incomes between $11,770 and $29,425 and families of four, for example, with incomes between $24,250 and $60,625.
What about people with incomes above those thresholds, say, someone with income of $35,000 or a family with $65,000? Considering the average annual deductible for silver plans last year was about $3,000 and out-of-pocket maximums averaged close to $6,000, uncovered medical expenses can add up.
Subsidies protect those with the lowest incomes the most, says Sara Collins, a vice president of The Commonwealth Fund, which studies health insurance trends and is a funder of the Rural Health News Service. “They substantially reduce out-of-pocket costs for people with incomes under 200 percent of poverty,” but “there’s a significant cost exposure to people in the middle income range.” If deductibles continue to rise, there’s a risk they’ll be underinsured, she adds.
Families will struggle to pay their medical bills even with Obamacare insurance and find themselves mired in medical debt, which the Affordable Care Act was supposed to eliminate. The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says medical debt is still responsible for more than half of all debt collection actions. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports one-third of Americans have trouble paying medical bills even though 70 percent of them have insurance.
Even with subsidies offered on silver plans insurance is not affordable for many families. A woman who lives in the middle of Wyoming wrote that she and her husband were uninsured last year. “We studied the premiums a lot and have found our best price option would cost us about $800-$900 each a month (about $400 to $500 with a subsidy,)” she said, adding, “I don’t know many people who have an extra $400-$500 in their household budget to spend on insurance. It is certainly not available in our monthly budget.”
At first, she said, “I thought maybe I’m not managing our money properly,” but the more she studied the ACA and premium requirements, she became convinced that was not the case. “We just don’t have it (the money),” she told me.
For those who think they can swing a premium for 2016, silver plans are worth considering. Collins says not everyone who is eligible for cost-sharing subsidies is taking advantage of that help.
One-quarter of Obamacare policyholders with incomes between 200 and 250 percent of the poverty level bought bronze plans last year that cover only 60 percent of your medical costs and generally have the cheapest premiums.
As a trade-off, though, out-of-pocket limits are higher, averaging about $6,400. When you consider the extra subsidies available only with silver plans, a silver plan may be cheaper after all. As helpful as the silver plan subsidies may be, they mask the underlying problem. The cost of health care for both the insured and the uninsured is still too high and likely to get higher.
How do you pay out-of-pocket medical expenses and fit them into your budget? Write to Trudy at trudy.lieberman@gmail.com.

For a long time this issue has perplexed me—people blaming mass killings on guns. I have always had an aversion and fear of guns, but anyone with an ounce of sense should realize that the blame lies with the sick mind of the individual with his finger on the trigger and not on the inanimate object called a gun.
I grew up with playing the game cowboys and Indians (which I now realize is totally politically incorrect) and playing army with my siblings and cousins. I only had a single-shot stick gun and Soop had the only automatic ‘cuz he alone could mimic the sound of a machine gun. Yet, I never recall having any wild desire to go out into the world and create chaos with a mass murder.
I often wonder if I was changed at birth because I of my family am the only one who doesn’t like to hunt or fish. How does one child raised in the same environment turn out to be entirely different? We all grieve for the victims in the news, but I also feel sympathy for the killer’s parents. Certainly no parent raises a child that they love dearly to be confronted with that terrible fact that they have raised a person capable of such a hideous crime. They will probably soul search the rest of their lives for the answer.
Are killers born with a misguided gene in their system? Does environment have a portion of the blame? We hear many theories that before the news media spread these terrible deeds all over the T.V., we were more isolated, many believe in this copycat theory. Others believe that society refuses to take responsibility anymore for their own actions. The blame is placed on parents. I refuse to believe this scenario. I believe every human knows right from wrong (unless you are truly mentally ill), and it’s personal choices that lead them into trouble.
Be that as it may, once again my column has taken off on a totally different angle than I intended. To begin with, I just intended to share a column that Gus and Joanne Nelson sent me that I thought was very good and entertaining.
I definitely believe in this nation’s right to bear arms, even though I have no idea how to put a bullet in a gun. I will be the first person to find somebody with a gun if my life is in danger. I do not believe, though, that people need assault rifles and machine guns—that’s a wee bit on the extreme side for me.
Thanks for the column inspiration! Here it is to enjoy.
Gun Rules
Peace is that brief glorious moment in history when everybody stands around reloading.
In a gunfight, the most important rule is to have a gun!
If you own a gun, you will appreciate the following rules. If you don’t, you should get one, learn how to use it, and learn the rules.
Rules:
1. Guns have only two enemies: rust and politicians.
2. It’s always better to be judged by 12 than carried by six.
3. Cops carry guns to protect themselves, not you.
4. Never let someone or something that threatens you get inside arm’s length.
5. Never say, “I’ve got a gun.” If you need to use deadly force, the first sound they should hear is the safety clicking off.
6. The average response time of a 911 call is 23 minutes; the response time of a .357 is 1,400 feet per second.
7. The most important rules in a gunfight are:
•    Always Win—there is no such thing as a fair fight.
•    Always Win—cheat if necessary.
•    Always Win—second place doesn’t count.
8. Make your attacker advance through a wall of bullets. You may get killed with your own gun, but he’ll have to beat you to death with it because it will be empty.
9. If you’re in a gun fight:
(a) If you’re not shooting, you should be loading.
(b) If you’re not loading, you should be moving.
(c) If you’re not moving, you’re dead.
10. In a life and death situation, do something…it may be wrong, but do something!
11. If you carry a gun, people will call you paranoid. Nonsense! If you have a gun, what do you have to be paranoid about?
12. You can say “Stop!” or any other word, but a large bore muzzle pointed at someone’s head is pretty much a universal language, and you won’t have to press 1 for Spanish, 2 for Chinese, or 3 for Arabic.
13. Never leave an enemy behind. If you have to shoot, shoot to kill. In court, yours will be the only testimony.
14. You cannot save the planet, but you may be able to save yourself and your family.
Dee Baby