Mountain Home a great community

Dear editor,

Mountain Home is a great community. We knew this when we decided to make it our home over 23 years ago.

This is an open letter of thanks to a small city that embraces, loves and backs its own. When our daughter, Jessica Richelieu, graduated from MHHS in 2011, she had worked hard to earn a spot as one of the High School's valedictorians that year.

She also had some pretty lofty goals for herself. She wanted to complete her college education and go to medical school to become a surgeon.

She knew from the beginning that she was looking at a very large educational expense, so she did what a lot of our young people do -- she appealed to our community by applying for scholarships to help her reach her dream.

Our town and the state of Idaho responded in spades! She was awarded multiple scholarships from many of our local groups and businesses as well as some from the State and University.

Between them all, she was able to pay for her entire undergraduate education. We want our community to know that she did them proud, graduating #1 in her class at Idaho State University with an Honors Degree in Biomedical Sciences and a minor in Psychology.

This accomplishment led to her acceptance this year to the 2016 entering class at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

We often hear that our schools aren't doing a good job and that our community doesn't offer much. THIS community and school district served our children well and backed both of them as they entered college.

People ask us all the time how Jessica is doing, and they show obvious pride when we report on her accomplishments. We'd like to thank each teacher and principal Jess ever had, in particular, Jeff Johnson, Jamie Hopkins and the staff at Mountain Home High School, many of whom guided and helped her.

We'd also like to thank the City of Mountain Home for having faith in this kid and for offering so much financial assistance. There are too many groups to mention, but they can all take the credit and watch with pride as this daughter of our town heads on to Medical School to fulfill her dream.

Sincerely,

-- Rod and Susan Richelieu, Mountain Home