We all heard some terrible news this past week that our State Representative was not running for re-election. Keith McCall has been such an important part of Carbon County for so long that we almost cannot imagine what life will be like without him as a leader.

I am reminded that when he came into office he was 22 and I was 30. He has weathered the intervening years better than I have—people constantly remind me that they knew me when I was young, skinny and good looking. Keith still is all of those things.

This week I was talking to two other State Representatives that I have come to know well. They are more upset with Keith’s departure that we here in Carbon County are. One told me that, while he has only been in office for three terms, he has known and worked with Keith for most of the time Keith has been in office.

He told me that Keith wasn’t just the leader of the PA House of Representatives, that he was also the leader of the nice guys in Harrisburg. As Keith gained more and more power, he never ceased to be a nice guy even to people who weren’t always so nice to him. These other two State Representatives are also thinking about not running again because of how much worse the political environment is likely to get without someone like Keith as leadership.

Politics on the state and national levels has become a zero sum game. If the guy from the other party is for something—you automatically must be against it. Compromise and reason have been thrown out the window.

I have noticed over the last several years that every time I talk to Keith that the pressure on him is worse. The only thing that brightens his face is talking about his children. When he talks about Courtney and Keith Jr., it is as if the sun had just come out for the first time in months.

Let us all thank Keith for all of the things he has done for us, and wish him and Betty our best as they get their family life back to normal.

I already know what a good dad he is, and now he can make all of those ball games and enjoy every day the most important job anyone of us can ever do, passing on those principles that he knows so well to his own children.

Good luck and Godspeed good friend.

Bruce Conrad