Karen Edmonds, (Letters, Herald, Aug. 11) who concluded that Barbara McLachlan is only an “academic,” has not done her homework. McLachlan, unlike her opponent, is a fourth-generation Coloradoan who was actually born in Colorado and graduated from a Colorado high school, as did her parents and grandparents. Her great-grandmother was the first teacher in Sterling and her grandfather was a beet farmer and agronomist, although later recognized also as a professor of sugar science.

Her Colorado roots go back over 150 years. They are in agriculture as well as the classroom, and are deeply grounded in a great family.

To say that McLachlan has no “real-life experience” is an insult to her and all educators. Unlike her opponent, who was handed a ranch operation by his father who gave his son a herd of sheep, McLachlan has made it on her own without federal subsidies and below-market federal grazing leases.

After two years at Colorado State University, she went to Australia with less than $90, all her own money. For four years there, she sheared sheep on ranches and worked as a maid and a waitress to travel and earn her way home.

She returned to CSU, graduating as one of the top-10 journalism students in the U.S. She went on to be an outstanding reporter and won national and state press awards.

McLachlan is the model for hard work. She got her English degree and then her teaching certificate while raising two children, both of whom graduated from Durango High School and Colorado universities.

When McLachlan was a teacher, she worked 70 hours a week. She did her own hard work and did not hire any underpaid farm workers from other countries to grade papers, plan lessons, attend school functions or conference with parents.

When comparing her qualifications to her opponent, there is no question she has a varied life experience that fully qualifies her to be our next representative. That is why I am voting for Barbara McLachlan for state representative.

Sabine Furtauer

Durango