Pierce College Rodeo

* I am the Pierce College student pictured roping in your story (“College’s Rodeo on the Ropes,” March 12) and editorial “Bucking Tradition” (March 16).

Three years ago I stumbled upon the Pierce Agriculture Department, and it changed my life. As a state-licensed building contractor working in Southern California, I was burned out and disillusioned with the greed, selfishness and destruction typical of my trade, yet had no idea for any resolution of my dilemma. I found it at Pierce. An entire dimension has opened up to me, one of which I only dreamed--a place of plants and animals where giving of one’s self and individual responsibility are respected and required.

As the college administration chips away at nonacademic classes and eschews programs that tie the school to its roots in this community, it attempts to deny others a needed place to thrive and grow. I have found another career through the Pierce horse program (apparently in spite of President [E. Bing] Inocencio, et al.) and it is the life I have been looking so hard to find.

We should think long and hard before allowing the lines of a balance sheet to be the final arbiters in our decision as to the “appropriateness” of education.

MARY TANNHEIMER

Tarzana

* President Inocencio certainly has his hands full trying to make ends meet, but what has Pierce College got without the traditional rodeo and fireworks show that any other community college doesn’t have?

Traditional things in our lives are what we remember and what we look forward to. They color the fabric of our lives.

The president may think that traditions hurt his essential goals, but they give a necessary flavor to life as important as transfer or job readiness.

FRANK J. WRIGHT

North Hollywood