After reading the vetoed budget cuts I would, for the first time, like to voice my opinion on the budget cuts, especially in the area of education. As a child, I was raised in a very rural area. It was a logging float camp, with six children, ages 3-10. We had teachers that moved out for different periods of time and even had gymnastics class in the middle of that tiny float community that, as kids we were so grateful for. An uncle was a teacher in Kaasan,  community of 200. He spent 20 years there teaching their youth. All of these children felt important and were not starved for education, and lived in the middle of nowhere. Finding myself in the Alaska Department of Corrections as an adult, I recently taught a few of my friends a fairly complicated card game, one I’ve been trying a decade to teach my husband, with little success, I might add. Within two hands and five minutes the girls were pros, beating me at my own game, no pun intended. When I started to sing their praises about catching on so quickly, my friend in complete seriousness simply said, “ Our minds are desperate.” This statement hit me like a slug to the chest. This is an epidemic in our prisons. This complaint is unanimous throughout prisons. “Teach us something. Anything.” This epidemic is now going to be starting in Headstart?! Their minds are already desperate to learn at that age, please don’t let them starve.