The race for president this year may not have turned out like a lot of folks wanted it to, yet we can clearly identify some big winners in the year’s general election — and the June primaries for that fact.

They were the voters.

The winners include the thousands of people who voted early and on voting day in McKinley and Cibola counties. For some, it meant standing in line for a while.

Forget for a minute that Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the general election. The mere fact that folks around McKinley and Cibola exercised their civic duty is a cause for celebration. That’s the stuff that an honest and functioning democracy is made of.

Let’s face it: The 2016...

For many businesses, philanthropic giving has an element of self-interest: It’s giving with the expectation of getting something back in the form of tax breaks and image building.

But more and more businesses are discovering that unselfish giving has a value that’s immeasureable, and that reverberates throughout the community, the workforce and the economy.

Community quality of life

Businesses that create and nurture an organizational culture based on gratitude can drive significant change that benefits everyone, not just their customers, especially if they can involve likeminded entrepreneurs.

When a business spearheads a project that solves a local problem or provides a public...

The November meeting of the Plateau Sciences Society will take place on Sunday, Nov. 20 at the Red Mesa Center on Hill Street in Gallup. The program starts at 2:30 pm and will feature Pam Maples, who will present the documentary, “Clean Up: Why & How.” The projected climate change is expected to make this region hotter and drier within the coming years. A program being conducted on the Navajo Nation is designed to clean up all residual storage tanks that may be contaminating local water supplies. This project is limited in scope, but in years to come, every drop saved will be important. There will be time for discussion afterwards.

The business meeting will follow the program...

The election wasn’t rigged.

Confounding the pollsters, the pundits, the media and conventional wisdom, Donald J. Trump, entertainer, entrepreneur and real estate developer was elected as the next President of the United States.

Improbably, a billionaire became the voice of the common man having run a populist campaign pledging to give voice to the ignored, the dispossessed and disenfranchised – those left behind in the high tech revolution, those passed over in the massive cultural changes of the past dozen years, those who felt palpable insecurity with the evaporation of much manufacturing, the explosion in health care costs and those who tired of accommodation and appeasement of...