Why I'm voting yes for the school levy

In a couple of hours, I will decide the time is right for me to put pants on today and head over to one of the schools to vote on the school board's request for a $5.6 million levy request.

A request of that amount of money brings a lot of questions: Why does the school need all that money? Will they use the second $2.8 million next year? Why is the administration so top pay heavy? How did the district get to this point? Why has the state cut so much from the education budget? How long will they continue to do so? What happens if it fails? Will they really cut out all the extra-curricular activities? And the questions could go on.

And though I don't know all the answers to all these questions, I do know which way I will vote.

The reason I will vote yes on this complex issue is simple.

And he has a name: Colton Zamora.

Colton is a 17-year-old just days away from finishing his junior year at Mountain Home High School.

He's also my best friend's little brother and the closest thing I have to a little brother. As such, I love him and want him to have the same education opportunities I had while in school, even if means rising taxes for a couple of years.

To me, that's all the issue boils down to: giving today's students the same opportunities I had in school.

A failed bond means the people in this town just don't care about the future of today's children, and that they don't want to see them succeed in the classroom or in life.

A failed bond means no extra-curricular activities, which to many people simply means "no sports," but there is far more to it than that. Because on the football field, basketball court or wrestling mats, students learn far more than just about a sport. They learn lessons there that are just as bit as important as what they learn in the classroom. They learn about working hard, team work, perseverance, self confidence and much more.

It has been nearly a decade since I graduated from Mountain Home High School in 2002 and I can still remember a great deal of what I learned from my wrestling coaches. I continue to use what they taught me in my everyday life, and I haven't wrested a single match since being eliminated from my last district tournament.

To the outside world, it might look like the only thing they were teaching me in the mat room was how to hit a switch, throw a half nelson, or shoot a double leg take down (truth be told, I'm not really sure I ever learned how to shoot a double leg take down correctly). And those skills are indeed useless to me nowadays, but the things they taught me while I was learning those skills are not.

I left for basic training six days after graduation. Every day I found myself telling myself something my coaches had once told me about being mentally tough, about not giving up, about not wanting to quit when I was tired. Since then, there have been much more harder times in my life, but I have handled them all in the same manner and like to think I've come out on top each time. I promise you those lessons learned on the mat have made me much more successful than anything I ever learned in math class.

It's not just sports that will go away either, but all extra-curricular activities, which will take away a lot of the reasons many students like going to school in the first place. It will mean four-day school weeks, which will no doubt lead to an increase in crimes and child care rates. It will also mean a bigger pay cut for teachers, which would greatly reduce the recruitment and retention rate of teachers, which will directly affect the quality of education students will receive, even if they have nothing left to focus on but doing homework during their three-day weekends.

A failed bond will greatly affect the quality of education, and life, of all current and future students in Mountain Home, which is why I'm voting yes.

I'm voting yes for Colton Zamora. Won't you do the same, whatever your reason's name?