It's like I'm an actual writer when I get one of these published!

--------------

 To the Editor:

Thanks for printing "Keeping Iowa's Young Folks at Home After They've Seen
Minnesota." I have a double understanding of Verlyn Klinkenborg's points: I
have both worked in Iowa's corporate agriculture industry and left the state
for warmer, though less green, climes.

My experience informs my belief that Iowa legislators need to focus on getting
young people back to Iowa after they have left, not coddling those who would
like to leave to stay with tax breaks and so on.

Marketing Iowa as a place to leave but then to come back to for raising children
is more likely to address the overrun of corporate agriculture (and its
concomitant smelly issues) and the disappearance of local culture (my apologies
to all nursing-home music groups). Yes, Iowa needs a little cosmopolitanism.

Adam M. Schenck
Tucson, Feb. 9, 2005