To teach well, a person needs to be hard-working, smart, empathetic and flexible. The best know how to be firm and stand up to conflict, and also how to find compromise and mediate disputes when necessary. That’s the kind of teacher Barbara McLachlan was, and that’s the kind of state representative I expect she’ll be if she’s elected.

I first met Barbara when she was teaching English and advising the student newspaper at Durango High School, and I was teaching English and advising the newspaper at Fort Lewis College. Whenever I encountered her over the years in our parallel jobs, she was doing something extra – taking a large group of students on a field trip that required herculean planning and organization, for instance, or spending her spare time coaching students through the process of creating and publishing an outstanding high-school newspaper, or taking them for tours or a conference at the Durango Herald.

Her example was an inspiration. And when I’ve run into Barbara outside the arena of teaching, she always seemed to be caring for her community. She was part of a team of friends and neighbors who helped a dying friend, allowing him to remain at home by taking on the tasks of doing whatever needed to be done, from cleaning the house and garage to organizing caregivers.

Her willingness to help others, to try to improve her community bit by bit in every way she can, is bone deep. Barbara McLachlan is a good person and a good public servant in ways that go beyond political partisanship or bureaucracies. She’s the kind of person we need in our government.

Jennie Dear

Durango